For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

'Then how shall you justify yourself,' I asked, too cowardly to yield to him, 'seeing we have peace with Spain?'

'Nay, but I say,' he answered, 'we have no peace with Spain, or truce either. Is it peace when they lay embargos on our ships, throw our mariners into prison, and burn and torture them in their streets? Is it peace when they shut our trade from their ports, and succour and defend our deadliest enemies?'

'That was well, perhaps, months ago,' said I, though it wanted all my courage to answer him, such force was in his eyes and voice, 'but now truce is made, and prisoners are released, the embargo lifted, and King Philip's ambassador received at Court.'

'And how call you that truce?' he asked. 'They brand us heretics and Lutheran dogs, with whom they say openly no faith is to be kept; no mariner is safe from their rake-hell Inquisition in any port of Spain; they send a spy, whom they call ambassador, to search out the weakness and plot with the traitors of the land and practise on our poor young Queen, that they may bring on us again the curse of Rome, as they did in Mary's time. Call you that truce? Call it rather war, and worse than war, for it is dastards' warfare? Philip may cry truce to Bess, and Bess to Philip, but between the people of Spain and England there is, nor shall be, neither peace nor truce till one of us is crushed.'

'Yet if all were as you say,' I persisted, more faintly now, for there was that in the man which no one could withstand when he was moved thus, 'if there be neither peace nor truce, you have no license from the Queen. Nor even her goodwill, since you must know what urgent orders she has issued against adventurers like yourself.'

'I know well enough,' he answered. 'For some reasons of state she has done this. Yet wait till you see the orders carried out, wait till you see such an adventurer punished, before you say I have not her license. Did you not see how the Minion, sailing under her own royal flag, passed us by when we were at the work; and was it not one of her Justices in constant communication with the Council who fitted me out? Is not that license enough?'

'Nay, then you accuse the Queen's grace of bad faith to the Spaniard, and you are willing to abet her in her deceit.'

'Faith to those that keep faith, say I. To every Spaniard, and not the least the Spanish ambassador, Don Guzman de Silva, she is a heretic with whom to break faith is the path to heaven. To such must a man give fair words, as the poor Queen does, till she grow great enough to strike them straight on the mouth, as, under God, by our help she shall. And were all I have said too little excuse for what we do, I have even a higher and greater license than all; for, as dad says, and all pious men beside, I have God's own commission to prey on Antichrist and him who stands his champion, till the filthy breath of the beast shall cease to poison the earth. The Spaniard goes about to lead away the people after false gods and idolatry and superstition. Such men by the Word of God are worthy of death. Here in my Bible I hold license from the Great King to seek out and spoil and destroy His enemies. Shall I hold my hand so long as He shall prosper His servant? How are we to call that piracy and thieving which God has so clearly commanded?'

Then all at once came back to me Mr. Cartwright's words, and how he spoke of these rovers as doing the Lord's work and being prospered by Him. I do not think it was that which overcame me, but rather Frank Drake's presence. The recalling of my master's words was but an excuse to myself for yielding.

'Mr. Drake, you have prevailed,' said I. 'I crave your pardon; you are a better man than I, and a truer servant both to God and the Queen. Give me your pardon for my words; they were uncourteous and unjust. Forget that they were spoken, and let my memory of them be my punishment.'