Hampton. Say the traitors in the Government!—Damn the Government!—Damn the Treaty!—But as you have said, General, perhaps we should be satisfied with our lives. There is Drake and the Judith ahead. Pull away my boys, there is not a breath.—What a lull the storm of battle leaves, as if the very Ocean quailed. Hurrah upon the starboard sweeps! Hurrah! (the ship is drawn off, the Orchestra striking up “Rule Britannia.”)
Curtain falls.
ACT III.
Scene I.—PLYMOUTH.
The Hoe—a high ground commanding a view of the Town, Harbour and Sound seaward. Ships sailing in and out. Privateers cruising by the Offing—a number of the same sort in the Harbour ready to make sail at a moment’s notice. William Hawkins, with a Telescope having taken a view.
Hawkins (melancholy and brooding). Not a speck! No hope! All gone! or worse, captured, and then the Inquisition, fire and faggot! Nothing too cruel for Spaniards to Englishmen. My poor Brother!
Enter Sir Henry Killigrew, who comes up to him unseen, one of the many nobles and gentry driven to the sea as daring Buccaniers, by the Marian persecution, now a most confidential agent of the Queen.
Sir Henry Killigrew (clapping him on the shoulder). Well! old friend, what does the Telescope say? For I can guess what you are on the look out for. I came down from London, to have a look myself, and to have a talk with you about these Spanish ships in port, with specie. I shall detain them until the result of this affair is ascertained. The Queen is in a towering rage. You know her temper when she feels not only that she is injured, but that her honour and power are slighted. She says this is a foul business; worse than open war.
Hawkins. My poor Brother, with all his gallant spirit and seamanship, when dealing with the enemy, was so confident in his crotchets of Law and Treaty!
Killigrew. Law and Treaty with the Spaniard; that means let him tie your hands until he cuts your throat and robs you! There is hardly a day without some demand of redress from Philip, whilst even an answer is refused to us for the gravest breaches of Law, human and divine. The state of affairs is ominous. The Council is divided. Men say the Nation is divided; a foul falsehood. This affair of the Queen of Scots with the Duke of Norfolk, the poor fool! an idle threat of rebellion aided by Spain and the Pope. The Queen hardly knows whom to trust. Her reliance is on the Privateers, but we had better retire to talk of these matters. Here comes a suspicious looking rascal (he looks at him) he walks lame! Yet, observe, it is only a limp now and then; and that patch over his eye—it is only put on for a blind; the fellow does not look before him, like a man with one eye; yet he has a bold bearing, and tall. But for the patch and the awkward limp, I should think I knew the rake of his top-mast.