LITMIR.BIZ

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did good service by capturing the Spanish ships which had landed the soldiers of the Pope at Smerwick in Ireland. Even yet the queen shrank from making a direct attack on Spain, and preferred to injure her enemy by assisting his rebellious subjects in the Low Countries. At last, when, under the sting of multiplying provocations, Philip was known to be making ready in his own slow way for a decisive attempt to crush England for good, Elizabeth and her Council decided upon delivering a direct blow.

      The manner of the doing of the thing was a curious example of the partnership between the queen and her subjects. In 1585 an expedition was organised to sweep the West Indies. The calculation was, that an invasion of this part of his dominions would cause the King of Spain more harm than a direct attack at home, since he drew by far the best part of his revenue from the American mines. The English seamen were not yet sufficiently acquainted with the details of the Spanish establishments in America to deliver their stroke in the most effectual manner. For one thing, they altogether over-estimated the importance of the towns in the West Indian Islands. Yet, in principle, the policy of the expedition was perfectly sound. To cripple the King of Spain before his invading fleet was under way, was a far more effectual course than to wait for him in the Channel; and there is no doubt that the five-and-twenty ships put under the command of Drake in the autumn of 1585, to attack the island of San Domingo and Carthagena, did delay the sailing of the Armada, besides inflicting great discredit on the King of Spain.

      In this fleet only a minority of the ships actually belonged to the queen, the others being the property of men in business, who entered into this warlike operation as a speculation. Unity of command was provided for by the appointment of Drake, both as the queen's admiral and as the privateer admiral, if such an expression is to be admitted. Martin Frobisher, chiefly known hitherto as an explorer who had attempted to discover a North-West Passage, was appointed vice-admiral. The command of the troops was given to Christopher Carleill, an officer of much experience both at sea and in the wars of the Low Countries. The fleet sailed from Plymouth on the 14th of September, and touched on the coast of Spain on the way out. It was characteristic of the time that we did not profess to be at war with the King of Spain in Spain, but only in America. Therefore there was a good deal of rather polite negotiation between the English leaders and the Marquis of Zerralbo, the King of Spain's governor of Galicia. This did not prevent our seamen from plundering a Spanish ship in which they discovered a tempting consignment of church plate; but casual acts of piracy of this kind were too much in the habits of the time to be counted an unpardonable infraction of the peace. From Vigo the English fleet sailed to the Canaries, and from thence to Santiago in the Cape de Verd Islands. At this place it made a too prolonged stay, in the hope of extorting a ransom, but the Spanish authorities took refuge in the hills of the centre of the island, and could neither be threatened nor cajoled into giving themselves up. This was no doubt a serious disappointment to Drake in his character of agent for the adventurers, and it was not the last; for though the political results of the cruise were great, as a financial speculation it proved to be a failure. From Santiago the fleet stretched across the Atlantic to the island of San Domingo, and captured the city of the same name with very little difficulty. The Spanish towns had not hitherto been subject to any attack more formidable than that of native Indians, and were not seriously fortified. They fell easily before the assault of the 1200 well-appointed soldiers Carleill could land from the ships.

      San Domingo proved a great disappointment to the captors. It had at one time been the seat of a considerable export trade of bullion from the mines of the island. But, though our men did not know it, these had been long exhausted or deserted in favour of the far richer mines of Mexico and Peru.

      The well-to-do inhabitants of San Domingo were planters who had little ready money, or the lawyers of the Court of Appeal. After several weeks spent in haggling, and in burning part of the town, the English were constrained to accept of 25,000 ducats of 5s. 6d. each as ransom for the town, a much smaller sum than they had hoped to obtain. From San Domingo they went on to Carthagena on the mainland of South America, at that time a small unfortified town of a few hundred inhabitants. Entering the land-locked harbour by the Boca Grande, the English made themselves masters of Carthagena, after storming its only defence—a wooden stockade. Here their experience at San Domingo was repeated. The Spaniards had received warning of the approach of a hostile expedition, and had had time to remove their bullion into the country. After a good deal more haggling, 110,000 ducats were extorted as the ransom of the town. The results of the expedition had been disappointing, but the fleet had nothing for it but to return home without further delay. A fever had broken out at Santiago, and the health of the crews had suffered still more severely from the tropical malaria of the coast. Including those who fell in action, it was calculated that more than half of the men forming the expedition lost their lives. The total product of the cruise was £60,000. Of this, £40,000 was due to the adventurers, and the remaining third was to be divided between the soldiers and sailors who manned the ships. This can have given only about £6 a head to those who had risked their lives and had survived the fevers and the weapons of the Spaniards. The adventurers cannot have done much more than cover the expenses of fitting out their ships.

      We are now approaching perhaps the most famous passage, and certainly the most picturesque, in the naval history of England. From the beginning of 1586 England was threatened by invasion from Spain, throughout 1587 she was taking measures to avert the danger, and in 1588 the great Armada, which has been baptized in sarcasm with the name of Invincible, actually approached our shores, and then passed away to destruction without having as much as burned one sheepcote in this island.

      It was the habit of Philip II. to be very slow in his preparations. His flatterers, knowing the kind of praise that would give him pleasure, described him as thorough and prudent. In point of fact, the course he followed was singularly inefficient and practically rather rash. It would have cost Philip less, and would have redounded much more to his glory, if he had armed three or four well-appointed squadrons of active ships to protect his galleons on their way across the Atlantic, and to keep the West Indies clear of invaders. It must be obvious that if fifteen or twenty Spanish warships had made their appearance in the neighbourhood of San Domingo while the English soldiers were disembarked for the purpose of attacking the town, the squadron could hardly have escaped destruction, and in that case the soldiers must sooner or later have shared the fate of those members of Hawkins's crew who were left behind in Mexico in 1567, to the "little mercy" of the Spaniards. But when a small active squadron would have been of immense service to Philip, he had nothing but the first beginnings of the raw material of the great fleet with which he intended one day to exterminate the power of Elizabeth. His admiral, Don Álvaro de Bazan, the Marquis of Santa Cruz, told him, when the news of the sailing of the expedition of 1585 came, that there was nothing to prevent Drake from sweeping the West Indies, or from entering the Pacific, and there doing as he pleased with the ill-armed and unprepared Spanish settlements. King Philip had ships and guns and men enough among his subjects, but when they were wanted, the guns were not in the ships and the crews were not collected. Thus the "potent" King of Spain, as he was called, and as he might have been with better management, had to sit helpless while a privateering fleet ranged at will through his possessions and plundered his subjects. As it was in 1585, so it was in 1586 and 1587: Philip was toiling laboriously to collect his armament, but as he would not put the various parts together till he had collected all he wanted, no portion of his inchoate fighting forces was ready on a sudden call.

      There are few more ludicrous passages in history than the cruise of Drake in 1587. Queen Elizabeth and her ministers were aware that preparations were being made for an invasion of England. Although the queen's passion for intrigue induced her to keep up a laborious show of friendly negotiations with the Prince of Parma, Philip's viceroy in the Low Countries, she did not in practice forget that she was at war. In the spring of 1587 she decided to despatch Sir Francis Drake for the purpose of looking into the preparations reported to be making in the Spanish ports. As in 1585, the queen bore only a part of the expenses. Of the thirty ships despatched, four, the Bonaventure, the Lion, the Dreadnought, and the Rainbow, with two pinnaces attached as tenders, belonged to the Royal Navy; the others were "tall ships" of London, not hired by the queen, but joined in partnership with her for the purpose of making what profit they could by plundering the Spaniards.

      Drake sailed from Plymouth early in April, and in the 40th degree of latitude

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