which the fame of a great man is handed down to posterity, and it should never be forgotten that historians have to depend on evidence which may be faulty, while their own judgment may not always be sound. It is a most difficult task to discipline the mind into a perfectly unbiased condition. The great point is to state honestly what you believe, and not what you may know those you are speaking to wish you to say. The contemporaries of Hawkins and Drake unquestionably regarded them with high admiration, but I question whether they were deified then as they are now. The same thing applies to Nelson and Collingwood, of whom I shall speak later on, as the historian has put the stamp upon their great deeds also.

Drake and Hawkins attracted attention because of their daring voyages and piratical enterprises on Spanish property on sea and land. Every obstacle was brushed aside. Danger ever appealed to them. They dashed into fortified ports filled with warships fully equipped, silenced the forts, sank and set fire to Philip's vessels, and made everything and everybody fly before them in the belief that hell had been let loose. To the superstitious Spanish mind it seemed as though the English must be under Satanic protection when they slashed their way undaunted into the midst of dangers which would inevitably spell death for the mere mortal. These corsairs of ours obviously knew and took advantage of this superstition, for cannon were never resorted to without good reason, and never without effect. The deliberate defiance of any written or unwritten law that forbade their laying hands on the treasure they sought so diligently, and went far and near to find, merely increased public admiration. Elizabeth pretended that they were very trying to her Christian virtues. But leave out of count the foregoing deeds—which no one can dispute were prodigious, and quite equal to the part these men played in the destruction of the Armada—what could be more dashingly brilliant in naval warfare than Drake's raids on San Domingo, Carthagena, Cadiz, and other ports and cities of old and new Spain, to which I have already briefly alluded? It was their great successes in their great undertakings, no matter whether it was "shocking piracy" or not, that immortalized these terrible creators of England's greatness all the world over!

Thomas Cobham, a member of a lordly and Protestant family, became a sailor, and soon became fascinated with the gay life of privateering. Once when in command of a vessel, eagerly scouring the seas for Spanish prizes, one was sighted, bound from Antwerp to Cadiz. Cobham gave chase, easily captured her in the Bay of Biscay, and discovered there were forty Inquisition prisoners aboard. After rescuing the prisoners, the captain and crew of the Spanish vessel were then sewn up in their own mainsail and tossed into the sea, no doubt with such sententious expressions of godliness as was thought befitting to sacred occasions of that period. This ceremony having been performed, the vessel was scuttled, so that she might nevermore be used in trading with British sailors or any one else for Inquisition purposes. When the story became known, the case was discreetly inquired into, and very properly the gallant Cobham was never punished, and was soon running here and there at his old game.

It may be taken for granted that there was no mincing matters when an opportunity for reprisals occurred. The Spaniards had carried barbarism to such a pitch in seizing our ships and condemning their crews to the galleys, that Queen Elizabeth was never averse to meeting murder and plunder by more than the equivalent in retaliation, except when she imagined that Philip was showing signs of overpowering strength; she then became timid and vacillating. She was never mentally disturbed by the moral side of the great deeds that brought her vast stores of plunder. Moreover, she could always find an accommodating bishop to put her qualms (if she ever had any, except those of consequence to herself) at rest on points of conscience. One noted personage, who held high ecclesiastical office, told her that it was a virtue to seize treasure when she knew it would otherwise be used for the purpose of murdering her Protestant subjects. Sir Arthur Champernowne, a noted vice-admiral of Elizabeth's reign, in writing to Cecil of the vessel that had put into Plymouth through stress of weather with the needy Philip's half-million of ducats on board, borrowed, it is said, from a Genoa firm of financiers, said it should be claimed as fair booty. Sir Arthur's view was that anything taken from so perfidious a nation was both necessary and profitable to the Commonwealth. No doubt a great deal of pious discussion would centre round the Vice-Admiral's easy moral but very logical opinions. The main thing in his mind, and in that of everybody else who was free from poisoned cant, was that the most shocking crimes were being openly advocated by Philip, King of Spain, against all European Protestants, rich or poor, who came within the clutches of the savages that administered the cruelties of the Inquisition. The canting crowd shrieked against the monstrous impiety of such notions, but their efforts to prove purity of motive were unavailing.

After considered thought by a committee of men of high rectitude, it was decided to act without fear or favour in a strictly impartial manner, so Philip's half-million of bullion was divided between the Prince of Orange and the rigid moralist, Elizabeth, who is credited with having spent her share on the Navy, a very admirable way of disposing of it.

This act was the cause of a deluge of reprisals on the part of Spain. But, from all accounts, Elizabeth's corsairs had always the best of it in matters of material importance. The Spanish are naturally a proud, brave race. In the middle of the sixteenth century their power dominated two-thirds of the universe, and had they stuck to business, and not so feverishly to the spreading of their religious faith by violent means, they might have continued a predominant nation.

Their civil, naval, and military position was unequalled. The commerce and wealth of the whole world was pre-eminently in their hands, and in common with other nations who arrive at heights of power, prosperity, and grandeur (which last sits so easily on the Spaniard), they gave way to pleasures and to the luxury of laziness which invariably carries with it sensuality. Wherever they found themselves in the ascendancy, they intrigued to impose the Roman faith on the population, and if that method did not succeed with felicity, whenever the agents of their governing classes, including their king, met with opposition from prominent men or women, their opponents were put to the rack, burnt, or their heads sent flying. In this country no leading Protestant's life or property was safe. Even Elizabeth, during the reign of her half-sister, Mary, was obliged to make believe that her religious faith was Roman in harmony with that of the Queen. It was either adoption, deception, or execution, and the future queen outwitted all their traps and inventions until Mary passed on, and Elizabeth took her place on the throne.

Meanwhile, Spain, as I have indicated, was tampering with abiding laws. Catastrophe always follows perilous habits of life, which were correctly attributed to the Spanish. As with individuals, so it is with nations; pride can never successfully run in conjunction with the decadence of wealth. It is manifestly true that it is easier for a nation to go up than to realize that it has come down, and during long years Spain has had to learn this bitter lesson. It was not only imperious pride of race and extravagant grandeur that brought the destruction of her supremacy of the seas, and the wealth and supremacy of many lands, but their intolerable religious despotism towards those who were not already, and refused to become, as I have said, adherents of the Roman Catholic creed. Poor wretches who