tolerated possibly by fear, and never for long by appreciation. A
capricious public soon tires of these living heroes. It is after they
are dead that they become abiding examples of human greatness, not so
much to their contemporaries as to those generations that follow them.
The historian has a great deal to do with the manner in 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