may have cause to say that God doth fight for her Majesty abroad as well
as at home."

But he felt that he was not without enemies behind him, for the strong
influence brought to bear against the bold policy which Walsingham
favoured, was no secret to Drake. "If we deserve ill," said he, "let us
be punished. If we discharge our duty, in doing our best, it is a hard
measure to be reported ill by those who will either keep their fingers
out of the fire; or who too well affect that alteration in our government
which I hope in God they shall never live to see." In latitude 40 deg.
he spoke two Zeeland ships, homeward bound, and obtained information of
great warlike stores accumulating in Cadiz and Lisbon. His mind was
instantly made up. Fortunately, the pinnace which the Queen despatched
with orders to stay his hand in the very act of smiting her great
adversary, did not sail fast enough to overtake the swift corsair and his
fleet. Sir Francis had too promptly obeyed the wind, when it "commanded
him away," to receive the royal countermand. On the 19th April, the
English ships entered the harbour of Cadiz, and destroyed ten thousand
tons of shipping, with their contents, in the very face of a dozen great
galleys, which the nimble English vessels soon drove under their forts
for shelter. Two nights and a day, Sir Francis, that "hater of
idleness," was steadily doing his work; unloading, rifling, scuttling,
sinking, and burning those transportships which contained a portion of
the preparations painfully made by Philip for his great enterprise.
Pipe-staves and spikes, horse-shoes and saddles, timber and cutlasses,
wine, oil, figs, raisins, biscuits, and flour, a miscellaneous mass of
ingredients long brewing for the trouble of England, were emptied into
the harbour, and before the second night, the blaze of a hundred and
fifty burning vessels played merrily upon the grim walls of Philip's
fortresses. Some of these ships were of the largest size then known.