Burghley and Sussex declined the splendid temptation;
they said they could accept no such precious gifts from a man whose
fortune had been made by plunder.
Burghley lived to see better into Drake's value. Meanwhile, what now are
we, looking back over our history, to say of these things--the Channel
privateering; the seizure of Alva's army money; the sharp practice of
Hawkins with the Queen of Scots and King Philip; or this amazing
performance of Sir Francis Drake in a vessel no larger than a
second-rate yacht of a modern noble lord?
Resolution, daring, professional skill, all historians allow to these
men; but, like Burghley, they regard what they did as piracy, not much
better, if at all better, than the later exploits of Morgan and Kidd. So
cried the Catholics who wished Elizabeth's ruin; so cried Lope de Vega
and King Philip. In milder language the modern philosopher repeats the
unfavourable verdict, rejoices that he lives in an age when such doings
are impossible, and apologises faintly for the excesses of an imperfect
age. May I remind the philosopher that we live in an age when other
things have also happily become impossible, and that if he and his
friends were liable when they went abroad for their summer tours to be
snapped by the familiars of the Inquisition, whipped, burnt alive, or
sent to the galleys, he would perhaps think more leniently of any
measures by which that respectable institution and its masters might be
induced to treat philosophers with greater consideration?
Again, remember Dr.
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