'
Palace and scutcheon were levelled into dust by axe and gunpowder, and
each day for a month the destruction went on, Drake's demands steadily
growing and the unhappy Governor vainly pleading impossibility.
Vandalism, atrocity unheard of among civilised nations, dishonour to the
Protestant cause, Drake deserving to swing at his own yardarm; so
indignant Liberalism shrieked, and has not ceased shrieking. Let it be
remembered that for fifteen years the Spaniards had been burning English
seamen whenever they could catch them, plotting to kill the Queen and
reduce England itself into vassaldom to the Pope. The English nation,
the loyal part of it, were replying to the wild pretension by the hands
of their own admiral. If Philip chose to countenance assassins, if the
Holy Office chose to burn English sailors as heretics, those heretics
had a right to make Spain understand that such a game was dangerous,
that, as Santa Cruz had said, they had teeth and could use them.
It was found in the end that the Governor's plea of impossibility was
more real than was at first believed. The gold and silver had been
really carried off. All else that was valuable had been burnt or taken
by the English.
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