' A Court lady
was invited by the King to join a party on a lake near Madrid. The lady
replied that she dared not trust herself on the water with his Majesty
lest Sir Francis Drake should have her.
Drake might well be praised. But Drake would have been the first to
divide the honour with the comrades who were his arm and hand. Great
admirals and generals do not win their battles single-handed like the
heroes of romance. Orders avail only when there are men to execute them.
Not a captain, not an officer who served under Drake, ever flinched or
blundered. Never was such a school for seamen as that twenty years'
privateering war between the servants of the Pope and the West-country
Protestant adventurers. Those too must be remembered who built and
rigged the ships in which they sailed and fought their battles. We may
depend upon it that there was no dishonesty in contractors, no scamping
of the work in the yards where the Plymouth rovers were fitted out for
sea. Their hearts were in it; they were soldiers of a common cause.
Three weeks had sufficed for Cadiz. No order for recall had yet arrived.
Drake had other plans before him, and the men were in high spirits and
ready for anything.
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