He must
chase them off the coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz needed no stirring.
Santa Cruz, the hero of a hundred fights, was chafing at his own
impotence; but he was obliged to tell his master that if he wished to
have service out of his galleons he must provide crews to handle them,
and they must rot at their anchors till he did. He told him, moreover,
that it was time for him to exert himself in earnest. If he waited much
longer, England would have grown too strong for him to deal with.
In strict obedience Drake ought now to have gone home, but the campaign
had brought so far more glory than prize-money. His comrades required
some consolation for their disappointment at Lisbon. The theory of these
armaments of the adventurers was that the cost should be paid somehow by
the enemy, and he could be assured that if he brought back a prize or
two in which she could claim a share the Queen would not call him to a
very strict account. Homeward-bound galleons or merchantmen were to be
met with occasionally at the Azores. On leaving Lisbon Drake headed away
to St. Michael's, and his lucky star was still in the ascendant.
As if sent on purpose for him, the _San Philip_, a magnificent caraque
from the Indies, fell straight into his hands, 'so richly loaded,' it
was said, 'that every man in the fleet counted his fortune made.
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