To be the executor of the decrees of Providence is a lofty ambition, but
men in a state of high emotion overlook the precautions which are not to
be dispensed with even on the sublimest of errands. Don Quixote, when he
set out to redress the wrongs of humanity, forgot that a change of linen
might be necessary, and that he must take money with him to pay his
hotel bills. Philip II., in sending the Armada to England, and confident
in supernatural protection, imagined an unresisted triumphal
procession. He forgot that contractors might be rascals, that water four
months in the casks in a hot climate turned putrid, and that putrid
water would poison his ships' companies, though his crews were companies
of angels. He forgot that the servants of the evil one might fight for
their mistress after all, and that he must send adequate supplies of
powder, and, worst forgetfulness of all, that a great naval expedition
required a leader who understood his business. Perseus, in the shape of
the Duke of Medina Sidonia, after a week of disastrous battles, found
himself at the end of it in an exposed roadstead, where he ought never
to have been, nine-tenths of his provisions thrown overboard as unfit
for food, his ammunition exhausted by the unforeseen demands upon it,
the seamen and soldiers harassed and dispirited, officers the whole week
without sleep, and the enemy, who had hunted him from Plymouth to
Calais, anchored within half a league of him.
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