This was the beginning of a
distinguished partnership composed of Messieurs John Hawkins
and his kinsman Francis Drake, and of Elizabeth their Queen.
Elizabeth did not openly avow herself one of the partners;
she would have indignantly denied it had it been hinted at;
yet it is pretty certain that the cruises of her faithful
Hawkins and Drake substantially increased her wealth, while
they diminished that of Spanish Philip and that of his
subjects too. Long before the Armada appeared resplendent in
English waters, commanded by that hopeless, blithering
landlubber, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who with other sons
of Spain was sent forth to fight against Britain for "Christ
and our Lady," there had been trained here a race of
dare-devil seamen who knew no fear, and who broke and
vanquished what was reckoned, till then, the finest body of
sailors in the whole world. That our sailors have maintained
the reputation achieved in the destruction of the great
Spanish Armada is sometimes disputed. I am one of those who
trust that British seamen would be worthy of British
traditions were they even now put to the test by some
powerful invader.
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