Drake, Nelson and Napoleon | Page 5

company, and let us not give occasion to the
enemy to rejoice at our decay and overthrow. Show me the man that
would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know that there is not any
such here." Then he proceeds to drive home his plan of discipline with
vigour. "And as gentlemen are necessary for government's sake in the
voyage, so I have shipped them to that and to some further intent." He
does not say quite what it is, but they doubtless understand that it is

meant to be a warning lest he should be compelled to put them through
some harsh form of punishment. He concludes his memorable address
with a few candid words, in which he declares that he knows sailors to
be the most envious people in the world and, in his own words, "unruly
without government," yet, says he, "May I not be without them!" It is
quite clear that Drake would have no class distinction. His little sermon
sank deep into the souls of his crew, so that when he offered the
Marigold to those who had lost heart, to take them back to England, he
had not only made them ashamed of their refractory conduct, but
imbued them with a new spirit, which caused them to vie with each
other in professions of loyalty and eagerness to go on with him and
comply with all the conditions of the enterprise.
The great commander had no room for antics of martyrdom. He gave
human nature first place in his plan of dealing with human affairs. He
did not allow his mind to be disturbed by trifles. He had big jobs to
tackle, and he never doubted that he was the one and only man who
could carry them to a successful issue. He took his instructions from
Elizabeth and her blustering ministers, whom he regarded as just as
likely to serve Philip as the Tudor Queen if it came to a matter of
deciding between Popery and Protestantism. He received their
instructions in a courtly way, but there are striking evidences that he
was ever on the watch for their vacillating pranks, and he always
dashed out of port as soon as he had received the usual hesitating
permission. Once out of reach, he brushed aside imperial instructions if
they stood in the way of his own definite plan of serving the best
interests of his country, and if the course he took did not completely
succeed--which was seldom the case--he believed "the reason was best
known to God."
John Hawkins and Francis Drake had a simple faith in the divine object
they were serving. Hawkins thought it an act of high godliness to
pretend that he had turned Papist, in order that he might revenge and
rescue the remnant of his poor comrades of the San Juan de Ulloa
catastrophe, who were now shut up in Seville yards and made to work
in chains. Sir John hoodwinked Philip by making use of Mr. George
Fitzwilliam, who in turn made use of Rudolfe and Mary Stuart. Mary
believed in the genuineness of the conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth
and set up the Queen of Scots in her place, to hand over Elizabeth's

ships to Spain, confiscate property, and to kill a number of
anti-Catholic people. The Hawkins counterplot of revenge on Philip
and his guilty confederates was completely successful. The comic
audacity of it is almost beyond belief. The Pope had bestowed his
blessing on the conspiracy, and the Spanish Council of State was
enthusiastically certain of its success. So credulous were they of the
great piratical seaman's conversion, that an agreement was signed
pardoning Hawkins for his acts of piracy in the West Indies and other
places; a Spanish peerage was given him together with £40,000, which
was to be used for equipping the privateer fleet. The money was duly
paid in London, and possibly some of it was used for repairing the
British squadron which Hawkins had pronounced as being composed of
the finest ships in the world for him to hand over to Philip, even though
they had been neglected owing to the Queen's meanness. The plausible
way in which the great seaman put this proposition caught the
imagination of the negotiators. They were captivated by him. He had
caused them to believe that he was a genuine seceder from heresy and
from allegiance to the Queen of England, and was anxious to avow his
penitence for the great sins he had committed against God and the only
true faith, and to make atonement for them in befitting humility. All he
asked for was forgiveness, and in the fullness of magnanimity they
were possibly moved to ask if, in addition to forgiveness, a Spanish
peerage, and £40,000, he would like