The little ships of Cabot,
Willoughby and William Hawkins had not exceeded fifty, sixty, at most a
hundred tons; Philip's leviathans outweighed them more than ten to one.
What could England do against the landing of such an army? An English
Admiral would be Jack the Giant-Killer with no magic at his command. Yet
in the face of all this, under the very noses of the Spanish patrol,
Protestant craftsmen were escaping from the Inquisition in the
Netherlands to England, where Elizabeth had contrived to let it be known
that they were quite welcome.
To a perfectly innocent and lawful coasting trade Drake and his crew now
added this hazardous passenger service. They were braving imprisonment,
torture and the stake, for in 1562 no less than twenty-six Englishmen
were burned alive in Spain, and ten times as many lay in prison. Before
Drake was twenty all Spanish ports were closed to English trade. He sold
his ship and joined Hawkins in his more or less contraband trade with
the West Indies.
With every year of adventure upon the high seas his hatred of the
tyranny of Spain deepened and strengthened. Yet though Spanish ferocity
might soak the world in blood, he would not have his men tainted with
the evil inheritance of the idolaters. It came to be known that El
Draque did not kill prisoners.
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