paying his devotions to St. Mary
of Halle in Hainault, in order to make all sure in his Pantheon, and
already sees in visions of the night that gentle-souled and pure-lipped
saint, Cardinal Allen, placing the crown of England on his head. He
returns for answer, first, that his victual is not ready; next, that his
Dutch sailors, who have been kept at their post for many a week at the
sword's point, have run away like water; and thirdly, that over and
above all, he cannot come, so "strangely provided" of great ordnance and
musketeers are those five-and-thirty Dutch ships, in which round-sterned
and stubborn-hearted heretics watch, like terriers at a rat's hole, the
entrance of Nieuwport and Dunkirk. Having ensured the private patronage
of St. Mary of Halle, he will return to-morrow to make experience of its
effects: but only hear across the flats of Dixmude the thunder of the
fleets, and at Dunkirk the open curses of his officers. For while he
has been praying and nothing more, the English have been praying, and
something more; and all that is left for the Prince of Parma is, to
hang a few purveyors, as peace offerings to his sulking army, and then
"chafe," as Drake says of him, "like a bear robbed of her whelps."

For Lord Henry Seymour has brought Lord Howard a letter of command from
Elizabeth's self; and Drake has been carrying it out so busily all that
Sunday long, that by two o'clock on the Monday morning, eight fire-ships
"besmeared with wild-fire, brimstone, pitch, and resin, and all their
ordnance charged with bullets and with stones," are stealing down the
wind straight for the Spanish fleet, guided by two valiant men of Devon,
Young and Prowse. (Let their names live long in the land!) The ships are
fired, the men of Devon steal back, and in a moment more, the heaven is
red with glare from Dover Cliffs to Gravelines Tower; and weary-hearted
Belgian boors far away inland, plundered and dragooned for many a
hideous year, leap from their beds, and fancy (and not so far wrongly
either) that the day of judgment is come at last, to end their woes, and
hurl down vengeance on their tyrants.

And then breaks forth one of those disgraceful panics, which so often
follow overweening presumption; and shrieks, oaths, prayers, and
reproaches, make night hideous. There are those too on board who
recollect well enough Jenebelli's fire-ships at Antwerp three years
before, and the wreck which they made of Parma's bridge across the