account. Four years after
Elizabeth's accession the Channel swarmed with "sea-dogs," as they were
called, who sailed under letters of marque from Conde and the Huguenot
leaders, and took heed neither of the complaints of the French Court
nor of their own Queen's efforts at repression. Her efforts broke
against the connivance of every man along the coast, of the very port
officers of the Crown, who made profit out of the spoil which the
plunderers brought home, and of the gentry of the west, whose love of
venture made them go hand in hand with the sea-dogs. They broke above
all against the national craving for open fight with Spain, and the
Protestant craving for open fight with Catholicism. If the Queen held
back from any formal part in the great war of religions across the
Channel, her subjects were keen to take their part in it. Young
Englishmen crossed the sea to serve under Conde or Henry of Navarre. The
war in the Netherlands drew hundreds of Protestants to the field. Their
passionate longing for a religious war found a wider sphere on the sea.
When the suspension of the French contest forced the sea-dogs to haul
down the Huguenot flag, they joined in the cruises of the Dutch
"sea-beggars." From plundering the vessels of Havre and Rochelle they
turned to plunder the galleons of Spain.

[Sidenote: Drake.]

Their outrages tried Philip's patience; but his slow resentment only
quickened into angry alarm when the sea-dogs sailed westward to seek a
richer spoil. The Papal decree which gave the New World to Spain, the
threats of the Spanish king against any Protestant who should visit its
seas, fell idly on the ears of English seamen. Philip's care to save his
new dominions from the touch of heresy was only equalled by his resolve
to suffer no trade between them and other lands than Spain. But the
sea-dogs were as ready to traffic as to fight. It was in vain that their
vessels were seized, and the sailors flung into the dungeons of the
Inquisition, "laden with irons, without sight of sun or moon." The
profits of the trade were large enough to counteract its perils; and the
bigotry of Philip was met by a bigotry as merciless as his own. The
Puritanism of the sea-dogs went hand in hand with their love of
adventure. To break through the Catholic monopoly of the New World, to
kill Spaniards, to sell negroes, to sack gold-ships, were in these men's
minds a seemly work for "the elect of God." The name of Francis Drake
became