e King of Denmark offered to mediate between
England and Spain, so that the long and disastrous war might be ended.
Queen Elizabeth was then old and frail, but this was what she said--and
if you want to understand why she was almost adored by her people,
listen to her words: 'I would have the King of Denmark, and all Princes
Christian and Heathen to know, that England hath no need to crave peace;
nor myself endured one hour's fear since I attained the crown thereof,
being guarded with so valiant and faithful subjects.' In the end the
power and menace of Spain faded away, and when peace was made, in 1604,
this nation never again, from that day to this, feared the worst that
Spain could do.

What were our gains from the war with Spain? Freedom to live our lives
in our own way, unthreatened; freedom to colonize America. The gains of
a great war are never visible immediately; they are deferred, and
extended over many years. What did we gain by our war with Napoleon,
which ended in the victory of Waterloo? For long years after Waterloo
this country was full of riots and discontents; there were
rick-burnings, agitations, popular risings, and something very near to
famine in the land. But all these things, from a distance, are now seen
to have been the broken water that follows the passage of a great storm.
The real gains of Waterloo, and still more of Trafalgar, are evident in
the enormous commercial and industrial development of England during the
nineteenth century, and in the peaceful foundation of the great
dominions of Canada, Australia, and South Africa, which was made
possible only by our unchallenged use of the seas. The men who won those
two great battles did not live to gather the fruits of their victory;
but their children did. If we defeat Germany as completely as we hope,
we shall not be able to point at once to our gains. But it is not a rash
forecast to say that our children and children's children will live in
greater security and freedom than we have ever tasted.

A man must have a good and wide imagination if he is to be willing to
face wounds and death for the sake of his unborn descendants and
kinsfolk. We cannot count on the popular imagination being equal to the
task. Fortunately, there is a substitute for imagination which does the
work as well or better, and that is character. Our people are sound in
instinct; they understand a fight. They know that a wrestler who
considers, while he is in the grip of