travagant joy. He felt, however, a great mortification, when
Effingham informed him, that the queen, anxious for his safety, and
dreading the effects of his youthful ardor, had secretly given orders
that he should not be permitted to command the van in the attack.[**]

* Camden, p. 591.

** Monson, p. 196

That duty was performed by Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Thomas Howard;
but Essex no sooner came within reach of the enemy, than he forgot the
promise which the admiral had exacted from him, to keep in the midst of
the fleet; he broke through and pressed forward into the thickest of
the fire. Emulation for glory, avidity of plunder, animosity against
the Spaniards, proved incentives to every one; and the enemy was soon
obliged to slip anchor, and retreat farther into the bay, where they ran
many of their ships aground. Essex then landed his men at the fort
of Puntal, and immediately marched to the attack of Cadiz, which
the impetuous valor of the English soon carried sword in hand. The
generosity of Essex, not inferior to his valor, made him stop the
slaughter, and treat his prisoners with the greatest humanity, and even
affability and kindness. The English made rich plunder in the city; but
missed of a much richer by the resolution which the duke of Medina, the
Spanish admiral, took of setting fire to the ships, in order to prevent
their falling into the hands of the enemy. It was computed, that the
loss which the Spaniards sustained in this enterprise amounted to
twenty millions of ducats;[*] besides the indignity which that proud and
ambitious people suffered from the sacking of one of their chief cities,
and destroying in their harbor a fleet of such force and value.

Essex, all on fire for glory, regarded this great success only as a step
to future achievements: he insisted on keeping possession of Cadiz; and
he undertook, with four hundred men and three months' provisions, to
defend the place, till succors should arrive from England; but all the
other seamen and soldiers were satisfied with the honor which they had
acquired; and were impatient to return home, in order to secure their
plunder. Every other proposal of Essex to annoy the enemy met with a
like reception; his scheme for intercepting the carracks at the Azores,
for assaulting the Groine, for taking St. Andero and St. Sebastian; and
the English, finding it so difficult to drag this impatient warrior from
the enemy, at last left him on the Sp