e, and who, somewhat to the
annoyance of the leaders of the expedition, concealed himself from her
Majesty's pursuit, and at last embarked in a vessel which he had
equipped, in order not to be cheated of his share in the hazard and the
booty. "If I speed well," said the spendthrift but valiant youth; "I will
adventure to be rich; if not, I will never live, to see the end of my
poverty."

But no great riches were to be gathered in the expedition. With some
fourteen thousand men, and one hundred and sixty vessels--of which six
were the Queen's ships of war, including the famous Revenge and the
Dreadnought, and the rest armed merchantmen, English, and forty
Hollanders--and with a contingent of fifteen hundred Dutchmen under
Nicolas van Meetkerke and Van Laen, the adventurers set sail from
Plymouth on the 18th of April, 1589.

They landed at Coruna--at which place they certainly could not expect to
create a Portuguese revolution, which was the first object of the
expedition--destroyed some shipping in the harbour, captured and sacked
the lower town, and were repulsed in the upper; marched with six thousand
men to Burgos, crossed the bridge at push of pike, and routed ten
thousand Spaniards under Andrada and Altamira--Edward Norris receiving a
desperate blow on the head at the passage' of the bridge, and being
rescued from death by his brother John--took sail for the south after
this action, in which they had killed a thousand Spaniards, and had lost
but two men of their own; were joined off Cape Finisterre by Essex;
landed a force at Peniche, the castle of which place surrendered to them,
and acknowledged the authority of Don Antonio; and thence marched with
the main body of the troops, under Sir John Norris, forty-eight miles to
Lisbon, while Drake, with the fleet, was to sail up the Tagus.

Nothing like a revolution had been effected in Portugal. No one seemed to
care for the Pretender, or even to be aware that he had ever existed,
except the governor of Peniche Castle, a few ragged and bare-footed
peasants, who, once upon the road, shouted "Viva Don Antonio," and one
old gentleman by the way side, who brought him a plate of plums. His
hopes of a crown faded rapidly, and when the army reached Lisbon it had
dwindled to not much more than four thousand effective men--the rest
being dead of dysentery, or on the sick-list from imprudence in eating
and drinking--while they found that they had made an unfortunate omission
in