e, confronted at home and abroad by the rising
fanaticism of the Catholic reaction, found the ambition of Philip a
menace to national independence. And she knew well that Spain must be
met in the Netherlands and on the sea. Yet the task which confronted her
was one for which the naval resources of the state were inadequate, and
the politic and popular queen turned to the nation for assistance in the
hour of need.

And not in vain! For year by year the national opposition to Spain
gathered force. Products seeking markets and capital seeking investment
were increasing, while opportunities for profit abroad were diminishing.
Merchant and capitalist were everywhere confronted by the monopoly of
Spain and Portugal, and thus the maritime and commercial supremacy of
the queen's chief enemy was at once a national menace and a private
grievance. English Protestants, driven into exile in the days of "Bloody
Mary," returned in the time of Elizabeth, bringing back the spirit of
Geneva, and imbued with an uncompromising hatred of Papists which was
fanned to white heat by the Jesuit plots, supposed to be inspired by
Philip himself, against the queen's life. The rising opposition to Spain
thus took on the character of a crusade: for statesmen it was a question
of independence; for merchants a question of profits; for the people a
question of religion. And so it happened that in time of peace the ships
of Spain were regarded as fair prize. When piracy wore the cloak of
virtue there were many to venture; and the queen was ready to reward the
buccaneer for the crimes that made him a popular hero. Cautious in her
purposes, devious in her methods, too frugal and too poor to embark on
great undertakings or open hostility, Elizabeth encouraged every secret
enterprise and every private adventure which had for its object the
enrichment of her subjects at the expense of the common enemy.

John Hawkins will ever be memorable as the man who first openly
contested the double monopoly of Spain and Portugal, and taught English
merchants "how arms might signally help the expansion of trade."
Descended from seafaring ancestors, his own apprenticeship was served in
voyages to the African coast. Negroes were plentiful there, and laborers
scarce in the West Indies. Well considering that the slave trade would
insure the salvation of the benighted heathen and redound to the profit
of thrifty planters, the devout Hawkins set about serving God and mammon
fo