h sailors. The sword
of Spain was forged in the gold-mines of Peru; the
legions of Alva were only to be disarmed by intercepting
the gold ships on their passage; and, inspired by an
enthusiasm like that which four centuries before had
precipitated the chivalry of Europe upon the East, the
same spirit which in its present degeneracy covers our
bays and rivers with pleasure yachts then fitted out
armed privateers, to sweep the Atlantic, and plunder
and destroy Spanish ships wherever they could meet
them.

Thus, from a combination of causes, the whole force
and energy of the age was directed towards the sea.
The wide excitement and the greatness of the interests
at stake, raised even common men above themselves;
and people who in ordinary times would have been no
more than mere seamen, or mere money-making merchants,
appear before us with a largeness and greatness
of heart and mind in which their duties to God and
their country are alike clearly and broadly seen and felt
to be paramount to every other.

Ordinary English traders we find fighting Spanish war
ships in behalf of the Protestant faith; the cruisers of
the Spanish main were full of generous eagerness for the
conversion of the savage nations to Christianity; and
what is even more surprising, sites for colonization were
examined and scrutinized by such men in a lofty statesmanlike
spirit, and a ready insight was displayed by
them into the indirect effects of a wisely-extended
commerce on every highest human interest.

Again, in the conflict with the Spaniards, there was a
further feeling, a feeling of genuine chivalry, which was
spurring on the English, and one which must be well
understood and well remembered, if men like Drake,
and Hawkins, and Raleigh, are to be tolerably understood.
One of the English Reviews, a short time ago,
was much amused with a story of Drake having excommunicated
a petty officer as a punishment for some
moral offence; the reviewer not being able to see in
Drake, as a man, anything more than; a highly brave
and successful buccaneer, whose pretences to religion
might rank with the devotion of an Italian bandit to the
Madonna. And so Hawkins, and even Raleigh, are
regarded by superficial persons, who see only such outward
circumstances of their history as correspond with
their own impressions. The high nature of these men,
and the high objects which they pursued, will only rise
out and become visible to us as we can throw ourse