There are few more ludicrous passages in history than the cruise of Drake in 1587. Queen Elizabeth and her ministers were aware that preparations were being made for an invasion of England. Although the queen's passion for intrigue induced her to keep up a laborious show of friendly negotiations with the Prince of Parma, Philip's viceroy in the Low Countries, she did not in practice forget that she was at war. In the spring of 1587 she decided to despatch Sir Francis Drake for the purpose of looking into the preparations reported to be making in the Spanish ports. As in 1585, the queen bore only a part of the expenses. Of the thirty ships despatched, four, the =Bonaventure=, the =Lion=, the =Dreadnought=, and the =Rainbow=, with two pinnaces attached as tenders, belonged to the Royal Navy; the others were "tall ships" of London, not hired by the queen, but joined in partnership with her for the purpose of making what profit they could by plundering the Spaniards. Drake sailed from Plymouth early in April, and in the 40th degree of latitude he learned from two German merchant ships that great quantities of naval stores were being collected at Cadiz to be transported to Lisbon, where the King of Spain's "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," Don Álvaro de Bazan, had his headquarters. Portugal, it may not be superfluous to remind the reader, had been annexed a few years before by Philip II., who claimed to be the heir of Dom Sebastian, slain at the battle of Alcázar el Kebir, and it continued to be joined to the many other crowns of the King of Spain till 1640. Drake immediately made for Cadiz, where he found the outer harbour crowded with ships. These were the vessels which were designed to take part in the invasion of England. But, by a piece of ineptitude of a kind not at all rare in Philip's reign, they were for the most part unmanned. It was easy work for the thirty efficient ships to capture, burn, sink, or drive on shore such of these vessels as were not able to make a timely escape into the inner harbour. The work was done thoroughly, and to the no small profit of the adventurers. Enormous quantities of booty were transferred from the Spanish to the English ships; and although they were subject to an irritating fire from the distant Spanish batteries, and to attack by the galleys, the English sailors met with little difficulty in the discharge of their task. The work was hard, and the men are said to have been really glad when the Spaniards set fire to the vessels which had not yet fallen into our hands, and thereby put a stop to the toil of collecting more plunder. Nothing more disgraceful to the management of Philip II., nothing which more fully revealed the essential weakness of his power, could well have happened. From Cadiz Drake stretched along the coast to Lisbon, landing as he pleased, and plundering as he thought fit. At the mouth of the Tagus he anchored and sent in a challenge to the Marquis of Santa Cruz. But the