money enough to be got, and sometimes there would be hard fighting and the gain or loss of all. [Illustration: Sir Francis Drake, in his 43rd year: from the engraving by Elstracke.] 10. =Francis Drake's Voyage to Panama. 1572.=--The noblest of these mariners was Francis Drake. Sickened by one experience of the slave trade, and refusing to take any further part in it, he flew at the wealth of the Spanish Government. In =1572= he sailed for Nombre de Dios, on the Atlantic side of the isthmus of Panama. Thither were brought once a year gold and silver from the mines of Peru. In the governor's house Drake found a pile of silver bars. "I have now," he said to his men, "brought you to the mouth of the treasury of the world." He himself was wounded, and his followers, having little spirit to fight without their leader, were beaten off. "I am resolved," he said somewhat later to a Spaniard, "by the help of God, to reap some of the golden harvest which you have got out of the earth and sent to Spain to trouble the earth." It was his firm conviction that he was serving God in robbing the king of Spain. Before he returned some Indians showed him from a tree on the isthmus the waters of the Pacific, which no civilised people except the Spaniards had ever navigated. Drake threw himself on his knees, praying to God to give him life and to allow him to sail an English vessel on those seas. 11. =The Seizure of Brill, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. 1572.=--Exiles from the Netherlands took refuge on the sea from Alva's tyranny, and plundered Spanish vessels as Englishmen had done before. In =1572= a party of these seized Brill and laid the foundations of the Dutch Republic. They called on Charles IX. of France to help them, and he (being under the influence of Coligny, the leader of the Huguenots) was eager to make war on Spain on their behalf. Charles's mother, Catherine de Medicis, was, however, alarmed lest the Huguenots should grow too powerful, and frightened her son with a tale that they were conspiring against him. He was an excitable youth, and turned savagely on the Huguenots, encouraging a fearful butchery of them, which is known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, because it took place on August 24, which was St. Bartholomew's day. Coligny himself was among the victims.