DRAKE (_turning to_ WILLIAM HAWKINS _with emotion_). Ah! Kinsman, all lost but honour. Foul play! Treachery! Robbery! Murder! Spain has outdone herself in perfidy and baseness. Poor Sir John! HAWKINS. What of him, and the rest? DRAKE. Alas, I know not. I saw the Jesus and the Spanish Admiral both in flames. I fear they are all dead, or worse—prisoners. We fought our way through fire and slaughter, and we alone remain to tell of their glory and their fate. HAWKINS. Alas! Alas, (_wringing his hands with great emotion and grief_). This is a dreadful business; the fellest swoop Spain has yet made on us. What is to be done? Alas! Alas! (_he walks about in distraction_.) COBHAM (_fiercely_). Cover the ocean with our cruizers! Burn their towns! Sink their ships! Seize their treasure! War! War to the death. CROWD. War! War to the death! A Cobham! A Cobham. SAILOR (_stepping out and brandishing his axe_). I’ll swear eternal war (_walks about brandishing his axe_). Death to every Spaniard I fall in with on sea or land. DRAKE (_much agitated_). Come along, kinsman, I must be off at once to London and see the Queen, I must tell her all personally; her treaties broken, commerce invaded, her own ship burned, her seamen slaughtered, above a million gone; let me be off. (_Exeunt_ DRAKE, HAWKINS, COBHAM, _and others_, _excited and followed by a raging crowd_, _gesticulating violently and shouting_). CROWD. We’ll pay them. War! Plunder! That’s the game! War! Revenge! Hurrah for Drake, and war! Plunder! Plunder! (_Exeunt Omnes_). (_Scene changes_). SCENE III.—THE TERRACE OF GREENWICH PALACE. (_Enter_ QUEEN ELIZABETH _and the_ SPANISH AMBASSADOR). AMBASSADOR. Three large and richly laden merchant ships for Flanders, after a brave defence, taken off the Goodwins, and their crews massacred, drowned or captive! A Spanish vessel saw the fight, and barely escaped to tell of the event. There is scarce a day that some prize is not brought into Plymouth, Dover, or Southampton; the cargoes, and often the passengers, openly sold, and the ships confiscated, or armed and added to their fleet if suitable. These sail in and out under English colours.