He had missed the yearly treasure fleet by only half a day. He had lost so many men by sickness that he had no chance of taking and holding Havana. And the ransoms were less than he had hoped for. But he had done enough to cripple New Spain for the next few years at any rate. Arrived at Plymouth he wrote to London, saying, "There is now a very great gap opened, very little to the liking of the King of Spain." But the King, stung to the quick, went on with his Armada harder than before, and in 1587 had it more than half ready in Lisbon and Cadiz. Then Drake "singed King Philip's beard" by swooping down on Cadiz and smashing up the shipping there; by going on to Cape St. Vincent, which he seized and held with an army while his ships swept off the fishing craft that helped to feed the great Armada; and by taking "the greatest ship in all Portugal, richly laden, to our Happy Joy." This was the best East Indies treasure ship, loaded with silks and spices, jewels and gold, to the value of many millions. But, better than even this, Drake found among her papers the secrets of the wonderful trade with the East, a trade now taken over by the Spaniards from the conquered Portuguese. With these papers in English hands the English oversea traders set to work and formed the great East India Company on the last day of the year 1600. This Company--founded, held, and always helped by British sea-power--went on, step by step, for the next two hundred and fifty-seven years, after which India, taken over by the British Crown, at last grew into the present Indian Empire, a country containing three times as many people as the whole population of the United States, and yet a country which is only one of the many parts of the British Empire all round the Seven Seas. Crippled by English sea-power both in New Spain and Old, threatened by English sea-power in his trade with the Far East, and harassed by English sea-power everywhere between Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, where the Duke of Parma was preparing an army for the invasion of England, King Philip kept working on with murder in his heart. At last, in the summer of 1588, his Great Invincible Spanish Armada seemed to be as Great, Invincible, and Spanish as he could ever hope to make it. All the landlubbers, even in England, thought it very great indeed; and most of them think so still. The best Spanish soldiers, like all the few really good Spanish sailors, had very grave doubts. Those who knew the English Navy best expected nothing but disaster: their letters still remain to prove it. But most people, then as now, knew nothing about navies; and so the Armada went on collecting ships and men together, heartening the landsmen of Spain, and disheartening far too many landsmen in England.