No doubt this vessel was built, like the English Indiamen of much more modern times, so as to be applicable for war when the necessity arose, as well as for the ordinary purposes of commerce; but neither England nor any other nation possessed at that period any vessel engaged in commerce which could be compared to her either in dimensions, construction, or equipment. Indeed the finish of the stern of one of the finest modern vessels of the English navy, _The Asia_, constructed towards the close of the first quarter of the present century, and of which this cut is an illustration, shows no very marked improvement during the two centuries which had elapsed. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [139] Froude, vol. x. p. 259, _et seq._ [140] Don Guerau to Philip, MSS. Samancas. [141] It will be found in detail in the Cottonian MSS. at the British Museum. The English fleet was commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher. [142] See also Macpherson, ii. pp. 185, 186. The tables in the College Hall of Westminster School are made of Spanish chestnut, said to have been taken from some of the ships of the Armada. [143] This was the second voyage round the world, but the first made by English ships. A chair is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford made of the wood of the _Pelican_. [144] In ‘Maritime and Inland Discovery,’ vol. ii. p. 156, the date of Drake’s return is given as Sept. 26, 1580; and this is also the date given in the ‘World Encompassed,’ p. 162. [145] There must have been strong reasons indeed to have induced Elizabeth to have conferred such honours upon Francis Drake. On the 26th May, 1572, long before war had been declared between England and Spain, he had set out with his brothers John and Joseph on an expedition of pure piracy in two small vessels, manned by seventy-three seamen almost as daring as himself. Starting from the Gulf of Florida, he landed near St. Martha, where he built a fort and commenced an attack on the house of the Spanish governor, which he had ascertained contained a very large amount of bar-silver. Defeated in his designs to plunder it, he set out with eighteen Englishmen, part of his crew, and thirty runaway slaves, whom he had entered into his service, for Vera Cruz, which he plundered. Thence he proceeded again toward Nombre de Dios, capturing on the road a caravan of mules laden with silver, appropriating as much of it as he and his gang of marauders could carry away, and returned to England with his ill-gotten spoils in August 1573. [146] Raleigh’s first personal expedition was in 1595; but he had already assisted in equipping no less than seven, the earliest in 1585 (‘Maritime and Inland Discovery,’ ii. pp. 205-209). [147] Macpherson, ii. p. 189. Sir Francis Drake commanded the naval and Sir John Norris the military forces on this occasion.