GROWTH OF ENGLISH TRADE. If England should be drawn into war, her safety would depend mainly upon her ships. Englishmen had always taken to the sea, as was natural for men whose shores were washed by the Atlantic, the Channel and the North Sea, but they were slow in building fleets of ships either for trade or for war. The trade of the country with other peoples in the Middle Ages was carried on mostly by foreigners. Yet since the days of Elizabeth's father and grandfather a change had taken place. English merchants found their way to all markets. They also made new things to sell. Refugees driven by the religious troubles from France and the Netherlands brought their skill to England and taught the English how to weave fine woolens and silks. THE NEW ENGLISH NAVY. The English navy was growing. One of the new ships, _The Triumph_, carried 450 seamen, 50 gunners, and 200 soldiers. Besides harquebuses for the soldiers, there were many kinds of cannon with strange names, such as culverins, falconets, sakers, serpentines, and rabinets. Four of the cannon were large enough to shoot a cannon-ball eight inches in diameter. But it was on the skill and courage of her men rather than upon the size of her ships that England relied for victory. [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE After the painting at Buckland Abby, England] SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. One of these men was Francis Drake. He was son of a chaplain in the navy and as a boy played in the rigging of the great ships-of-war, as other boys play in the streets. In time young Drake was apprenticed to the skipper of a small trading vessel. Fortune smiled on the lad early in life. His master died, and out of love for the apprentice who had served him so well, left him the vessel. Francis Drake became thus a shipmaster on his own account, and in time the most popular of Queen Elizabeth's sea-captains. SLAVE-TRADERS. He often went with his cousin, John Hawkins, on voyages to Africa. They bought negro slaves from slave-traders along the coast, or kidnaped negroes whom they found, and carried them to the Spanish planters of the West Indies. Hawkins and Drake were as devout and humane as other men of their time. They simply could not see any wrong in enslaving the heathen black men in Africa. Besides, they enjoyed the wild life of the slave-trader with its dangers and rich rewards. WHY DRAKE HATED THE SPANIARDS. The king of Spain tried to keep the trade in slaves for his own merchants, and attempted to prevent the trade of the English slavers with the West Indies. Spanish ships-of-war ruined one of the voyages from which Hawkins and Drake hoped for large profits. The Spaniards won thereby the undying hatred of Drake.