11. Every Englishman recalls the reign of Queen Elizabeth with patriotic pride. In it he can find the roots of our national life and character. Many faults the queen certainly had, but they were such as affected the few who lived at her court. To the many who looked from afar her virtues only were known. Her ministers might know the weaknesses of her character and the windings of her policy, all her other subjects saw only the good results of the guiding hand at the helm. Whatever mistakes she made, there was one she never committed. She never forgot that she was _Queen of England_, and that it was her duty to make England great, prosperous, and powerful. (7) COMING STRUGGLE WITH SPAIN. 1. During the long peace of Elizabeth's reign, England was repeatedly on the brink of war with Spain. That war was bound to come. It came with the sailing of the Spanish Armada, in the thirtieth year of Elizabeth's reign. It would have come much sooner but for the long war between Philip King of Spain, and his Dutch subjects in the Netherlands, which at that time formed part of the Spanish dominions. Our business now is to unfold the causes that made war with Spain inevitable. 2. King Philip had married Mary of England, and on her death, offered his hand to Elizabeth, who declined the honour. At the time of his accession Spain was the foremost state in the world. The discovery made by Columbus had given the Spaniards possession of the West Indies and Central America, and by conquest they had gained Mexico and Peru with their rich mines of silver and gold. 3. The natives, so-called Indians, were forced to work in the mines for their new masters, and every year the harvest of the mines was collected and poured into the royal treasury of Spain. The sugar plantations were also a source of wealth. As the poor natives could not stand the hard toil in the mines and plantations, and their numbers in consequence began rapidly to dwindle, the cruel slave trade was set afoot. Negroes were purchased on the coast of West Africa and taken across the sea to work for the Spaniards. 4. We wish it could be said that England stood forth as the champion of freedom, and that the shameful traffic in slaves was the chief cause of the war with Spain. But this was not so. In enslaving their fellow-men the Spaniards were no worse than other peoples. All alike in that age seemed to think the traffic in slaves to be right and lawful.