then John Hawkins rubbed his hands gleefully, and lost no time in getting all the Queen's ships taut and in order, well victualled and well manned. But Hawkins did not mince matters when he saw anything amiss; any hesitation or signs of parsimony met with his blunt disapproval. He writes in February 1588 to urge that peace could only be won by resolute fighting: "We might have peace, but not with God. Rather than serve Baal, let us die a thousand deaths. Let us have open war with these Jesuits, and every man will contribute, fight, devise or do, for the liberty of our country." Hawkins also wrote to ask for the use of six large and six small ships for four months, with 1800 mariners and soldiers, which he would employ in another raid upon the Spanish coast, so as to hinder Philip's grand Armada. "I promise I will distress anything that goeth through the seas: and in addition to the injury done to Spain, I shall acquire booty enough to pay four times over the cost of the expedition." But Burghley, like his mistress, kept a tight hand over slender resources, and he rejected Hawkins' offer. Macaulay says that even Burghley's jests were only neatly expressed reasons for keeping money carefully. Lord Howard bitterly complained to Walsingham that "her Majesty was keeping her ships to protect Chatham Church withal, when they should be serving their turn abroad"; and again, when Drake was being prevented from getting his Plymouth squadron in order for sea-service, he writes: "I pray God her Majesty do not repent her slack dealing.... I fear ere long her Majesty will be sorry she hath believed some so much as she hath done." Lord Burghley's task was to defeat the Armada with an almost empty exchequer. We find calculations of his as to whether it will not be cheaper to feed the sailors of the fleet on fish three days a week and bacon once, instead of the usual ration of four pennyworth of beef each day. And naturally these attempts to cut down expenses were misconstrued into parsimony. But with all her rigid economy, Elizabeth could show a brave front when the crisis came; as in the camp at Tilbury, when she addressed the little army that was expecting every hour to be called to meet the fierce onset of the invaders: "I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore am I come amongst you, as ye see, at this time, resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a King of England too, and think it foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your General, Judge, and