There is little doubt that Drake in this voyage, and others like him in similar expeditions, learned a great deal about the disadvantages of small size in ships. Drake, however, learned another thing also. Up to this day the crew of a ship had consisted of the captain and a certain military element; also the master, who was responsible for a certain number of “mariners.” The former were concerned entirely with fighting the ship--the latter entirely with manœuvring it. This system of specialisation, awkward as it appears thus baldly stated, may have worked well enough in ordinary practice. It did not differ materially from the differentiation between deck hands and the engineering departments, which to a greater or less extent is very marked in every navy of the present day. Drake, however, started out with none too many men, and it was not long before he lost some of those he had and found himself short-handed. His solution of the difficulty is in his famous phrase, “I would have the gentlemen haul with the mariners.” How far this was a matter of expediency, how far the revelation of a new policy, is a matter of opinion. It must certainly have been outside the purview of Elizabeth. But out of it gradually came that every English sailor knew how to fight his ship and how to sail her too, and this amounted to doubling the efficiency of the crew of any ship at one stroke. Of Drake himself, the following contemporary pen-picture, from a letter written by one of his Spanish victims, Don Franciso de Zarate,[7] explains almost everything:-- “He received me favourably, and took me to his room, where he made me seated and said to me: ‘I am a friend to those who speak the truth, that is what will have the most weight with me. What silver or gold does this ship bring?’ “... We spoke together a great while, until the dinner-hour. He told me to sit beside him and treated me from his dishes, bidding me have no fear, for my life and goods were safe; for which I kissed his hands. “This English General is a cousin of John Hawkins; he is the same who, about five years ago, took the port of Nombre de Dios; he is called Francis Drake; a man of some five and thirty years, small of stature and red-bearded, one of the greatest sailors on the sea, both from skill and power of commanding. His ship carried about 400 tons, is swift of sail, and of a hundred men, all skilled and in their prime, and all as much experienced in warfare as if they were old soldiers of Italy. Each one, in particular, _takes great pains to keep his arms clean_;[8] he treats them with affection, and they treat him with respect. I endeavoured to find out whether the General was liked, and everyone told me he was adored.”