Since Drake had for this voyage the Queen’s commission, by which we must suppose the license to rob the Spaniards to have been at least tacitly conceded, he seems to have been rather hardly used in being left from November to April in ignorance how his bold adventure was received at court. Among the people it created a great sensation, with much diversity of opinion: some commending it as a notable instance of English valour and maritime skill, and a just reprisal upon the Spaniards for their faithless and cruel practices; others styling it a breach of treaties, little better than piracy, and such as it was neither expedient nor decent for a trading nation to encourage. During this interval, Drake must have felt his situation unpleasant and precarious; but the Queen turned the scale in his favour by going, April 4, 1581, to dine on board his ship at Deptford, on which occasion she declared her entire approbation of his conduct, and conferred on him the honour, and such it then was, of knighthood. His ship she ordered to be preserved, as a monument of his glory. Having fallen to decay, it was at length broken up: a chair, made out of its planks, was presented to the University of Oxford, and probably is still to be seen in the Bodleian library. Cowley wrote a Pindaric ode upon it. Drake had now established his reputation as the first seaman of the day; and in 1585 the Queen, having resolved on war, intrusted him with the command of an expedition against the Spanish colonies. He burnt or put to ransom the cities of St. Jago, near Cape Verde, St. Domingo, Carthagena, and others, and returned to England, having fully answered the high expectations which were entertained of him. He was again employed with a larger force of thirty ships in 1587, with which he entered the port of Cadiz, burnt 10,000 tons of shipping, which were to form part of the Armada, took the castle of Cape St. Vincent, and sailing to the Azores, made prize of a large and wealthy ship on its way from the Indies. Still more eminent were his services against the Armada in the following year, in which he served as vice-admiral under Lord Howard of Effingham. But these are well-known passages of history, and we have shortened our account of them, to relate at more length the early incidents of Drake’s adventurous life.