On reaching England, he found the Queen still unappeased; nor was he suffered to appear at court: and he complains in pathetic terms of the cold return with which his perils and losses were requited. But he was invested with a high command in the expedition of 1596, by which the Spanish fleet was destroyed in the harbour of Cadiz; and to his judgment and temper in overruling the faulty schemes proposed by others the success of that enterprise was chiefly due. Indeed his services were perhaps too important, and too justly appreciated by the public, for his own interests: for the great and general praise bestowed on him on this occasion tended to confirm a jealousy of long standing on the part of the commander-in-chief, the Earl of Essex; and it was probably owing to that favourite’s influence, that Raleigh was still forbidden the Queen’s presence. Essex, and the Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil, regarded each other with mutual distrust and dislike. Cecil and Raleigh were connected by ties of common interest, and, as the latter supposed, of friendship. Still Raleigh found the interest of the minister too weak to serve his purpose, while the interest of the favourite was employed against him; and, as the only method of effecting his own restoration to the Queen’s favour, he undertook to work a reconciliation between these two powerful rivals. In this he succeeded, to the great admiration of all spectators; and the fruit of his policy was seen in his re-admission to the execution of his official duties at court, June 1, 1597. In the following August he was appointed Rear Admiral in the expedition called the Island Voyage, of which Essex held the chief command. The slight successes which were obtained were again due to the military talents of Raleigh; the main objects of the voyage were lost through the Earl’s inexperience.