Drake begged Elizabeth to let him fit out a fleet and sail along the coast of Spain to see what was going on. Very reluctantly she consented, but ere his vessels were hull down a courier galloped into Plymouth with orders that under no condition was he to enter a Spanish port or haven. The courier arrived too late—Drake, knowing the mind of his mistress, had sailed, and recall was impossible. In five days he was at Cape St. Vincent, and a day later he saw before him the forest of masts in the harbour of Cadiz. In dashed Drake, with a fair wind and flood tide, past the batteries, which hurled a storm of shot and shell at him. He did not pause to reply, but pushed on, seized and sank the guardship, took possession of the Spanish shipping, and looted everything of the slightest service to him. Then he set the hulls on fire, cut the cables, and left them blazing beneath the walls of the town. He had, in his own pleasant phrase, “singed the King of Spain’s beard.” He had delayed the Armada for a whole year, and had spoiled his Catholic Majesty to the tune of a million ducats, without losing a boat or a man! Home came Drake, begging the queen to let him play the same game on the Tagus, where fifty great galleons, the main strength of the fighting naval force of Spain, were assembled. But the queen would not consent; she would provoke the King of Spain no further. Negotiations for peace had begun, and must not be interrupted. In the spring of the next year the Armada was ready, and the whole Spanish nation, smarting under the indignity of Drake’s exploit, was burning to revenge itself on England. It consisted of one hundred and thirty vessels, half of them being galleons of the largest size. The ships were manned by eight thousand sailors, and overcrowded with twenty thousand soldiers, besides slaves, servants, and priests. Every noble family in Spain sent a son to fight for the holy cause. The ships, however, were ill-found and ill-provisioned, and were commanded by a modest gentleman who confessed that he was no seaman, that he hardly knew a mast from an anchor, and that when he ventured out in a boat he was always seasick. To meet this vast fleet England had but thirty-four ships in the royal navy, but almost every seaport and many rich merchants and noblemen fitted out craft to fight the Spaniard. Their crews numbered eighteen thousand men, all good seamen, and their commanders were sea-dogs all.