[11] After the return of the expedition Lopez writes (July 12, 1589) to Walsingham, deeply regretting that the Queen had been induced by his advice to spend so much money to no purpose, and hinting that he had intimated to Dom Antonio that he and his Portuguese were not wanted in England. On the same day he himself craves for help in his need and again asks for a thirty years' monopoly of the import of aniseed and sumach into England. He was executed in 1592, and was in high favour almost up to the day of his arrest. In the Mendoza Papers in the National Archives in Paris, to which I have had access, are documents proving that he made a regular trade of poisoning--or attempting to poison, as he does not seem to have been very successful in the cases recorded. [12] It is certain from letters of Dom Antonio's friends in London, now in the Archives Nationales (K 1567), that it was not until the end of December that Antonio was confident that the fleet was really intended to aid him. [13] There is a rough memorandum in Burleigh's writing, September 20, 1588, in the Record Office, setting down the details of the proposed expedition, in which he mentions that four thousand men are to be sent for from Holland, as well as two thousand horsemen volunteers. At the foot of the memorandum Burleigh sets down the "Articles of offers from King Antonio. "1. To attempt to burn ye shippes in Lysbon and Civill." "2. To tak Lysbon." "3. To tak the Hands." [14] Calendar of State Papers (Domestic). Record Office. [15] Norris had greatly distinguished himself in Ireland and the Netherlands, notwithstanding Leicester's persistent attempts to ruin him; and, from his conduct there and during this expedition, he would appear to have been brave, but turbulent and of doubtful discretion. [16] Philip was informed late in December by his spies in England that Drake was to contribute 12,000 crowns, the Earl of Essex 10,000, Norris 8,000, and London Merchants 24,000, and that the Queen had advanced £20,000. [17] On the eve of departure Norris and Drake officially told the Council that the total number of all sorts was 23,375. Captain Fenner, Drake's vice-admiral, gives the number as 21,000 (Bacon Papers). Captain Baillie, of the _Mary German_, in a letter to Lord Shrewsbury says the landsmen alone were 20,000; whilst Drake himself, in one of his many letters begging for supplies, says, "20,000 men cannot be kept for a trifle."