While Elizabeth insured tranquillity from the attempts of her nearest neighbor, she was not negligent of more distant dangers. Hearing that Philip, though he seemed to dissemble the daily insults and injuries which he received from the English, was secretly preparing a great navy to attack her, she sent Sir Francis Drake with a fleet to intercept his supplies, to pillage his coast, and to destroy his shipping. Drake carried out four capital ships of the queen’s, and twenty-six, great and small, with which the London merchants, in hopes of sharing in the plunder, had supplied him. Having learned from two Dutch ships which he met with in his passage, that a Spanish fleet, richly laden, was lying at Cadiz, ready to sail for Lisbon, the rendezvous of the intended armada, he bent his course to the former harbor, and boldly, as well as fortunately, made an attack on the enemy. He obliged six galleys, which made head against him, to take shelter under the forts: he burned about a hundred vessels laden with ammunition and naval stores; and he destroyed a great ship of the marquis of Santa Croce. Thence he set sail for Cape St. Vincent, and took by assault the castle situated on that promontory, with three other fortresses. He next insulted Lisbon; and finding that the merchants, who had engaged entirely in expectation of profit, were discontented at these military enterprises, he set sail for the Terceras, with an intention of lying in wait for a rich carrack, which was expected in those parts. He was so fortunate as to meet with his prize; and by this short expedition, in which the public bore so small a share, the adventurers were encouraged to attempt further enterprises, the English seamen learned to despise the great unwieldy ships of the enemy, the naval preparations of Spain were destroyed, the intended expedition against England was retarded a twelvemonth, and the queen thereby had leisure to take more secure measures against that formidable invasion.[*] * Camden, p. 540. Sir William Monson’s Naval Tracts in Churchill’s Voyages, vol. iii. p. 156. This year, Thomas Cavendish, a gentleman of Devonshire, who had dissipated a good estate by living at court, being resolved to repair his fortune at the expense of the Spaniards fitted out three ships at Plymouth one of a hundred and twenty tons, another of sixty, and a third of forty; and with these small vessels he ventured into the South Sea, and committed great depredations on the Spaniards. He took nineteen vessels, some of which were richly laden; and returning by the Cape of Good Hope, he came to London, and entered the river in a kind of triumph. His mariners and soldiers were clothed in silk, his sails were of damask, his topsail cloth of gold; and his prizes were esteemed the richest that ever had been brought into England.[*] * Birch’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 57.