said, in which they did not make captures to three times that amount; for
they would see nothing that would not be presently their own. "We might
have peace, but not with God," said the pious old slave-trader; "but
rather than serve Baal, let us die a thousand deaths. Let us have open
war with these Jesuits, and every man will contribute, fight, devise, or
do, for the liberty of our country."

And it was open war with the Jesuits for which those stouthearted sailors
longed. All were afraid of secret mischief. The diplomatists--who were
known to be flitting about France, Flanders, Scotland, and England--were
birds of ill omen. King James was beset by a thousand bribes and
expostulations to avenge his mother's death; and although that mother had
murdered his father, and done her best to disinherit himself, yet it was
feared that Spanish ducats might induce him to be true to his mother's
revenge, and false to the reformed religion. Nothing of good was hoped
for from France. "For my part," said Lord Admiral Howard, "I have made
of the French King, the Scottish King, and the King of Spain, a trinity
that I mean never to trust to be saved by, and I would that others were
of my opinion."

The noble sailor, on whom so much responsibility rested, yet who was so
trammelled and thwarted by the timid and parsimonious policy of Elizabeth
and of Burghley, chafed and shook his chains like a captive. "Since
England was England," he exclaimed, "there was never such a stratagem
and mask to deceive her as this treaty of peace. I pray God that we do
not curse for this a long grey beard with a white head witless, that will
make all the world think us heartless. You know whom I mean." And it
certainly was not difficult to understand the allusion to the pondering
Lord-Treasurer." 'Opus est aliquo Daedalo,' to direct us out of the
maze," said that much puzzled statesman; but he hardly seemed to be