At this moment the war with the Spaniards—the resistance which the English auxiliaries offered to them in the Netherlands, as well as the attack now being made on their coasts—occupied men's minds all the more, as the success of both the one and the other was very doubtful, and a most dangerous counter-stroke was to be expected. The lion they wished to bind had only become exasperated. The naval war in particular provoked the extreme of peril.

Hostilities had been going on a long while, arising at first from the privateering which filled the whole of the Western Ocean. The English traders held it to be their right to avenge every injustice done them on their neighbours' coasts—for man has, they said, a natural desire of procuring himself satisfaction—and so turned themselves into freebooters. Through the counter operations of the Spaniards this private naval war became more and more extensive, and then also gradually developed more glorious impulses, as we see in Francis Drake, who at first only took part in the mere privateering of injured traders, and afterwards rose to the idea of a maritime rivalry between the nations. It was an important moment in the history of the world when Drake on the isthmus of Panama first caught sight of the Pacific, and prayed God for His grace that he might sail over this sea some day in an English ship—a grace since granted not merely to himself but also in the richest measure to his nation.