So the peace party of the Council prevailed again, and Drake’s orders were changed.  He had been going as a lion.  The peace party now tried to send him as a fox.  But he stretched his instructions to their utmost limits and even defied the custom of the service by holding no council of war when deciding to swoop on Cadiz.

As they entered the harbor, the English saw sixty ships engaged in preparations for the Great Armada.  Many had no sails—­to keep the crews from deserting.  Others were waiting for their guns to come from Italy.  Ten galleys rowed out to protect them.  The weather and surroundings were perfect for these galleys.  But as they came end-on in line-abreast Drake crossed their T in line-ahead with the shattering broadsides of four Queen’s ships which soon sent them flying.  Each galley was the upright of the T, each English sailing ship the corresponding crosspiece.  Then Drake attacked the shipping and wrecked it right and left.  Next morning he led the pinnaces and boats into the inner harbor, where they cut out the big galleon belonging to Santa Cruz himself, the Spanish commander-in-chief.  Then the galleys got their chance again—­an absolutely perfect chance, because Drake’s fleet was becalmed at the very worst possible place for sailing ships and the very best possible place for the well-oared galleys.  But even under these extraordinary circumstances the ships smashed the galleys up with broadside fire and sent them back to cover.  Then the Spaniards towed some fire-ships out.  But the English rowed for them, threw grappling irons into them, and gave them a turn that took them clear.  Then, for the last time, the galleys came on, as bravely but as uselessly as ever.  When Drake sailed away he left the shipping of Cadiz completely out of action for months to come, though fifteen sail escaped destruction in the inner harbor.  His own losses were quite insignificant.

The next objective was Cape St. Vincent, so famous through centuries of naval history because it is the great strategic salient thrust out into the Atlantic from the southwest corner of Europe, and thus commands the flank approaches to and from the Mediterranean, to and from the coast of Africa, and, in those days, the route to and from New Spain by way of the Azores.  Here Drake had trouble with Borough, his second-in-command, a friend of cautious Burleigh and a man hide-bound in the warfare of the past—­a sort of English Don.  Borough objected to Drake’s taking decisive action without the vote of a council of war.  Remembering the terrors of Italian textbooks, he had continued to regard the galleys with much respect in the harbor of Cadiz even after Drake had broken them with ease.  Finally, still clinging to the old ways of mere raids and reprisals, he stood aghast at the idea of seizing Cape St. Vincent and making it a base of operations.  Drake promptly put him under arrest.