In the general good-humour punishment could not be of long duration.  The next day the poor chaplain had his absolution, and returned to his berth and his duty.  The Pelican met with no more adventures.  Sweeping in fine clear weather round the Cape of Good Hope, she touched once for water at Sierra Leone, and finally sailed in triumph into Plymouth Harbour, where she had been long given up for lost, having traced the first furrow round the globe.  Winter had come home eighteen months before, but could report nothing.  The news of the doings on the American coast had reached England through Madrid.  The Spanish ambassador had been furious.  It was known that Spanish squadrons had been sent in search.  Complications would arise if Drake brought his plunder home, and timid politicians hoped that he was at the bottom of the sea.  But here he was, actually arrived with a monarch’s ransom in his hold.

English sympathy with an extraordinary exploit is always irresistible.  Shouts of applause rang through the country, and Elizabeth, every bit of her an Englishwoman, felt with her subjects.  She sent for Drake to London, made him tell his story over and over again, and was never weary of listening to him.  As to injury to Spain, Philip had lighted a fresh insurrection in Ireland, which had cost her dearly in lives and money.  For Philip to demand compensation of England on the score of justice was a thing to make the gods laugh.

So thought the Queen.  So unfortunately did not think some members of her Council, Lord Burghley among them.  Mendoza was determined that Drake should be punished and the spoils disgorged, or else that he would force Elizabeth upon the world as the confessed protectress of piracy.  Burghley thought that, as things stood, some satisfaction (or the form of it) would have to be made.

Elizabeth hated paying back as heartily as Falstaff, nor had she the least intention of throwing to the wolves a gallant Englishman, with whose achievements the world was ringing.  She was obliged to allow the treasure to be registered by a responsible official, and an account rendered to Mendoza; but for all that she meant to keep her own share of the spoils.  She meant, too, that Drake and his brave crew should not go unrewarded.  Drake himself should have ten thousand pounds at least.

Her action was eminently characteristic of her.  On the score of real justice there was no doubt at all how matters stood between herself and Philip, who had tried to dethrone and kill her.

The Pelican lay still at Plymouth with the bullion and jewels untouched.  She directed that it should be landed and scheduled.  She trusted the business to Edmund Tremayne, of Sydenham, a neighbouring magistrate, on whom she could depend.  She told him not to be too inquisitive, and she allowed Drake to go back and arrange the cargo before the examination was made.  Let me now read you a letter from Tremayne himself to Sir Francis Walsingham:—­