a hurry.  Perhaps he was in time to save Vigo itself.  Perhaps Drake, having other aims in view, did not care to be detained over a smaller object.  The Governor, at any rate, saw that the English were too strong for him to meddle with.  The best that he could look for was to persuade them to go away on the easiest terms.  Drake and he met in boats for a parley.  Drake wanted water and fresh provisions.  Drake was to be allowed to furnish himself undisturbed.  He had secured what he most wanted.  He had shown the King of Spain that he was not invulnerable in his own home dominion, and he sailed away unmolested.  Madrid was in consternation.  That the English could dare insult the first prince in Europe on the sacred soil of the Peninsula itself seemed like a dream.  The Council of State sat for three days considering the meaning of it.  Drake’s name was already familiar in Spanish ears.  It was not conceivable that he had come only to inquire after the arrested ships and seamen.  But what could the English Queen be about?  Did she not know that she existed only by the forbearance of Philip?  Did she know the King of Spain’s force?  Did not she and her people quake?  Little England, it was said by some of these councillors, was to be swallowed at a mouthful by the King of half the world.  The old Admiral Santa Cruz was less confident about the swallowing.  He observed that England had many teeth, and that instead of boasting of Spanish greatness it would be better to provide against what she might do with them.  Till now the corsairs had appeared only in twos and threes.  With such a fleet behind him Drake might go where he pleased.  He might be going to the South Seas again.  He might take Madeira if he liked, or the Canary Islands.  Santa Cruz himself thought he would make for the West Indies and Panama, and advised the sending out there instantly every available ship that they had.

The gold fleet was Drake’s real object.  He had information that it would be on its way to Spain by the Cape de Verde Islands, and he had learnt the time when it was to be expected.  From Vigo he sailed for the Canaries, looked in at Palma, with ’intention to have taken our pleasure there,’ but found the landing dangerous and the town itself not worth the risk.  He ran on to the Cape de Verde Islands.  He had measured his time too narrowly.  The gold fleet had arrived and had gone.  He had missed it by twelve hours, ‘the reason,’ as he said with a sigh, ’best known to God.’  The chance of prize-money was lost, but the political purpose of the expedition could still be completed.  The Cape de Verde Islands could not sail away, and a beginning could be made with Sant Iago.  Sant Iago was a thriving, well-populated town, and down in Drake’s book as specially needing notice, some Plymouth sailors having been recently murdered there.  Christopher Carlile, always handy and trustworthy, was put on shore with a thousand men to attack the place on the undefended side.  The