Now Philip ii. was slow in resolving, slower in action.  The ponderous three-deckers of Biscay were notoriously the dullest sailers ever known, nor were the fettered slaves who rowed the great galleys of Portugal or of Andalusia very brisk in their movements; and yet the King might have found time to marshal his ideas and his squadrons, and the Armada had leisure to circumnavigate the globe and invade England afterwards, if a succession of John Rogerses could have entertained his Highness with compliments while the preparations were making.

But Alexander—­at the very outset of the Doctor’s eloquence—­found it difficult to suppress his feelings.  “I can assure your Majesty,” said Rogers, “that his eyes—­he has a very large eye—­were moistened.  Sometimes they were thrown upward to heaven, sometimes they were fixed full upon me, sometimes they were cast downward, well declaring how his heart was affected.”

Honest John even thought it necessary to mitigate the effect of his rhetoric, and to assure his Highness that it was, after all, only he Doctor Rogers, and not the minister plenipotentiary of the Queen’s most serene Majesty, who was exciting all this emotion.

“At this part of my speech,” said he, “I prayed his Highness not to be troubled, for that the same only proceeded from Doctor Rogers, who, it might please him to know, was so much moved with the pitiful case of these countries, as also that which of war was sure to ensue, that I wished, if my body were full of rivers of blood, the same to be poured forth to satisfy any that were blood-thirsty, so there might an assured peace follow.”

His Highness, at any rate, manifesting no wish to drink of such sanguinary streams—­even had the Doctor’s body contained them—­Rogers became calmer.  He then descended from rhetoric to jurisprudence and casuistry, and argued at intolerable length the propriety of commencing the conferences at Ostend, and of exhibiting mutually the commissions.

It is quite unnecessary to follow him as closely as did Farnese.  When he had finished the first part of his oration, however, and was “addressing himself to the second point,” Alexander at last interrupted the torrent of his eloquence.

“He said that my divisions and subdivisions,” wrote the Doctor, “were perfectly in his remembrance, and that he would first answer the first point, and afterwards give audience to the second, and answer the same accordingly.”

Accordingly Alexander put on his hat, and begged the envoy also to be covered.  Then, “with great gravity, as one inwardly much moved,” the Duke took up his part in the dialogue.

“Signor Ruggieri,” said he, “you have propounded unto me speeches of two sorts:  the one proceeds from Doctor Ruggieri, the other from the lord ambassador of the most serene Queen of England.  Touching the first, I do give you my hearty thanks for your godly speeches, assuring you that though, by reason I have always followed the wars, I cannot be ignorant of the calamities by you alleged, yet you have so truly represented the same before mine eyes as to effectuate in me at this instant, not only the confirmation of mine own disposition to have peace, but also an assurance that this treaty shall take good and speedy end, seeing that it hath pleased God to raise up such a good instrument as you are.”