ABSTRACT

Unavoidable continental commitments now began to absorb all the resources of the crown. The war at sea continued, but for a time it remained in the hands of private persons, with an occasional queen's ship in the larger fleets. Throughout the war privateers of various kinds, equipped with royal letters of marque and commissions to prey on Spain, roamed the seas; the earl of Cumberland, for instance, had at least one such ship and usually many -more at sea all the time. It appears that an average of from 100 to 200 privateering ventures set sail from England every year after 1585,

THE WAR WITH SPAIN, 15 9-°3 379

bringing in prizes to an annual value of [,15°,000-[,3°0,000. The main backers were merchants, especially the great men of the Barbary, Guinea, and Levant Companies. The weight of enterprise shifted from the west country to London and it acquired a much more thorough organisation. Though the regular trades, such as that in cloth, suffered by the war, imports of prize goods increased enormously, especially of sugar in which England came near to establishing a European monopoly. Shipbuilding boomed. Altogether, though the crown and perhaps the country made little out of it, the mercantile community seems to have enjoyed considerable profits from privateering.1 The better-known voyages brought less gain. In 1590 and 1591 Frobisher, Hawkins, and Cumberland all had squadrons in the Azores on the look-out for treasure ships. No captures were made, mainly because Philip II had stopped the 1591 flota from sailing; although he thus greatly added to his own difficulties, he also robbed the English raiders of all profit. In 159 I the Spaniards had their one naval success of the war. A fleet from Ferrol-the ex-Armada vessels which Drake had omitted to destroy in I589-sailed to the Azores to bring home the delayed plate fleet. At Flores it surprised a squadron commanded by Lord Thomas Howard which got away, except for the Revenge under Sir Richard Grenville. To this day it is uncertain whether Grenville's failure to escape was due to folly, braggadocio, or misfortune. The vessel's heroic day-long fight against the whole Spanish fleet has become legendary. When the Revenge surrendered, Grenville was dying and all the crew were dead or wounded. But glorious as the action was it was also probably unnecessary, and it really marked the triumph of the new Spanish convoy system which made both her empire and her treasure fleets much more difficult to attack. The only English success of the time was the taking of the great East India carrack, the Madre de Dios, in 1592. The ship \vas so ruthlessly and carelessly plundered on their own behalf by officers and men of the capturing squadron that her treasures in pearls, jewels and specie vanished beyond hope of recovery into private pockets; during the search the candles of the gold-crazed horde started fires no less than five times. The hull with its immensely valuable cargo (£800,000) was nearly left behind in the rush, and though the queen got a very fair return on her outlay she felt, with some justification, that indiscipline had

3 WAR, I 585-I 3 robbed her of more. The Madre de Dios played the part for a new generation which the Cacafuego had played for their elders: hopes of another such capture kept the ships at sea.