Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/442

 422 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 60. league-breakers, leaving them to pretend it was done without your privity/ Elizabeth valued much proposals of this kind. None of her subjects pleased her better than those who would do her work and save her from responsibility. It was an unusual, road to * the kingdom of heaven/ But those who would understand England in the six- teenth century must recognize that brave and high- minded men were willing to risk being condemned as pirates to shield a sovereign who would not use their services otherwise : while Catholics, since the Paris massacre, had come to be looked on as wild beasts, who had no rights as human beings, and might be deceived, played with, and destroyed like wolves or vermin. The proposal which follows had been heard of before, but had not yet taken so practical a shape. Vast Catholic fleets went every summer to the banks of Newfoundland for the food of their fasting days. ' I/ continued the same writer, ' will undertake, if you will permit me, to fit out ships, well armed, for Newfoundland, where they will meet with all the great shipping of France, Spain, and Portugal. The best I will bring away and I will burn the rest. Commit us afterwards as pirates if you will, but I shall ruin their sea force, for they depend on their fishermen for their navies. It may be objected that this will be against your league ; but I hold it as lawful in Christian policy to prevent a mischief betimes as to revenge it too late ; especially seeing that God himself is a party to the quarrel now on foot, and His enemy maliciously dis-