Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/146

 130 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. _.-; fcH. 64. on board, and one ' Thomas Moore,' a lad from Ply- mouth, began the play with knocking down the first man that he met, saluting him in Spanish as he fell, and crying out ' Abajo, perro ' 'Down, dog, to .' The Spaniards, overwhelmed with surprise, began to cross and bless themselves. One sprung overboard and swam ashore ; the rest were bound and stowed away under the hatches while the ship was rifled. The be- ginning was not a bad one. Wedges of gold were found weighing four hundred pounds, besides miscel- laneous plunder. The settlement, which was visited next, was less productive, for the inhabitants had fled, taking their valuables with them. ^ The chapel how- ever yielded something. Mr Fletcher's provision for the sacrament was enriched by a chalice, two cruets, and an altar cloth. A few pipes of wine, some logs of cedar, and a Greek pilot who knew the way to Lima, completed the booty. Leaving Valparaiso to recover from its astonishment, the corsairs, as the Spaniards termed them, went on and landed next at Tarapaca, where silver bullion was brought down from the mountains to be shipped for Panama. It was as when men set foot for the first time on some shore where the forms of their race have never before been seen, and the animals come fearlessly round them, and the birds perch upon their hands, ignorant as yet of the deadly nature of the beings in whom they trust so rashly. The colonists of the -New World, when they saw a sail approaching, knew no misgiving, and never dreamt that it could be other than a friend. The