Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/152

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 64. intended to return to England. He pointed to a chart of the globe. There was the way he had come, the way by China and the Cape of Good Hope, and there was ' a third way,' but that San Juan said ' the captain would not acquaint him withal.' The Spaniard inquired whether his master was at war with England. Drake answered evasively, that he had the Queen's commission for what he had done, that the spoil which he had taken was for her, and not for himself. But he said afterwards that the Viceroy of New Spain had robbed him and his kinsman Hawkins, and that he was but making good his losses ; and then touching the sore to the quick, he added : 'I know the Viceroy will send for thee to inform himself of my proceedings. Thou mayest tell him he shall do well to put no more Englishmen to death, and to spare those four that he has in his hands, for if he do execute them, they will cost the lives of two thousand Spaniards, whom I will hang and send him their heads.' l After a week's stay in the Pelican, San Juan was restored to the empty Cacafuego and allowed to depart, with an ironical protection against further molestation, should he fall in with Winter. On his way back he met the two Spanish cruisers who had followed up from Lima. They had been ordered if they could not take Drake to convoy San Juan. They had come too late. They were now armed to the teeth, they had two ' Depositions taken in the West Indies by the King of Spain's Min- isters : MSS. Spain, 1580, Botts House.