Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/159

 *

however, still lagged behind his subjects. A war with England would have been then a serious matter; he knew that in any such emergency France would send an army over the Rhine and revolutionise the Netherlands. He was therefore obliged to endure these continued insults and the piratical depredations upon the ships and merchandise of his subjects. It was the lesser of two evils. Encouraged by the richness of the spoils and the impunity with which the capture of Spanish property could be made, the English merchants and sailors were tempted to such an extent from their legitimate trade by the more exciting and far more lucrative occupation of bucaneering, that in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth's reign the burden of all the vessels in the kingdom which were engaged in ordinary commerce scarcely exceeded fifty thousand tons. The largest merchantman which then sailed from the port of London was only two hundred and forty tons register. Indeed, one hundred and fifty vessels of all kinds, most of them small coasters, comprised the whole fleet engaged in lawful commerce from the harbours of Cornwall and Devonshire; but so numerous were the pirates that no unarmed ship in the Channel worthy of their notice could escape from their clutches. Nor did they confine themselves to depredations at sea. Some of the crews of the more daring cruisers harassed the Spanish coast, sacking villages, plundering mansions, pilfering churches and convents, and had, moreover, the audacity to drink success to piracy out of the silver sacramental vessels which they had stolen. If not in all cases