But, like his "very friend," Lord Willoughby, he was "not of the genus Reptilia, and could neither creep nor crouch," and he failed, as usual, to win his way to the Queen's favour.

The governorship of Flushing was denied him, and, stung to the heart by such neglect, he determined to seek his fortune beyond the seas.
"Sir Philip hath taken a very hard resolution," wrote Walsingham to Davison, "to accompany Sir Francis Drake in this voyage, moved thereto for that he saw her Majesty disposed to commit the charge of Flushing unto some other; which he reputed would fall out greatly to his disgrace, to see another preferred before him, both for birth and judgment inferior unto him.

The despair thereof and the disgrace that he doubted he should receive have carried him into a different course." The Queen, however, relenting at last, interfered to frustrate his design.

Having thus balked his ambition in the Indian seas, she felt pledged to offer him the employment which he had originally solicited, and she accordingly conferred upon him the governorship of Flushing, with the rank of general of horse, under the Earl of Leicester.

In the latter part of November, he cast anchor, in the midst of a violent storm, at Rammekins, and thence came to the city of his government.