A man may see, by this little progress journey, what this long peace hath wrought in us.

We are weary of the war before we come where it groweth, such a danger hath this long peace brought us into.

This is, and will be, in my opinion, a most fit school and nursery to nourish soldiers to be able to keep and defend our country hereafter, if men will follow it." Wilford was vehement in denouncing the mercantile tendencies of his countrymen, and returned frequently to that point in his communications with Walsingham and other statesmen.

"God hath stirred up this action," he repeated again, "to be a school to breed up soldiers to defend the freedom of England, which through these long times of peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate, if it should be attempted.

Our delicacy is such that we are already weary, yet this journey is naught in respect to the misery and hardship that soldiers must and do endure." He was right in his estimate of the effect likely to be produced by the war upon the military habits of Englishmen; for there can be no doubt that the organization and discipline of English troops was in anything but a satisfactory state at that period.