It would be difficult to exaggerate the pernicious effects of this suspicion.

Whether it was a well-grounded one or not, will be shown in a subsequent chapter, but there is no doubt that the vigour of the enterprise was thus sapped at a most critical moment.

The Provinces had never been more heartily banded together since the fatal 10th of July, 1584, than they were in the early spring of 1586.

They were rapidly organizing their own army, and, if the Queen had manifested more sympathy with her own starving troops, the united Englishmen and Hollanders would have been invincible even by Alexander Farnese.
Moreover, they had sent out nine war-vessels to cruise off the Cape Verd Islands for the homeward-bound Spanish treasure fleet from America, with orders, if they missed it, to proceed to the West Indies; so that, said Leicester, "the King of Spain will have enough to do between these men and Drake." All parties had united in conferring a generous amount of power upon the Earl, who was, in truth, stadholder-general, under grant from the States--and both Leicester and the Provinces themselves were eager and earnest for the war.

In war alone lay the salvation of England and Holland.