Elizabeth was not embodying the national instinct, when she talked of peace; and shrank penuriously from the expenses of war.

There was much disappointment, even indignation, at the slothfulness with which the preparations for defence went on, during the period when there was yet time to make them.

It was feared with justice that England, utterly unfortified as were its cities, and defended only by its little navy without, and by untaught enthusiasm within, might; after all, prove an easier conquest than Holland and Zeeland, every town, in whose territory bristled with fortifications.

If the English ships--well-trained and swift sailors as they were--were unprovided with spare and cordage, beef and biscuit, powder and shot, and the militia-men, however enthusiastic, were neither drilled nor armed, was it so very certain, after all, that successful resistance would be made to the great Armada, and to the veteran pikemen and musketeers of Farnese, seasoned on a hundred, battlefields, and equipped as for a tournament?
There was generous confidence and chivalrous loyalty on the part of Elizabeth's naval and military commanders; but there had been deep regret and disappointment at her course.
Hawkins was anxious, all through the winter and spring, to cruise with a small squadron off the coast of Spain.

With a dozen vessels he undertook to "distress anything that went through the seas." The cost of such a squadron, with eighteen hundred men, to be relieved every four months, he estimated at two thousand seven hundred pounds sterling the month, or a shilling a day for each man; and it would be a very unlucky month, he said, in which they did not make captures to three times that amount; for they would see nothing that would not be presently their own.