You have read doubtless how, a century before I was born, the great kingdom of Spain waxed and prospered.

Her ships covered every sea.

Her troops were victorious wherever they appeared.

In letters, in learning, in all the arts of war and peace they were the foremost nation in Europe.

You have heard also of the ill-blood which existed between this great nation and ourselves; how our adventurers harried their possessions across the Atlantic, while they retorted by burning such of our seamen as they could catch by their devilish Inquisition, and by threatening our coasts both from Cadiz and from their provinces in the Netherlands.