The success which had attended their predecessors had inspired the English sailors with a belief in their own invincibility, when opposed to the Spaniards.

They looked, to a certain extent, upon their mission as a crusade.

In those days England had a horror of Popery, and Spain was the mainstay and supporter of this religion.
The escape which England had had of having Popery forced upon it, during the reign of Mary, by her spouse, Philip of Spain, had been a narrow one; and even now, it was by no means certain that Spain would not, sooner or later, endeavor to carry out the pretensions of the late queen's husband.

Then, too, terrible tales had come of the sufferings of the Indians at the hands of the Spaniards; and it was certain that the English sailors who had fallen into the hands of Spain had been put to death, with horrible cruelty.

Thus, then, the English sailors regarded the Spaniards as the enemy of their country, as the enemy of their religion, and as the enemy of humanity.