He carried out one ship of the queen's, and seven others equipped at his own expense; but the prizes which he made did not compensate the charges.[**] [Illustration: 1-527-raleigh.jpg SIR WALTER RALEIGH] The spirit of these expensive and hazardous adventures was very prevalent in England.

Sir Walter Raleigh, who had enjoyed great favor with the queen, finding his interest to decline, determined to recover her good graces by some important undertaking; and as his reputation was high among his countrymen, he persuaded great numbers to engage with him as volunteers in an attempt on the West Indies.
{1592.} The fleet was detained so long in the Channel by contrary winds, that the season was lost: Raleigh was recalled by the queen: Sir Martin Frobisher succeeded to the command, and made a privateering voyage against the Spaniards.

He took one rich carrack near the Island of Flores, and destroyed another.[***] About the same time, Thomas White, a Londoner, took two Spanish ships, which, besides fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, contained above two millions of bulls for indulgences; a commodity useless to the English, but which had cost the king of Spain three hundred thousand florins, and would have been sold by him in the Indies for five millions.
{1593.} This war did great damage to Spain; but it was attended with considerable expense to England; and Elizabeth's ministers computed, that since the commencement of it, she had spent in Flanders and France, and on her naval expeditions, above one million two hundred thousand pounds;[****] a charge which, notwithstanding her extreme frugality, was too burthensome for her narrow revenues to support.
* Monson, p.

163.
** Monson, p.

169.
*** Monson, p.165.Camden, p 569.
**** Strype, vol.iii.
She summoned, therefore, a parliament, in order to obtain supply: but she either thought her authority so established that she needed to make them no concessions in return, or she rated her power and prerogative above money: for there never was any parliament whom she treated in a more haughty manner, whom she made more sensible of their own weakness, or whose privileges she more openly violated.