Upon a warm afternoon of 2nd November 1625, Sir Edward Cecil with his squadrons were sighted as they made for the outer harbour of Cadiz. The Earl of Essex, Cecil's viceadmiral, who had a family interest in Cadiz expeditions, dashed in, but could not prevent the Spanish ships in the outer anchorage from playing the old game of squeezing through the passage which led to the shallow inner harbour. They could execute this manœuvre with facility because the tide was at the flood. It had not occurred to Cecil's remarkable ship captains and maritime advisers that the proper time to appear off Cadiz was when the tide was at its lowest and the outer harbour a closed bag net. The surprise in other other respects was complete, and the day of attack well chosen. The Spaniards knew that a sudden raid might come, yet judged the season then too late for an attempt. The garrison of Cadiz consisted of but a few hundred men; they were ill-provisioned, with no more than three days rations, and were in no state to withstand

Cecil at once captured the Fort Puntal which guarded the neck of the swan, of which Cadiz formed the head and beak, he could have carried the main fortress with even his rabble of soldiery. But, making every mistake in detail open to him-which was the fault of his naval incompetence, -he had arrived at the wrong time, in the afternoon on the flood instead of in the morning at the ebb, and he was stopped by darkness and low water before he could get busy upon the first essential step-the capture of Fort Puntal, and the outstretched vulnerable neck of the Cadiz swan.

It is common form in romances treating of the old fights between Englishmen and Spaniards to represent the English as superior at all points of the game by land and sea. It is also common-for which we must hold the excellent Mr Charles Kingsley as in the main responsible-to represent the English as the Children of Light waging remorseless war upon the Children of Outer Darkness. All this is rubbish.

Westward Ho!' as a story most admirable, is as history nothing better than a spasm of Victorian anti-Catholic propaganda. The Spaniards both by land and sea were very formidable foes indeed, skilful, gallant, and chivalrous. And between the fighting men on the two sides there was no bitterness or pretence of lofty motives in warfare. Spain pos

sessed too many places in the sun from which they excluded the English, and the English were doing their utmost to break their way in. The fighting all through was between foes who liked and respected each other. France, not Spain, was the hereditary enemy of old England; we should have left Spain at peace had she not chosen to monopolise that treasure-house of the New World across the Atlantic towards which the eyes of England, a poor and minor Power in Europe, turned hungrily.

The captains of Spain showed their warlike quality at this moment of Cecil's raid upon Cadiz. They had one November night within which to secure Cadiz against immediate assault and capture, and they secured it. As a tactical feat of war it was superb. Old de Giron, the Governor of Cadiz-who, since he could not walk for gout, was carried by his troops in a chair, got instantly into touch with the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the great local magnate on the mainland, and the son of the Armada's admiral. Troops were poured over the still open Bridge of Suazo, and a thousand men were ferried along the shore of the swan's neck and landed in the fortress at the swan's head. In the early hours of morning five swift galleys ran across the outer harbour under Cecil's nose, and filled up the city of Cadiz with provisions and ammunition. Cecil's longboats, trailing astern, had been carried

away on the voyage out, and he was incapable of manœuvring his heavy ships against many- oared elusive galleys. After the sun had risen, the Spaniards, grown contemptuous of their English raiders, continued the operations which had been so successfully begun during the hours of darkness. In twenty-four hours Cadiz passed from empty feebleness to full security, and Cecil might as well go home. He had lost the game ere scarcely a gun had been fired.

Peeke's story begins with the attack on Fort Puntal, which commanded the sea approaches to the inner harbour and the land approach to Cadiz. Cecil had arrived on a Saturday afternoon, Puntal was bombarded and carried on the Sun

day. But the tactical opportunity had passed. Cadiz had now been reinforced and provisioned, and was impregnable to assault. All that Cecil could attempt, before the late season and his own shortage of stores drove him to hasten back to England, was to seize the Bridge of Leon (now too late), to go after the Spanish ships which sheltered in the inner harbour (they were already safe), and to look for the coming of the Plate Fleet (which was artfully waiting down south till he had gone back to the north). He tried to bring off all three of these operations, and in all three he failed.

Peeke's ship, the Convertine, Captain Porter, was among those sent against Fort Puntal.

She was of light draught, and her commander, an excellent officer, took her in to broadside distance in fine English fashion. The fort was quickly battered into silence; it was poorly armed and lightly held. The Convertine suffered little harm, except from some armed Newcastle colliers, which, acting in clumsy support of her, contrived to hit her with their round shot more often than they hit the fort. Peeke took part in the attack on Puntal, which after bombardment was carried by assault, and attracted some slight attention. "My hurts and bruises here received," he writes, "albeit they were neither many nor dangerous, yet were they such that when the fight was done many gentlemen in our ship, for my encouragement, gave me money." This was on the Sunday afternoon.

He

On the Monday morning Sir Edward Cecil landed the bulk of his regiments of pressed untrained men, and led them himself away from Cadiz along the narrow swan's neck with the purpose of occupying the Suazo Bridge, and so isolating the garrison of the city. did not know how completely the Spanish dispositions had checkmated his movements whatever he might do. I will settle with Cecil and his army before taking up the private adventures of Dick Peeke, who, not being a land soldier, remained in the ship. The army, with no provisions in its knapsacks, and with no arrangements made for sending along

after it supplies from the fleet, tramped off over the hot salt marshes of Leon, getting all the while exceedingly cross and extremely thirsty. Being totally without discipline, it had no cohesion as soon as its myriad belly began to give it pain. Cecil got as far as a spot called Hercules' Pillars, and then, after some vague coming and going, and sending back to inquire when the meat and drink were coming along from the ships, the exasperated regiments of disgruntled soldiery were ordered to camp near some Spanish houses. The thirsty men, snuffing around for liquor, were not long in discovering that the cellars of these houses contained a large store of new Spanish wine in ironbound casks, which was awaiting shipment to the West Indies. Cecil and his officers then quickly learned what many British officers have learned since that it is ill to stand between the hot throats of Englishmen and casks of drink. Cecil made poor attempt to retain control by ordering a butt of wine to be served out to each regiment. But the whole army dissolved instantly into a raging drinkseeking rabble, which swept over generals and officers, and fell upon the wine-casks. It was the biggest occasion of a free drink in English history. The army drank itself blind and helpless not by scores or hundreds, but by whole battalions. Cecil himself afterwards declared that so thor

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oughly had his army taken to drink that 300 Spaniards might have cut the throats of the whole force. "Set a guard upon wine, of common soldiers," he wrote in explanation of the failure of his expedition, "and the guard will be first drunk. . . . If the King of Spain will defend his country, let him lodge wine upon his coasts, and he may overthrow any army with it." He further explained that he set guards at four places, and that while he went to visit one guard the others would be drunk before he got back to them. This big drink of Hercules' Pillars became a joyful chapter in English history. In grateful recollection of it men returning set up taverns which they named Hercules' Pillars to its immortal memory. There was a famous Hercules' Pillars at Hyde Park Corner, where Apsley House now stands, and whither Squire Western used to resort when he arrived in London from his country fast

nesses.

It was upon that Monday, which closed in a fashion so handsome, that Peeke's own adventures really begin. I have set the stage for his exploits.

That morning, though as late in the year as 4th November by our reckoning, gathered heat as the sun rose in the southern Spanish sky, and Dick Peeke, having nothing better to do, thought that he would take a stroll ashore. The army had marched away to the left of him, while Cadiz lay unmasked

on his right, and no more than two miles distant. For a man to venture himself thus alone in an enemy's country — an enemy, too, who was intensely exasperated by the English piratical raid-was for that man to ask for trouble. But as other men were doing the same heedless thing, and he desired to sample the Spanish oranges and lemons of which he had heard, Peeke "ventured on shore, to refresh myself, with my sword only by my side; because I thought that the late storms [the assault upon Puntal] had beaten all the Spaniards in, and therefore I feared no danger." He proceeded "softly," and presently met other foragers who had found and were taking back to the ships the fruit for which Peeke was seeking. This encouraged him to go on for a mile. Bear in mind that Cadiz, garrisoned by four thousand Spanish soldiers, was then no farther distant than another mile.

It was at this point that he received his first shock. At his feet, lying in the sand-pits of the Island of Leon, were the dead bodies of three Englishmen, and a short distance away lay a fourth man, not fully dead. Peeke, a typical son of Devon in his insensibility to danger and in his native kindliness, resolved to carry this wounded man back to the ships if by any effort of his it could be managed. But his good work was rudely interrupted. Upon him, spur

ring fiercely through the heavy sand, fell a fully-armed knight, one Don Juan of Cadiz. Peeke whipped out his own blade, wrapped his cloak as a buckler round his left arm, and met the horseman's assault as best he could. So began a pretty fight among the sand bunkers -I employ this word because from Peeke's description the spit of land which connects Cadiz with Fort Puntal was a fine bit of natural golf country. To and fro they fought until Peeke contrived to climb to the top of a sand-hill, and so gained a decided advantage of ground. Don Juan, who had come out without pistols, charged up the hill trying to ride over Peeke. But our excellent Dick blinded the horse by throwing his cloak over its eyes, and then side-stepping, unseated the rider. Peeke now had Don Juan at the point of his sword, but elected to spare his life and to collect something on account of his future ransom. In the days of Dick Peeke defeated common soldiers were slaughtered out of hand, but knights and gentlemen volunteers could usually buy their lives from their conquerors.

Here, then, we have Don Juan, who had surrendered and been granted quarter in due form, lying on the ground being gone over by Peeke in approved fashion. The search yielded no more than five pieces of eight (dollars), or twenty shillings English, and Peeke was trying to discover

on the man a more ample reward for his trouble-" he had gold, but that I could not come by "-when the play was interrupted by the intrusion of fourteen Spanish musketeers. It was now poor Dick's turn to surrender, and Don Juan's to show that, though a Spanish knight, he was no gentleman. This man, as soon as Peeke's hands had been bound, and he had regained his surrendered sword, thrust Peeke through the face "from ear to ear," and would have slain him had not the fourteen musketeerswho were gentlemen-promptly interfered. Upon this Dick Peeke "was led in triumph into the town of Cadiz; an owl not more wondered and hooted at; a dog not more cursed."

The conduct of the Spanish officers and soldiers stands out brightly by contrast with that of the scurvy dog, Don Juan, who later was severely rebuked by his superiors for his baseness. No one ill-treated Peeke in Cadiz except a Fleming, who, in order to demonstrate his noisy loyalty to the Spanish cause, drove a halberd into Peeke's back at least four inches." The fine old Governor of Cadiz, Fernando de Giron

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the gouty warrior already referred to who had saved his city in its emergency,-sent for Peeke, and finding him suffering from wounds in the face and groin, gave "express charge that the best surgeons should be sent for lest being so basely hurt and handled by cowards,