490 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 56 our relations with them have been uniformly good, and commerce with Spain and the Netherlands has been most profitable to them, while the French have not a friend in the realm. The whole Catholic party are on our side, consisting as it does of all the greatest families. If we do not help them in their need, we shall offend God, and we shall leave the country to the heretics. The Queen is only prevented from making open war upon us by the want of men and money ; and if Cob- ham is not now sent away with an answer of becoming spirit, an attempt to conciliate her will only involve us in fresh troubles, and we shall have ruined the Catholics, even while they have arms in their hands to help them- selves and us. Let the Queen know that our King undertakes to protect her Catholic subjects : I warrant she will no more ill use them, and there is no other way out of our present difficulties. For two years now we have been taking the coward's road, we have found it a dirty one, and it is time for us to try another. ISTo one has a better right than I to speak of this matter : I have had much to do with the English, I know the Queen, I know her ministers, I know their ways and their resources, and I cannot conceive for what reason we are so need- lessly hesitating. 1 Cobham called on me the morning on which he arrived. He brought me most loving mes- sages from the Queen, and remained some time with me. 1 De Feria's effective metaphor I no longer in use in Spanish. It does not bear a closer translation. His words arc :
- No se porque nos meamos en el
vado tan sin porque.' The phrase ' mear eu el vacio ' is means however obviously that the ford of a river is no place to stop in for purposes which can be attended to elsewhere.
