Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/529

I57L] THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. 515 If it was thought good by her Majesty that he should proceed, there was no doubt, he said, but various com- modities would follow : ' The practice of the enemy would be daily more and more discovered ; there would be credit gotten for a good sum of money ; the same money, as the time should bring forth cause, should be employed to their own detriment ; and the ships which should be appointed as they would suppose to serve their own turn might do some notable exploit to their g'reat damage/ l JSTo very creditable correspondence, on the face of it, between Elizabeth's greatest minister and England's ablest seaman : the Queen of Scots was being betrayed through her good nature, and Philip was to be duped into dependence upon a pretending traitor, and to be relieved at all events ' of a good sum of money ' by a process which resembled swindling. Hawkins doubtless took a keener interest than Cecil in the money part of the transaction. He maintained that the King of Spain was in his debt to the full value of the ships and pro- perty which had been destroyed in Mexico, and that he was doing no more than recover what justly belonged to him. Cecil was soiling his hands for no such sordid purpose. He was in search of secrets of state of tre- mendous moment, and treachery in extreme exigencies becomes but the legitimate feint of a general in the presence of the enemy. Fitzwilliam returned to Ma- drid with as little delay as possible. He found the Hawkins to Burghley, June 7 : MSS. QUEKN OF SCOTS.