Thus guarded, liberty and peace
With wreaths of glory crown thy
pow'r.

Virtue. Happy fubjects,

Fame.

Chorus.

Envy'd objects

Of the blefs'd with kinder fky:
All their pleasure,
Wanting CESAR,
Wants the blifs our hinds enjoy.
From CESAR's patriot fway,
The heart-reviving ray

Of liberty ferenes our sphere;
Hence! hence arife our vows,
That glory and repofe

Attend inftructive rhyme; No fins had Dor, to answer for, Pray think of yours in time.

The

T

HE great preparations for war on both fides, as mentioned on page 254, did not prevent fome overtures of a peace from the Duke of Parma: for, whether it was defigned only to amuse and deceive the Queen of England into a fatal fecurity, that fhe and her country might be the more eafily furprized, and ruined by his tremendous armament; or the Duke of Parma was thoroughly perfuaded that he should never be able to gather any laurels in the Netherlands, till he could by a peace, or fome ways, deprive them of the powerful aid contantly received from England; he obtained powers from the King of Spain, to treat about a peace with the English Miniftry, while his mafter was preparing to invade them with his whole ftrength.

But Elifabeth was too watchful and jealous of her enemies, to be cajoled by fuch pretences of amity; and, though the thought it not politic to reject his offers abfolutely, and informed the Duke that he was well difpofed to an accommodation; yet fhe was determined to arm herself against all events, and to treat of peace with fword in hand; and managed the negotiations fo dexterously, that they were fpun out in fruitlefs debates, till The was thoroughly prepared to receive the enemy; and Philip was obliged to pull off the mafk, and confefs his own infincerity, when his grand fleet was ready to put to fea; of which the reader has had an account on page 254.

Before the Spanish fleet failed out of the Tagus, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, Commander in chief, or Captaingeneral, in this expedition, iffued out his particular orders to be obferved by every Officer, and other perfons, under his command, in the voyage

towards England, dated the twentyeighth of May, 1588, in the first article of which is a moft clear declaration, That, before all things, it was to be understood by all the Officers and others, from the higheft to the lowest, that the principal foundation and caufe, moving the King's Majefty to make and continue this journey or expedition, had been and was to ferve God, and to deliver a great many good peɔple oppreffed and kept in fubjection to fectaries and heretics from eternal forrow, and to reflore them to the unity of his Church. After fuch a declaration, what could be expected from thefe Spanish miffionaries, whofe arguments were the enfigns of death and deftruction?

1

The bigotted adventurers, thus fpirited up with a notion of doing God fervice, as well as in expectation of enriching themfelves by the froil of the English nation, had already conquered us in their vain imagination, and affured of a recompence, whether they lived or died, in fo religious and advantageous a caufe, weighed anchor in the river of Lisbon, called the Tagus or Tajo, on the twenty-ninth of the fame month, and bent their course firft for the Groyne, with the greatest pride and glory, and the leaft doubt of fuccefs that their vanity could fuggeft to them. They were attended with all the ornaments of delight, and at the fame time carried all the horrors of flavery and deftruction, But they had not been long at fea, before they were feparated by a violent tempeft off cape Finisterre: three of the gallies, by the fratagem of David Gwinn, an English flave, affifted by fome of the Moorish rowers, were run into a port of France; and fourteen of them were driven to the chops of the channel, between Uhant and Scilly:

but,