He represented that he could not cross without a fleet to cover his passage.  His transport barges would only float in smooth water, and whether the water was smooth or rough they could be sent to the bottom by half a dozen English cruisers from the Thames.  Supposing him to have landed, either in Thanet or other spot, he reminded Philip that he could not have at most more than 25,000 men with him.  The English militia were in training.  The Jesuits said they were disaffected, but the Jesuits might be making a mistake.  He might have to fight more than one battle.  He would have to leave detachments as he advanced to London, to cover his communications, and a reverse would be fatal.  He would obey if his Majesty persisted, but he recommended Philip to continue to amuse the English with the treaty till the Armada was ready, and, in evident consciousness that the enterprise would be harder than Philip imagined, he even gave it as his own opinion still (notwithstanding Cadiz), that if Elizabeth would surrender the cautionary towns in Flanders to Spain, and would grant the English Catholics a fair degree of liberty, it would be Philip’s interest to make peace at once without stipulating for further terms.  He could make a new war if he wished at a future time, when circumstances might be more convenient and the Netherlands revolt subdued.

To such conditions as these it seemed that Elizabeth was inclining to consent.  The towns had been trusted to her keeping by the Netherlanders.  To give them up to the enemy to make better conditions for herself would be an infamy so great as to have disgraced Elizabeth for ever; yet she would not see it.  She said the towns belonged to Philip and she would only be restoring his own to him.  Burghley bade her, if she wanted peace, send back Drake to the Azores and frighten Philip for his gold ships.  She was in one of her ungovernable moods.  Instead of sending out Drake again she ordered her own fleet to be dismantled and laid up at Chatham, and she condescended to apologise to Parma for the burning of the transports at Cadiz as done against her orders.

This was in December 1587, only five months before the Armada sailed from Lisbon.  Never had she brought herself and her country so near ruin.  The entire safety of England rested at that moment on the adventurers, and on the adventurers alone.

Meanwhile, with enormous effort the destruction at Cadiz had been repaired.  The great fleet was pushed on, and in February Santa Cruz reported himself almost ready.  Santa Cruz and Philip, however, were not in agreement as to what should be done.  Santa Cruz was a fighting admiral, Philip was not a fighting king.  He changed his mind as often as Elizabeth.  Hot fits varied with cold.  His last news from England led him to hope that fighting would not be wanted.  The Commissioners were sitting at Ostend.  On one side there were the formal negotiations, in which the surrender of the towns was not yet treated