3*2 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 59. stolen or killed for food. Desertion, sickness, famine, thinned his ranks together, and three months after his landing, out of twelve hundred men, he had but two hundred left who were fit for duty. 1 ' The Devonshire men,' sent by Sir Arthur Champernowne, the country- men of Drake and Hawkins, the very bone and sinew of the roving navy, forgot their nature in the Irish swamps. 'The men of Devon/ wrote Essex, 'came here well appointed and likely to look at, but in their doings they are the worst I ever saw. Mutinous in camp, and cowardly in the field, when they saw likeli- hood of work, they began to steal away. Some I caught and hanged. The rest would rather starve than come to service. The gentlemen have sent me only such as they were glad to rid their country of. I am ashamed that England should breed such weak-hearted men as come hither/ 2 Without waiting for Elizabeth's resolution, the Earl said decisively that he must abandon his grant. He was ruined, and he* must endeavour to bear it. He could not keep his soldiers. They told him that they had joined him out of personal goodwill, and Would stay no longer than they pleased. 'The war could only be carried on by the Governor of the realm, whom he would himself obey and serve as a private man.' 3 Never was illusion more rapidly dissipated. The Southern adventurers, had Carew not fallen across the 1 Captain Malby to Cecil, De- cember 8 : MSS. Ireland. 2 Essex to the Council, Decem- ber ii : MSS. Ibid. 3 Essex to the Council, Decem- ber 3 : MSS. Ibid.
