IS77-] THE DESMOND REBELLION. 557 were men enough in the country itself, hardy, brave, resolute, trained by poverty to bear hunger, thirst, and exposure. The Scots of the Isles, good Catholics all of them, were also prepared to join. They wanted only guns, powder, and a little money, and if Fitzmaurice could bring these, and if a ship or two with stores and a few thousand ducats were sent to him three or four times a year from Spain, the whole country would soon be at his feet. The presence of a few English Catholics would be also useful, and he himself therefore and two or three others were about to accompany the expedition. Their friends at home, already impatient to rise, would hear of it. The Queen would not dare to reinforce her awn army, for half the men that she would send would probably be Catholics, and would turn against her ; and Fitzmaurice, having swept Ireland clear, would then cross the channel with his victorious hosts and strike the usurper to the ground/ l It is certainly singular that Philip resisted the temptation to countenance an experiment, the failure of which would involve to him nothing more than the loss of a few thousand ducats. But Philip, Sanders bitterly said, was as afraid of war as a child of fire, and had a kingly dislike of countenancing rebellions. Sfcukeley, independent of Fitzmaurice, procured ships and men for a private expedition of his own, and was on his way to Ireland, as has been already told, when he was diverted by Sebastian at Lisbon, and exchanged his ex- 1 Apuntamientos que dio el Doctor Sanderus en Madrid a 16 de De- ciembre, 1577: MSS. Simancas.
