CHAPTER XI Drake in the Netherlands--Good Results of his Visit--The Babington Conspiracy--Leicester decides to visit England--Exchange of parting Compliments.Late in the autumn of the same year an Englishman arrived in theNetherlands, bearer of despatches from the Queen. He had been entrustedby her Majesty with a special mission to the States-General, and he hadsoon an interview with that assembly at the Hague.He was a small man, apparently forty-five years of age, of a fair butsomewhat weather-stained complexion, with light-brown, closely-curlinghair, an expansive forehead, a clear blue eye, rather commonplacefeatures, a thin, brown, pointed beard, and a slight moustache. Thoughlow of stature, he was broad-chested, with well-knit limbs. His hands,which were small and nervous, were brown and callous with the marks oftoil. There was something in his brow and glance not to be mistaken,and which men willingly call master; yet he did not seem, to have sprungof the born magnates of the earth. He wore a heavy gold chain about hisneck, and it might be observed that upon the light full sleeves of hisslashed doublet the image of a small ship on a terrestrial globe wascuriously and many times embroidered.It was not the first time that he had visited the Netherlands. Thirtyyears before the man had been apprentice on board a small lugger, whichtraded between the English coast and the ports of Zeeland. Emerging inearly boyhood from his parental mansion--an old boat, turned bottomupwards on a sandy down he had naturally taken to the sea, and hismaster, dying childless not long afterwards, bequeathed to him thelugger. But in time his spirit, too much confined by coasting in thenarrow seas, had taken a bolder flight. He had risked his hard-earnedsavings in a voyage with the old slave-trader, John Hawkins--whoseexertions, in what was then considered an honourable and useful vocation,