Considerations touching a Warre with Spaine. Written by the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Vi. St. Alban. [s.i.]. [s.n.]

London 1629. First edition. Quarto. [2], 46pp, contemporary panelled calf.

Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) vehemently militarist appeal, composed in 1624, for Britain to go to war with Spain in order to limit Habsburg dominance of the Continent; ‘Their greatnesse consisteth in their treasure, their treasure in their Indies, and their Indies (if it be well weighed) are indeed but an accession to such as are Masters of the Sea, so as this axeltree whereupon their greatnesse turneth is soone cut in two, by any that shall be stronger than they by Sea whereas wars are generally cause of poverty or consumption, on the contrary part the special nature of this warre with Spaine (if it be made by Sea) is like to be a lucrative and a restorative war’.

To bolster his advocacy of aggression, Bacon exploits the past victories of the British Navy in order to both ignite patriotic fervour and make triumph seem all the more likely. He thus keenly narrates the repelling of the 1601 Spanish invasion of Ireland, provides an account of the exploits of Drake and Hawkins in their expeditions against the enemy in the West Indies, and, in addition to relating the destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Bacon’s amanuensis and hagiographer William Rawley, in the foreword to his compilation of Bacon’s essays, Certaine miscellany works, published in the same year, scathingly refers to this edition as being ‘corrupt and surreptitious’ – nonetheless it is the sole printing in English of the work to be issued in the seventeenth-century.

ESTC S100335, STC 1126