was the most successful English privateering venture made during the war. Both Drake and Hawkins died of disease on the later 1595–96 expedition against Puerto Rico, Panama, and other targets in the Spanish Main, a severe setback in which the English suffered heavy losses in soldiers and ships despite a number of minor military victories. In August 1595, a Spanish naval force from Brittany led by Carlos de Amésquita landed in Cornwall, raiding and burning Penzance and several nearby villages. During the summer of 1596, an Anglo-Dutch expedition under Elizabeth's young favourite, the Earl of Essex, sacked Cádiz, causing significant loss to the Spanish fleet, leaving the city in ruins and delaying a projected descent on England. The allies were unable to capture the treasure, as the Spanish commander had time in order to torch the treasure ships in port, sending the treasure to the bottom of the harbour, from where it was later recovered. Despite its failure to capture the treasure fleet, the sack of Cádiz was celebrated as a national triumph comparable to the victory over the Spanish Armada, and for a time Essex's prestige rivalled Elizabeth's own. Instead of controlling and taxing its subjects, the English crown competed with them for private profit; it failed to succeed at this, as the great naval expeditions were on the whole unprofitable. The last of the great English naval expeditions took place in 1597, led by the Earl of Essex known as the Islands Voyage. The objective was to destroy the Spanish fleet and intercept a treasure fleet in the Azores. Neither was achieved and the expedition ended in costly failure, and Essex on his return was scolded by the Queen for not protecting the English coast. While the war became a great drain on the English treasury, it proved to be profitable for a number of English privateers. In its final years, English privateering continued despite the strengthening of Spanish navy convoys – Cumberland's last expedition in 1598 to the Caribbean led to the capture of San Juan, and had succeeded where Drake had failed. Newport struck at Tobasco in 1599 while William Parker successfully raided Portobello in 1601. In 1603 Christopher Cleeve struck at Santiago de Cuba and in the last raid of the war Newport plundered Puerto Caballos. Finally, just days before the signing of the peace treaty in August 1604, future admiral Antonio de Oquendo defeated