THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



France, if he had lost control of his realm, would have 



been driven into the arms of Spain ; and Elizabeth lent 



him her support. She isolated her enemy, and she 



united her people. She understood a free nation, and 



was worthy of the seamen who served her. 



The English p^ more important thine: than the actual number of 



Bea Power. , . . , ^t - cr - r • • i 



ships m the JNavy was its emciency or organisation, and 



this was greatly improved during the Queen's reign. By 



the institution of the Navy Board, in 1546, Henry VIII 



had created the means of organisation. The practice of 



piracy made for the efficiency of the units. Long before 



an armed conflict seemed probable, English ships and 



English seamen were, as Mr. Corbett has shown, far 



superior in warlike qualities to those of Spain. The 



ships were smaller, better designed, quicker in handling ; 



and they could sail nearer to the wind. The prime 



importance of gunnery had been learned by the English, 



and was to be taught by them to Spain. ' For the new 



school,* says Mr. Corbett, ' the arm of the sailor was his 



ship. Hitherto the offensive force of a war-vessel had 



been measured mainly by the number of boarders it could 



throw upon the deck of an enemy, and guns had been 



valued chiefly as a means of crippling his power of 



The ship as a eluding this form of attack. But now the ship with 



gun-carriage, its guns was itself the weapon, the captain the eye, the 



crew the muscles that played it. Already during Henry's 



last French war the power that lay in the broadside had 



begun to be seen by English seamen.'^ Meantime the 



navigators of Spain had no thought of war. The Pope 



had guaranteed to them their new possessions, and they 



took their ease on the sea. Their great treasure-coffers 



^ Drake and the Tudor Navy (1899) Vol. I. p. 137. 

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