1888.] on the Invincible Armada : a Tercentenary Betrospect. 313 



There was, however, one class of her Majesty's subjects, the 

 members of which had not this exalted opinion of Spanish power or 

 of Spanish prowess. For the last twenty years English sailors had 

 been, in their own irregular way, fighting the Spaniards on every sea 

 where they were to be met, and had come to the conclusion that, 

 whatever the Spaniard might be ashore, afloat he was but a poor 

 creature : the experiences of Drake, Hawkyns, Fenton, Fenner, and 

 a score of others whose names are less familiar, had proved that 

 even with great apparent odds in their favour, Spaniards were not 

 invincible. Of all the panic-stricken accounts of the great Armada 

 which have come down to us, it is well to point out that not one was 

 written by a seaman, or by any one who had practical knowledge of 

 the Spaniards by sea. You are all familiar with the exaggerations 

 of contemporary historians. The Spanish ships were so huge that 

 ocean groaned beneath their weight; so lofty, that they resembled 

 rather castles or fortresses ; so numerous, that the sea was invisible, 

 the spectator thought he beheld a populous town. What English 

 sailors thought of them may be judged from a letter written by 

 Fenner, who was with Drake when he burnt the shipping at Cadiz. 

 " Twelve of her Majesty's ships," he said, " were a match for all the 

 galleys in the king of Spain's dominions." 



But the power of SjDain, the tavern gossip and braggadocio of 

 Lisbon, and the reports of spies who felt in honour bound to give 

 full value for their hire, grossly exaggerated the size, the might, the 

 armament and the equipment of the fleet as it sailed from Lisbon. 

 Of the numbers, size, and armament I shall have to speak presently. 

 The equipment, with which we are just now concerned, was so well 

 arranged and so j)erfect, that by the time the fleet reached Cajje 

 Finisterre vast quantities of the provisions were found to be bad, 

 putrid, fit for nothing but to be thrown overboard. The ships were 

 short of water, probably because the casks were leaky. The ships 

 themselves were also leaking — strained, it was said, by the heavy 

 weather, but really from being overmasted. Several of them were 

 with difficulty kept afloat ; some were dismasted ; and the distress 

 was so general that Mcdina-Sidonia determined to put into Corunua 

 to refit. This he did, but without taking any precautions to let his 

 intention be known through the fleet. The Scilly Isles had been 

 igiven out as the rendezvous in case of separation, and some dozen of 

 the ships, finding they had lost sight of the Admiral, did accordingly 

 go to the neighbourhood of the Scilly Isles, where they were duly 

 seen and reported at Plymouth. Their recall, the collecting the fleet 

 at Corunna, the refitting, the reprovisioning, all took time. The 

 damage was so great, the number of sick so large, the season getting 

 so advanced, that a council of war urgently recommended postponing 

 the expedition till the next year. The king's orders were, however, 

 imperative ; and the fleet finally sailed from Corunna on the 12-22 

 July. 



The main part of the English fleet w^as meantime mustered at 

 Plymouth under the command of Lord Howard of Effingham, the 



Vol. XIL (No. 82.) y 



