318 Professor J. K. Laughion [May 4, 



the Spanish ships looked larger. Their poops and forecastles, rising 

 tier above tier to a great height, towered far above the lower-built 

 English. Not that the large English ships were by any means flush- 

 decked; but they were not so high-charged as the Spanish. The 

 difference offered a great advantage to the Spaniards in hand-to-hand 

 fighting ; it told terribly against them when their enemy refused to 

 close ; it made their ships leewardly and unmanageable in even a 

 moderate breeze, and, added to the Spanish neglect of recent im- 

 provements in rig — notably, the introduction of the bowline — rendered 

 them very inferior to the English in the open sea.* 



And not only was there this inferiority of the ships, there was 

 at least a corresponding inferiority of the seamen. The Spaniards 

 were in fact, to a great extent, fair-weather sailors. Some there 

 doubtless were who had doubled Cape Horn or the Cape of Good 

 Hope, but by far the greater number had little experience beyond the 

 Mediterranean, or the equable run down the trades to the West 

 Indies. To the English, on the other hand, accustomed from boy- 

 hood to the Irish or Iceland fisheries ; in manhood to the voyages 

 to the north-west with Frobiser or Davys, or round the world with 

 Drake, the summer gales of the Channel were, by comparison, passing 

 trifles — things to be warded oJBf, but not to be feared. Even if the 

 men had been equal in quality, the Spanish ships were terribly 

 undermanned. The seamen habitually gave place to the soldiers ; 

 the soldiers commanded ; the seamen did the drudgery, and not one 

 was borne in excess of what their soldier masters thought necessary. 

 The absolute numbers speak for themselves, and one comparison will 

 be sufficient. The San Martin, of 1000 tons, the flagship of the 

 Duke of Medina-Sidonia, had 177 seamen and 300 soldiers. The Arh, 

 of 800 tons, the flagship of Lord Howard, appears to have had some- 

 thing like 300 seamen and 125 soldiers. 



More important, however, than even this inferiority of the Spanish 

 ships and sailors, w\as the inferiority of their guns and gunners. Now 

 here I come on to what is, I believe, to most of you new ground. 

 You have always been accustomed to hear of the number and size of 

 the Spanish guns. The statements to that effect are absolutely 

 incorrect. The Spanish guns were, as a rule, small : 4-, 6-, or 

 10-pounders ; they were comparatively few, and they were execrably 

 worked.! The simj^lest way to show this is by a comparative table of 

 armaments. It is not perfect ; it is not rigidly accurate ; the means 

 to construct a perfect or accurate table do not, 1 fear, exist ; but so 

 far as it goes, the table on the opposite page embodies the best in- 

 formation attainable. 



The English armaments shown in it are from a list dated 

 1595-99, J and may possibly show some improvement on the armament 

 the ships carried in 1588. I see no reason, however, to suspect such. 



* Compare Monson, in Churcbil!, ill. pp. 312, 319. 

 t Duro, ii. p. 237. 



i ' Archseulogia,' xiii. p. 27 ; Derrick's ' Kise and Progress of the Royal Navy,' 

 p. 31. 



