324 Professor J. K. Laugldon [May 4, 



starboard wing by Seymour, with Wynter and the squadron of the 

 Narrow Seas ; how the wings were driven in on their centre ; how the 

 ships, thus driven together, fouled each other, and lay a helpless and 

 inert mass, whilst the English pounded them in comparative safety. 

 " The fight," Wynter wrote, " continued from nine of the clock until 

 six of the clock at night, in the which time the Sj^anish army bore 

 away N.N.E. or nurth by east as much as they could, keeping comj^any 

 one with another. ... I deliver it to your honour upon the credit of 

 a poor gentleman, that out of my ship there was shot 500 shot of 

 demi-cannon, culverin and demi-culverin ; and when I was furthest 

 ojQf in discharging any of the pieces, I was not out of the shot of their 

 harquebus, and most times within speech one of another ; and surely 

 every man did well. No doubt the slaughter and hurt they received 

 was great, as time will discover it ; and when every man was weary 

 with labour, and our cartridges spent, and munitions wasted — I think 

 in some alt 'gether — we ceased, and followed tlie enemy." * 



The subject is one that tempts to jHirsue it still further, but time 

 warns me to draw to a close. It must be enough then to say that the 

 Spaniards were terribly beaten ; tliat two of tlieir largest ships, ships 

 of tliC crack Portugal squadron, the San Felipe and San Mateo, ran 

 themselves ashore on the Netherlands' coast to escape foundering in 

 the open sea. Howard says that three were sunk, and four or five 

 driven ashore. In one case he can scarcely have been mistaken. " On 

 the 30th," he says, " one of the enemy's great ships was espied to be 

 in great distress by the captain [Robert CrosseJ of her Majesty's 

 shij) called the Hojje, who, being in speech of yielding unto the said 

 captain, before they could agree on certain conditions, sank presently 

 before their eyes." This may have been the San Juan de Sicilia, 

 which was severely beaten in the fight and never returned to Spain, 

 though it was not known how she was lost. The actual loss of life was 

 certainly very great — how great was never known, for the pursuit of 

 the English and the terrible passage round the west of Ireland pre- 

 vented any attemj^t at ofiicial returns. Of the losses among the isles 

 of Scotland and on the coast of Ireland I do not intend now to speak. It 

 is sufficient for my purpose to say that, according to the best Spanish 

 accounts, which, in such an overwhelming disaster, are rather mixed, 

 about half of the original 130 got home again ; some apparently by the 

 simple process of not going farther than Corunna, some, as three of 

 the galleys, by turning back before they crossed the Bay of Biscay. 



A point of more immediate naval interest regards the statements 

 that have been made of the wholesale death of the English seamen 

 from starvation, or the unwholesome nature of the victuals which the 

 Queen's shameful j^^i'simony compelled them to eat. I am no 

 particular admirer of Queen Elizabeth, but I do think that in this 

 matter she has had hard measure dealt her. I daresay she was as 

 mean in the matter of her accounts as she was in many other things ; 

 I daresay she refused to believe in the necessity of supplying pro- 



* Wynter to AValpyngliam, 1 August, 1588. — ' State Papers,' Domestic, ccxiv. 7. 



