drake's good luck. 



295 



length of seven miles, sailing very slowly, though with full sails, 

 the winds being as it were weary with wafting them, and the 

 ocean groaning under their weight." The English suffered them 

 to pass Plymouth, that they might attack them in the rear. 

 They commenced the fight the next day, with only forty ships. 

 The Spaniards, during this preliminary action, found their ships 

 " very useful to defend, but not to offend, and better fitted to 

 stand than to move." Drake, with his usual luck, captured a 

 galleon in which he found fifty-five thousand ducats in gold. 

 This sum was divided among his crew. Skirmishing and de- 

 tached fights continued for several days, the Spanish ships being 

 found, from their height and thickness, inaccessible by boarding 

 or ball. They were compared to castles pitched into the sea. 

 The lord-admiral was consequently instructed to convert eight 

 of his least efficient vessels into fire-ships. The order arrived 

 as the enemy's fleet anchored off Calais, and thirty hours after- 

 wards the eight ships selected were discharged of all that was 

 worth removal and filled with combustibles. Their guns were 

 heavily loaded, and their sides smeared with rosin and wild-fire. 

 At midnight they were sent, with wind and tide, into the heart 

 of the invincible Armada. A terrible panic seized the affrighted 

 crews : remembering the fire-ships which had been used but lately 

 in the Scheldt, they shouted, in agony, "The fire of Antwerp! 

 The fire of Antwerp!" Some cut their cables, others slipped 

 their hawsers, and all put to sea, "happiest they who could first 

 be gone, though few could tell what course to take." Some were 

 wrecked on the shallows of Flanders ; some gained the ocean ; 

 while the remainder were attacked and terribly handled by 

 Drake. The discomfited Spaniards resolved to return to Spain 

 by a northern circuit around England and Scotland. The 

 English pursued, but the exhausted state of their powder-maga- 

 zines prevented another engagement. The luckless Armada 

 never returned to Spain. A terrific storm drove the vessels 

 upon the Irish coast and upon the inhospitable rocks of the 



