of numbers.  The superiority of their guns he knew already, and their greater speed allowed him no hope to escape a battle.  Forty ships alone were left to him to defend the banner of the crusade and the honour of Castile; but those forty were the largest and the most powerfully armed and manned that he had, and on board them were Oquendo, De Leyva, Recalde, and Bretandona, the best officers in the Spanish navy next to the lost Don Pedro.

It was now or never for England.  The scene of the action which was to decide the future of Europe was between Calais and Dunkirk, a few miles off shore, and within sight of Parma’s camp.  There was no more manoeuvring for the weather-gage, no more fighting at long range.  Drake dashed straight upon his prey as the falcon stoops upon its quarry.  A chance had fallen to him which might never return; not for the vain distinction of carrying prizes into English ports, not for the ray of honour which would fall on him if he could carry off the sacred banner itself and hang it in the Abbey at Westminster, but a chance so to handle the Armada that it should never be seen again in English waters, and deal such a blow on Philip that the Spanish Empire should reel with it.  The English ships had the same superiority over the galleons which steamers have now over sailing vessels.  They had twice the speed; they could lie two points nearer to the wind.  Sweeping round them at cable’s length, crowding them in one upon the other, yet never once giving them a chance to grapple, they hurled in their cataracts of round shot.  Short as was the powder supply, there was no sparing it that morning.  The hours went on, and still the battle raged, if battle it could be called where the blows were all dealt on one side and the suffering was all on the other.  Never on sea or land did the Spaniards show themselves worthier of their great name than on that day.  But from the first they could do nothing.  It was said afterwards in Spain that the Duke showed the white feather, that he charged his pilot to keep him out of harm’s way, that he shut himself up in his cabin, buried in woolpacks, and so on.  The Duke had faults enough, but poltroonery was not one of them.  He, who till he entered the English Channel had never been in action on sea or land, found himself, as he said, in the midst of the most furious engagement recorded in the history of the world.  As to being out of harm’s way, the standard at his masthead drew the hottest of the fire upon him.  The San Martin’s timbers were of oak and a foot thick, but the shot, he said, went through them enough to shatter a rock.  Her deck was a slaughterhouse; half his company were killed or wounded, and no more would have been heard or seen of the San Martin or her commander had not Oquendo and De Leyva pushed in to the rescue and enabled him to creep away under their cover.  He himself saw nothing more of the action after this.  The smoke, he said, was so thick that he could make out nothing, even from his