that at the present rate there would be nothing left in a fortnight.  Worse than all, the water-casks refilled there had been carelessly stowed.  They had been shot through in the fighting and were empty; while of clothing or other comforts for the cold regions which they were entering no thought had been taken.  The mules and horses were flung overboard, and Scotch smacks, which had followed the retreating fleet, reported that they had sailed for miles through floating carcases.

The rations were reduced for each man to a daily half-pound of biscuit, a pint of water, and a pint of wine.  Thus, sick and hungry, the wounded left to the care of a medical officer, who went from ship to ship, the subjects of so many prayers were left to encounter the climate of the North Atlantic.  The Duke blamed all but himself; he hanged one poor captain for neglect of orders, and would have hanged another had he dared; but his authority was gone.  They passed the Orkneys in a single body.  They then parted, it was said in a fog; but each commander had to look out for himself and his men.  In many ships water must be had somewhere, or they would die.  The San Martin, with sixty consorts, went north to the sixtieth parallel.  From that height the pilots promised to take them down clear of the coast.  The wind still clung to the west, each day blowing harder than the last.  When they braced round to it their wounded spars gave way.  Their rigging parted.  With the greatest difficulty they made at last sufficient offing, and rolled down somehow out of sight of land, dipping their yards in the enormous seas.  Of the rest, one or two went down among the Western Isles and became wrecks there, their crews, or part of them, making their way through Scotland to Flanders.  Others went north to Shetland or the Faroe Islands.  Between thirty and forty were tempted in upon the Irish coasts.  There were Irishmen in the fleet, who must have told them that they would find the water there for which they were perishing, safe harbours, and a friendly Catholic people; and they found either harbours which they could not reach or sea-washed sands and reefs.  They were all wrecked at various places between Donegal and the Blaskets.  Something like eight thousand half-drowned wretches struggled on shore alive.  Many were gentlemen, richly dressed, with velvet coats, gold chains, and rings.  The common sailors and soldiers had been paid their wages before they started, and each had a bag of ducats lashed to his waist when he landed through the surf.  The wild Irish of the coast, tempted by the booty, knocked unknown numbers of them on the head with their battle-axes, or stripped them naked and left them to die of the cold.  On one long sand strip in Sligo an English officer counted eleven hundred bodies, and he heard that there were as many more a few miles distant.