The galleon St. Philip, one of the four largest ships in the Armada, dismasted and foundering; drifted towards Newport, where camp-marshal Don Francisco de Toledo hoped in, vain for succour.  La Motte made a feeble attempt at rescue, but some vessels from the Holland fleet, being much more active, seized the unfortunate galleon, and carried her into Flushing.  The captors found forty-eight brass cannon and other things of value on board, but there were some casks of Ribadavia wine which was more fatal to her enemies than those pieces of artillery had proved.  For while the rebels were refreshing themselves, after the fatigues of the capture, with large draughts of that famous vintage, the St. Philip, which had been bored through and through with English shot, and had been rapidly filling with water, gave a sudden lurch, and went down in a moment, carrying with her to the bottom three hundred of those convivial Hollanders.

A large Biscay galleon, too, of Recalde’s squadron, much disabled in action, and now, like many others, unable to follow the Armada, was summoned by Captain Cross of the Hope, 48 guns, to surrender.  Although foundering, she resisted, and refused to strike her flag.  One of her officers attempted to haul down her colours, and was run through the body by the captain, who, in his turn, was struck dead by a brother of the officer thus slain.  In the midst of this quarrel the ship went down with all her crew.

Six hours and more, from ten till nearly five, the fight had lasted—­a most cruel battle, as the Spaniard declared.  There were men in the Armada who had served in the action of Lepanto, and who declared that famous encounter to have been far surpassed in severity and spirit by this fight off Gravelines.  “Surely every man in our fleet did well,” said Winter, “and the slaughter the enemy received was great.”  Nor would the Spaniards have escaped even worse punishment, had not, most unfortunately, the penurious policy of the Queen’s government rendered her ships useless at last, even in this supreme moment.  They never ceased cannonading the discomfited enemy until the ammunition was exhausted.  “When the cartridges were all spent,” said Winter, “and the munitions in some vessels gone altogether, we ceased fighting, but followed the enemy, who still kept away.”  And the enemy—­although still numerous, and seeming strong enough, if properly handled, to destroy the whole English fleet—­fled before them.  There remained more than fifty Spanish vessels, above six hundred tons in size, besides sixty hulks and other vessels of less account; while in the whole English navy were but thirteen ships of or above that burthen.  “Their force is wonderful great and strong,” said Howard, “but we pluck their feathers by little and little.”

For Medina Sidonia had now satisfied himself that he should never succeed in boarding those hard-fighting and swift-sailing craft, while, meantime, the horrible panic of Sunday night and the succession of fights throughout the following day, had completely disorganized his followers.  Crippled, riddled, shorn, but still numerous, and by no means entirely vanquished, the Armada was flying with a gentle breeze before an enemy who, to save his existence; could not have fired a broadside.