Through the remainder of the month of August there, was a succession of storms.  On the 2nd September a fierce southwester drove Admiral Oquendo in his galleon, together with one of the great galeasses, two large Venetian ships, the Ratty and the Balauzara, and thirty-six other vessels, upon the Irish coast, where nearly every soul on board perished, while the few who escaped to the shore—­notwithstanding their religious affinity with the inhabitants—­were either butchered in cold blood, or sent coupled in halters from village to village, in order to be shipped to England.  A few ships were driven on the English coast; others went ashore near Rochelle.

Of the four galeasses and four galleys, one of each returned to Spain.  Of the ninety-one great galleons and hulks, fifty-eight were lost and thirty-three returned.  Of the tenders and zabras, seventeen were lost. and eighteen returned.  Of one hundred and, thirty-four vessels, which sailed from Corona in July, but fifty-three, great and small, made their escape to Spain, and these were so damaged as to be, utterly worthless.  The invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated.

Of the 30,000 men who sailed in the fleet; it is probable that not more than 10,000 ever saw their native land again.  Most of the leaders of the expedition lost their lives.  Medina Sidonia reached Santander in October, and, as Philip for a moment believed, “with the greater part of the Armada,” although the King soon discovered his mistake.  Recalde, Diego Flores de Valdez, Oquendo, Maldonado, Bobadilla, Manriquez, either perished at sea, or died of exhaustion immediately after their return.  Pedro de Valdez, Vasco de Silva, Alonzo de Sayas, Piemontel, Toledo, with many other nobles, were prisoners in England and Holland.  There was hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning, so that, to relieve the universal gloom, an edict was published, forbidding the wearing of mourning at all.  On the other hand, a merchant of Lisbon, not yet reconciled to the Spanish conquest of his country, permitted himself some tokens of hilarity at the defeat of the Armada, and was immediately hanged by express command of Philip.  Thus—­as men said—­one could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions.

This was the result of the invasion, so many years preparing, and at an expense almost incalculable.  In the year 1588 alone, the cost of Philip’s armaments for the subjugation of England could not have been less than six millions of ducats, and there was at least as large a sum on board the Armada itself, although the Pope refused to pay his promised million.  And with all this outlay, and with the sacrifice of so many thousand lives, nothing had been accomplished, and Spain, in a moment, instead of seeming terrible to all the world, had become ridiculous.

“Beaten and shuffled together from the Lizard to Calais, from Calais driven with squibs from their anchors, and chased out of sight of England about Scotland and Ireland,” as the Devonshire skipper expressed himself, it must be confessed that the Spaniards presented a sorry sight.  “Their invincible and dreadful navy,” said Drake, “with all its great and terrible ostentation, did not in all their sailing about England so much as sink or take one ship, bark, pinnace, or cock-boat of ours, or even burn so much as one sheep-tote on this land.”