Page:15 decisive battles of the world Vol 2 (London).djvu/135

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THE SPANISH ARMADA.
127

will offer to land in some such place, where there shall be an army of ours ready to receive him; yet it cannot be doubted, but that when the choice of all our trained bands, and the choice of our commanders and captains, shall be drawn together (as they were at Tilbury in the year 1588) to attend the person of the prince, and for the defence of the city of London; they that remain to guard the coast can be of no such force as to encounter an army like unto that, wherewith it was intended that the Prince of Parma should have landed in England.

"For end of this digression, I hope that this question shall never come to trial: his majesties many movable forts will forbid the experience. And although the English will no less disdain, than any nation under heaven can do, to be beaten upon their own ground, or elsewhere, by a forein enemy; yet to entertain those that shall assail us, with their own beef in their bellies, and before they eat of our Kentish capons, I take it to be the wisest way; to do which his majesty, after God, will employ his good ships on the sea, and not trust in any intrenchment upon the shore."

The introduction of steam as a propelling power at sea, has added tenfold weight to these arguments of Raleigh. On the other hand, a well-constructed system of railways, especially of coast lines,