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important discoveries. He had found by experience that his ships were faster and handier, and that his gunnery was much better, than the Spaniards'; and he had seen some of the Spanish captains disgrace themselves by their abandonment of Recalde. The day was, upon the whole, a very encouraging one for England, and it was correspondingly discouraging for Spain, although neither in his report, nor in his letter to Parma, does Medina Sidonia hint at anything of the kind. Others did not conceal the truth. "The desertion of the ship which had blown up," wrote Vanegas, "and the loss of Don Pedro de Valdes, shook the spirits of the people. From that time forward there was no real heart in them."^[1] "These misfortunes," wrote another Spaniard,^[2] "presaged our failure. The evil omen depressed the whole Armada."

The Spaniards continued on their course up Channel.

"The night of Monday, July 22nd," says 'A Relation of Proceedings,'^[3] "fell very calm, and the four galleasses^[4] singled themselves out from their fleet, whereupon some doubt was had lest in the night they might have distressed some of our small ships which were short of our fleet, but their courage failed them,^[5] for they attempted nothing.

"The next morning, being Tuesday, the 23rd of July, 1588, the wind sprang up at north-east, and then the Spaniards had the wind of the English army, which stood in to the north-westward, towards the shore. So did the Spaniards also. But that course was not good for the English army to recover the wind of the Spaniards,^[6] and therefore they cast about to the eastwards, whereupon the Spaniards bare room, offering [to] board our ships. Upon which coming room there grew a great fight.^[7] The English ships stood fast and abode their coming, and the enemy seeing us to abide them, and divers of our ships to stay for them, as the Ark, the Nonpareil, the Elizabeth Jonas, the Victory, etc., and divers other ships, they were content to fall astern of the Nonpareil, which was the sternmost ship.

"In the meantime, the Triumph, with five ships, viz., the Merchant Royal,^[8] the Centurion,^[9] the Margaret and John,^[9] the Mary Rose,^[10] and the Golden Lion,^[9] were so far to leeward and separated from our fleet, that the galleasses took courage and bare room with then, and assaulted them sharply. But they were very well resisted by those ships for the space of an hour and a half. At length certain of her majesty's ships bare with them, and then the galleasses forsook them. The wind then shifted to the south-eastward, and so to S.S.W., at what time a troop of her majesty's ships and sundry merchants assailed the Spanish fleet so sharply to the westward that they were

1. Duro, doc. 185.
2. Ib., doc. 171.
3. Cotton MS. Julius, F. x. 111-117.
4. In Duro, doc. 185, is the story of this little scheme and its failure.
5. Vanegas also says this. Duro, doc. 185, p. 382. Others attribute the failure to the wind.
6. Probably because of the nearness of the shore.
7. This action was fought off Portland.
8. Merchantman under Drake's command.
9. Ships equipped by the City of London.
10. Francis Burnell's victualler, not H.M.S. of the name.