success. "Their force," he wrote to Walsyngham, "is wonderfully great and strong; and yet we pluck their feathers by little and little."[1] But that it should be more or less decisive was entirely in accordance with Howard's plans; for he had deliberately determined, if possible, to postpone a general engagement until after the junction with him of Seymour and Wynter. Drake was a little more clear-sighted. "God," he wrote to Walsyngham, "hath given us so good a day in forcing the enemy so far to leeward, as I hope in God the Prince of Parma and the Duke of Sidonia shall not shake hands this few days; and whensoever they shall meet, I believe neither of them will greatly rejoice of this day's service."[2] Neither Drake nor Howard can have known that many ships of the Armada had no cannon shot left;[3] and both, no doubt, overrated the amount of fight still left in the Spaniards. That Gravelines had destroyed the moral of the enemy did not become apparent until several days afterwards, when, making no attempt to return for Parma, and so abandoning its main object, the Armada was fairly on its hazardous course of sauve qui peut round Scotland.
On Tuesday, July 30th, Howard ordered Lord Henry Seymour[4] and Sir William Wynter to return to the Narrow Seas to guard the coasts there against any raids which might be attempted by Parma or others; and with the main body of the fleet he followed the Spaniards, determining to pursue them "until they should come so far northward as the Frith in Scotland, if they should bend themselves that way."[5] The squadrons parted company between seven and eight o'clock on the evening of Wednesday,[6] being then apparently on the line between Lowestoft and the Brielle; but the formal resolution to chase as far northward as the latitude of the Frith of Forth was not come to until Thursday, August 1st,[7] when a council of war agreed to the project. Seymour's squadron thenceforward consisted of the Vanguard, Rainbow, Antelope, Bull, Tiger, Tremontana, Scout, Achates, Merlin, Sun, Cygnet, George, and Captain William Borough's galley, besides merchant vessels.[8]
The decision to pursue as far as the Frith of Forth was not carried out, it becoming clear to Howard that the Spaniards had
