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ing been duly blessed by the Cardinal Archduke Albert, Viceroy of Portugal.

2. There were rather more than one hundred and thirty ships in all, divided into ten 'squadrons. The total tonnage of the fleet was 59,120; the number of guns was 3,165. Of Spanish troops there were 19,295 on board; there were 8,252 sailors and 2,088 galley-slaves. The grand total of those embarked was about 30,000.

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3. The plan was simple. Medina Sidonia was to proceed straight from Lisbon to Calais roads; there he was to wait for the Duke of Parma, who was to come forth from Newport,1 Sluys,2 and Dunkerk,3 bringing with him his 17,000 'veterans, and to assume the chief command of the whole expedition. They were then to cross the Channel to Dover, land the army of Farnese, reinforced with 6,000 Spaniards from the fleet, and with these 23,000 men Farnese was to march at once upon London. Medina Sidonia was to seize and fortify the Isle of Wight, guard the entrance of the harbours against any interference from the Dutch and English fleets, and-so soon as the conquest of England had been effected-he was to proceed to Ireland.

4. A strange omission had, however, been made in the

plan from first to last. The commander of the whole expedition was the Duke of Parma; on his head was the whole 'responsibility. Not a gun was to be fired, if it could be avoided, until he had come forth with his veterans to make his junction with the Invincible Armada off Calais. Yet there was no arrangement whatever to enable him to come forth-not the slightest provision to effect that junction. It would almost seem that the letter-writer of the Escorial had been quite ignorant of the existence of the Dutch fleets of Dunkerk, Newport, and Flushing," although he had certainly received information enough of this 'formidable obstacle to his plan......

5. Thus there were bread, beef, and powder enough; there were monks and priests enough; standards, galleyslaves, and 'inquisitors enough; but there were no light vessels in the Armada, and no heavy vessels in Parma's fleet. Medina could not go to Farnese, nor could Farnese come to Medina. The junction was likely to be difficult, and yet it had never once entered the head of Philip or his 'counsellors to provide for that difficulty. The king never seemed to imagine that Farnese, with forty thousand or fifty thousand soldiers in the Netherlands, a fleet of three hundred transports, and power to dispose of very large funds for one great purpose, could be kept in prison by a fleet of Dutch skippers and corsairs.

6. Where was Farnese? Most 'impatiently the Golden Duke paced the deck of the Saint Martin. Most eagerly were thousands of eyes strained towards the eastern horizon to catch the first glimpse of Farnese's flotilla. But the day wore on to its close, and still the same 'inexplicable and 'mysterious silence prevailed. There was utter solitude on the waters in the direction of Gravelines 6 and Dunkerk, not a sail upon the sea in the quarter where bustle and activity had been most expected. The mystery was profound; for it had never entered the head of any man in

burning vessels played merrily upon the grim walls of Philip's fortresses. Some of these ships were of the largest size then known. There was one belonging to Marquis Santa Cruz, of 1500 tons; there was a Biscayan of 1200; there were several others of 1000, 800, and of nearly equal dimensions.

7. At Lisbon, Marquis Santa Cruz, Lord High Admiral of Spain, and Generalissimo of the invasion, looked on mortified and amazed, but offered no combat, while the Plymouth privateersman swept the harbour of the greatest monarch of the world. After thoroughly accomplishing his work, Drake sent a message to Santa Cruz, proposing to exchange his prisoners for such Englishmen as might then be confined in Spain. But the marquis denied all prisoners. Thereupon Sir Francis decided to sell his captives to the Moors, and to appropriate the proceeds of the sale towards the purchase of English slaves out of the same bondage. Such was the fortune of war in the six

teenth century.

6

8. Having dealt these great blows, Drake set sail again from Lisbon, and, twenty leagues from St. Michael,5 fell in with one of those Spanish East Indiamen called caracks, then the great wonder of the seas. This vessel, San Felipe by name, with a cargo of 'extraordinary value, was easily captured, and Sir Francis now determined to return. He had done a good piece of work in a few weeks, but he was by no means of opinion that he had materially crippled the enemy. On the contrary, he gave the government warning as to the enormous power and vast preparations of Spain. "There would be forty thousand men under way ere long," he said, "well equipped and provisioned ;" and he stated, as the result of personal observation, that England could not be too energetic in its measures of resistance.

9. Perhaps the most precious result of the expedition

was the lesson which the Englishmen had thus learned in handling the great galleys of Spain. It might soon stand them in stead. The little war-vessels which had come from Plymouth had sailed round and round these vast 'unwieldy hulks, and had fairly driven them off the field, with very slight damage to themselves. Sir Francis had already taught the mariners of England, even if he had done nothing else by this famous Cadiz expedition, that an armada of Spain might not be so invincible as men imagined.

J. L. MOTLEY: History of the United Netherlands.

ap-pro-pri-ate, apply; set apart.

ar-ma-da, a fleet of war-ships.

fur-nished, supplied.

in-gre-di-ents, compounds; elements.

buc-can-eer-ing, robbing; freeboot-in-stinc-tive-ly, by a natural im

ing,

chiv-al-rous, brave; heroic.
cor-sair, pirate.
en-er-get-ic, active.

ex-traor-di-na-ry, unusual; rare.

1 Zee/land ships, Dutch ships, from Zeeland, the province at the mouth of the Rhine and the Scheldt.

pulse.

mis-cel-la-ne-ous, mixed.
pin-nace, a small ship.

scut-tling, cutting holes in ships.
un-wield-y, clumsy.

4 His great enterprise, the invasion of England.

5 St. Michael, the largest of the

2 Ca'diz, a commercial town on the Azores, islands in the Atlantic belongsouth-west coast of Spain.

3 Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, with a splendid natural harbour at the mouth of the Tagus.

ing to Portugal. "Twenty leagues" is 60 miles, a league being 3 miles.

6 Car'acks, large merchant ships, used by the Spaniards.

5. THE SPANISH ARMADA.

1588 A.D.

[The object of Philip of Spain, in sending the Armada against England, was to inflict a death-blow on Protestantism in Europe, and to restore the authority of the Pope in England. The expedition had been many months in preparation. It had started several times, and had been driven back by storms and accidents of various kinds. Its first commander, the Marquis of Santa Cruz, had died, and it was now placed under the charge of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a man of no skill in seamanship. The land forces, and indeed the whole expedition, were under the command of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, then in the Netherlands.]

1. At last, on the 28th, 29th, and 30th May, 1588, the fleet, which had been waiting at Lisbon more than a month for favourable weather, set sail from that port, after hav

ing been duly blessed by the Cardinal Archduke Albert, Viceroy of Portugal.

2. There were rather more than one hundred and thirty ships in all, divided into ten 'squadrons. The total tonnage of the fleet was 59,120; the number of guns was 3,165. Of Spanish troops there were 19,295 on board; there were 8,252 sailors and 2,088 galley-slaves. The grand total of those embarked was about 30,000.

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Lille.

3. The plan was simple. Medina Sidonia was to proceed straight from Lisbon to Calais roads; there he was to wait for the Duke of Parma, who was to come forth from Newport,1 Sluys,2 and Dunkerk, bringing with him his 17,000 'veterans, and to assume the chief command of the whole expedition. They were then to cross the Channel to Dover, land the army of Farnese, reinforced with 6,000 Spaniards from the fleet, and with these 23,000 men Farnese was to march at once upon London. Medina Sidonia was to seize and fortify the Isle of Wight, guard the entrance of the harbours against any interference from the Dutch and English fleets, and-so soon as the conquest of England had been effected-he was to proceed to Ireland.

4. A strange omission had, however, been made in the

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