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King and the Duke were calculating on the Divine assistance, they were omitting, all of them, the most obvious precautions by which moderate success could be looked for. Santa Cruz had reported that the fleet was almost ready to sail. The stores of provisions had been laid in while he was still alive, and the watercasks had been filled. But after his death there was no responsible person left in Lisbon who had exerted himself to see to anything. Great naval expeditions were nothing new in Spain. The West Indies and Mexico and Peru had not been conquered by men in their sleep; and what ships and ships' crews required for dangerous voyages was as well understood at Lisbon and Cadiz as in any harbor in the world. But the Armada was surrounded by a halo of devout imagination which seemed to paralyze all ordinary sense. It was to have sailed in March, but, even to the inexperienced eye of Medina Sidonia when he arrived at his command, the inadequacy of the preparations was too obvious. The casks of salt meat were found to be putrefying; the water in the tanks had not been renewed, and had stood for weeks, growing foul and poisonous under the hot Lisbon sun. Spare rope, spare spars, spare anchors-all were deficient. The powder-supply was short. The balls were short. The contractors had cheated as audaciously as if they had been mere heretics, and the soldiers and mariners so little liked the look of things that they were deserting in hundreds, while the muster-masters drew pay for the full nunbers and kept it. Instead of sailing in March, as he had been ordered, the Duke was obliged to send to Madrid a long list of indispensable necessaries, without which he could not sail at all. Nothing had been attended to save the state of the men's souls, about which the King had been so peculiarly anxious. They had been sent to confession, had received each his ticket certifying that he had been absolved and had duly commended himself to the Lord. The loose women had been sent away, the cards and dice prohibited, the moral instructions punctually complied with. All the rest had been left to chance and villainy. The short powder-supply was irremediable. The Duke purchased a few casks from merchant ships, but no more was to be had. For the rest, the King wrote letters, and the Duke, accord

ing to his own account, worked like a slave, and the worst defects were concealed if not supplied. Not, however, till the end of April were the conditions advanced sufficiently for the presentation of the standard, and even then the squadron from Andalusia had not arrived.

All was finished at last, or at any rate seemed so. The six squadrons were assembled under their respective commanders. Men and officers were on board, and sailing orders, addressed to every member of the expedition, were sent round, in the Duke's name, to the several ships, which, remembering the fate to which all these men were being consigned by their crusading enthusiasm, we cannot read without emotion.

"From highest to lowest you are to understand the object of our expedition, which is to recover countries to the Church now oppressed by the enemies of the true faith. I therefore beseech you to remember your calling, so that God may be with us in what we do. I charge you, one and all, to abstain from profane oaths dishonoring to the names of our Lord, our Lady, and the Saints. personal quarrels are to be suspended while the expedition lasts, and for a month after it is completed. Neglect of this will be held as treason. Each morning at sunrise the ship boys, according to custom, shall sing Good Morrow' at the foot of the mainmast,* and at sunset the

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Ave Maria.' Since bad weather may interrupt the communications, the watchword is laid down for each day in the week:-Sunday, Jesus; the days succeeding, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Trinity, Santiago, the Angels, All Saints, and our Lady. At sea, every evening, each ship shall pass with a salute under the lee of the Commander-in-Chief, and shall follow at night the light which he will carry in his stern."

So, as it were, singing their own dirge, the doomed Armada went upon its way, to encounter the arms and the genius of the new era, unequally matched with unbelievers. On May 14 it dropped down the river to Belem, and lay there waiting for a wind. A brief account may here be given of its composition and its chief leaders. The fleet consisted of a hundred

* "Los pajes segun es costumbre davan los buenos dias al pié del mástil major."

and thirty ships. Seven of them were over a thousand tons and sixty-seven over five hundred. They carried two thousand five hundred guns, chiefly small, however-four, six, and nine-pounders. Spanish seamen understood little of gunnery. Their art in their sea-battles was to close and grapple and trust to their strength and courage in hand-to-hand fighting. Large for the time as the galleons were, they were still overcrowded. Soldiers, sailors, officers, volunteers, priests, surgeons, galley slaves, amounted, according to the returns, to nearly thirty thousand men. The soldiers were the finest in Europe; the seamen old trained hands, who had learned their trade urder Santa Cruz. They were divided into six squadrons, each with its Vice-Admiral and Capitana, or flag-ship. The Duke carried his standard in the San Martin, of the squadron of Portugal, the finest vessel in the service, and, as the Spaniards thought, in the world. The other five. of Biscay, Castile, Andalusia, Guypuscoa, and the Levant, were led by distinguished officers. There was but one commander in the fleet entirely ignorant of his duties, though he, unfortunately, was Commander-in-Chief.

As the names of these officers recur frequently in the account of what followed, a brief description may be given of each.

The Vice-Admiral of the Biscay squadron was Juan Martinez de Recalde, a native of Bilbao, an old, battered sea-warrior, who had fought and served in all parts of the ocean. He knew Ireland; he knew the Channel; he had been in the great battle at Terceira, and in the opinion of the service was second only to Santa Cruz. His flagship was the Santa Ana, a galleon of eight hundred tons; he sailed himself in the Gran Grin, of eleven hundred so far fortunate, if any one in the expedition could be called fortunate, for the Santa Ana was disabled in a storm at the mouth of the Channel.

The leaders of the squadrons of Castile and Andalusia were two cousins, Don Pedro and Don Diego de Valdez. Don Diego, whom Philip had chosen for the Duke's mentor, was famous as a naval architect, had been on exploring expeditions, and had made a certain reputation for himself. He was a jealous, suspicious, cautious kind of man, and Philip had a NEW SERIES.--VOL. LIV., No. 5.

41

high opinion of him. Don Pedro was another of the heroes of Terceira, a rough, bold seaman, scarred in a hundred actions with English corsairs, and between the two kinsmen there was neither resemblance nor affection. Don Pedro's misfortune in the Channel, which will soon be heard of, brought him more honor than Don Diego earned by his timidity. He lived long after, and was for eight years Governor of Cuba, where the Castle of the Moro at Havannah still stands as his monument. Two other officers deserve peculiar mention: Miguel de Oquendo, who sailed in the Señora de la Rosa, of Guy puscoa, and Alonzo de Leyva, who had a ship of his own, the Rata Coronada. Oquendo's career had been singularly distinguished. He had been the terror of the Turks in the Mediterranean. At Terceira, at a critical point in the action, he had rescued Santa Cruz when four French vessels were alongside of him. He had himself captured the French Admiral's flagship, carrying her by boarding, and sending his own flag to her masthead above the smoke of the battle. He was an excellent seamnan besides, and managed his ship, as was said, as easily as a horse. Alonzo de Leyva held no special command beyond his own vessel; but he had been nained by Philip to succeed Medina Sidonia in case of misadventure. With him, and under his special charge, were most of the high-born adventurous youths who had volunteered for the crusade. Neither he nor they were ever to see Spain again, but Spanish history ought not to forget him, and ought not to forget Oquendo.

Of pri sts and friars there were a hundred and eighty; of surgeons, doctors, and their assistants, in the entire fleet, not more than eighty-five. The numbers might have been reversed with advantage. Among the adventurers one only may be noted particularly, the poet Lope de Vega, then smarting from disappointment in a love-affair, and seeking new excitement.

Meanwhile, the winds were unpropitious. For fourteen days the fleet lay at anchor at the mouth of the river unable to get away. They weighed at last on May 28, and stood out to sea; but a northerly breeze drove them to leeward, and they could make no progress, while almost instantly on their sailing the state of the stores was brought to light. The water had been on board for four months; the

casks were leaking, and what was left of it was unfit to drink. The provisions, salt meat, cheese, biscuit, were found to be half putrid, and a remarkable order was issued to serve out first what was in worst condition, that the supplies might hold out the longer. As the ships were to keep together, the course and speed were necessarily governed by those which sailed the worst. The galleons, high built, and with shallow draught of water, moved tolerably before the wind, but were powerless to work against it. The north wind freshened. They were carried down as low as Cape St. Vincent, standing out and in, and losing ground on each tack. After fourteen days they were only in the latitude of Lisbon again. Tenders were sent in every day to Philip, with an account of their progress. Instead of being in the mouth of the Channel, the Duke had to report that he could make no way at all, and, far worse than that, the entire ships' companies were on the way to being poisoned. Each provision cask which was opened was found worse than the last. The biscuit was mouldy, the meat and fish stinking, the water foul and breeding dysentery; the crews and companies were loud in complaint; the officers had lost heart, and the Duke, who at starting had been drawing pictures in his imagination of glorious victories, had already begun to lament his weakness in having accepted the command. He trusted God would help him, he said. He wished no harm to any one. He had left his quiet, and his home, and his children, out of pure love to his Majesty, and he hoped his Majesty would remember it. The state of the stores was so desperate, especially of the water, that it was held unsafe to proceed. The pilots said that they must put into some port for a fresh supply. The Duke feared that if he consented the men, in their present humor, would take the opportunity and desert.

*

At length, on June 10, after three weeks of ineffectual beating up and down, the wind shifted to the south-west, and the fleet could be laid upon its course. The anxiety was not much diminished. The salt meat, salt fish, and cheese were found so foul throughout that they were

* Medina Sidonia to Philip the Second, May 30.

thrown overboard for fear of pestilence, and the rations were reduced to biscuit and weevils. A despatch was hurried off to Philip that fresh stores must instantly be sent out, or there would be serious disaster. The water was the worst of all, as when drunk it produced instant dysentery. On June 13 matters mended a little. The weather had cooled. The south-west wind had brought rain. The ships could be aired and purified. They were then off Finisterre, and were on a straight course for the Channel. Philip's orders had been so positive that they were not to delay anywhere, that they were to hurry on and must not separate. They had five hundred men, however, down with dysentery, and the number of sick was increasing with appalling rapidity. A council was held on board the San Martin, and the Admirals all agreed that go on they could not. Part of the fleet, at least, must make into Ferrol, land the sick, and bring off supplies. The Duke could not come to a resolution, but the winds and waves settled his uncertainties. On the 19th it came on to blow. The Duke, with the Portugal squadron, the galleys and the larger galleons made in at once for Corunna, leaving the rest to follow, and was under shelter before the worst of the gale. The rest were caught outside and scattered. They came in as they could, most of them in the next few days, some dismasted, some leaking with strained timbers, the crews exhausted with illness; but at the end of a week a third part of the Armada was still missing, and those which bad reached the har bor were scarcely able to man their yards. A hospital had to be established on shore. The tendency to desert had become so general that the landing-places were occupied with bodies of soldiers. A despatch went off to the Escurial, with a despairing letter from the Duke to the King.

The weather," he said, "though in June, is as wild as in December. No one remembers such a season. It is the more strange since we are on the business of the Lord, and some reason there must be for what has befallen us. I told your Majesty that I was unfit for this command when you asked me to undertake it. I obeyed your orders, and now I am here in Corunna with the ships dispersed and the force remaining to me inferior to the

enemy. The crews are sick, and grow daily worse from bad food and water. Most of our provisions have perished, and we have not enough for more than two months' consumption. Much depends on the safety of this fleet. You have exhausted your resources to collect it, and if it is lost you may lose Portugal and the Indies. The men are out of spirit. The officers do not understand their business. We are no longer strong. Do not deceive yourself into thinking that we are equal to the work before us. You remember how much it cost you to conquer Portugal, a country adjoining Castile, where half the inhabitants were in your favor. We are now going against a powerful kingdom with only the weak force of the Prince of Parnia and myself. I speak freely, but I have laid the matter before the Lord; you must decide yourself what is to be done. Recollect only how many there are who envy your greatness and bear you no goodwill,*

He

On the 27th thirty-five ships were still absent, and nothing had been heard of them. The storm after all had not been especially severe, and it was not likely that they were lost. The condition to which the rest were reduced was due merely to rascally contractors and official negligence, and all could easily be repaired by an efficient commander in whom the men had confidence. But the Duke had no confidence in himself nor the officers in him. Four weeks only had passed since he had left Lisbon and he was already despondent, and his disquieted subordinates along with him. had written freely to Philip, and advised that the expedition should be abandoned. He again summoned the Vice-Admirals to his cabin and required their opinions. Should they or should they not go forward with their reduced force? The Inspector General, Don George Manrique, produced a schedule of numbers. They were supposed, he said, to have twenty-eight thousand men besides the galley-slaves. Owing to sickness and other causes, not more than twenty-two or twenty-three thousand could be regarded as effective, and of these six thousand were in the missing galleons. The Vice-Admirals were less easily frightened than their

*Medina Sidonia to Philip the Second from Corunna, June 24.

stores.

leader. None were for giving up. Most of them advised that they should wait where they were till the ships came in, repairing damages and taking in fresh Pedro de Valdez insisted that they should go on as they were; while they remained in harbor fresh meat and vegetables might be served out, and the crews would soon recover from a sickness which was caused only by bad food. With vigor and energy all that was wrong could be set right. The missing ships were doubtless abead expecting them, and would be fallen in with somewhere.

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Don Pedro was addressing brave men, and carried the council along with him. He wrote himself to Philip to tell him. what had passed. "The Duke,' he said, "bore him no goodwill for his advice, but he intended to persist in a course which he believed to be for his Majesty's honor."

The Duke might

A day or two later the wanderers came back and restored the Duke's courage. Some had been as far as Scilly, some even in Mount's Bay, but none had been lost and none had been seriously injured. The fresh meat was supplied as Don Pedro advised. The sick recovered; not one died, and all were soon in health again. Fresh supplies were poured down out of the country. The casks were refilled with pure water. In short, the sun began to shine again, and the despondency fit passed away. Philip wrote kindly and cheerily. Everything would be furnished which they could want. spend money freely and need spare nothing to feed the men as they ought to be fed. If they had met with difficulties in the beginning, they would have greater glory in the end. There were difficulties in every enterprise. They must overcome them and go on. The Duke still hesitated. He said truly enough that other things were wanting besides food: powder, cordage, and the thousand minor stores which ought to have been provided and were not. But all the rest were now in heart again, and he found himself alone; Recalde only, like a wise man, begging Philip to modify his instructions and allow him to secure Plymouth or Dartmouth on their advance, as, although they might gain a victory, it was unlikely to be so complete as to end the struggle, and they might require a harbor to shelter the fleet.

Charles the Fifth, among his other legacies to his son, had left him instructions to distrust France and to preserve the English alliance. The passionate Catholics assured him that the way to keep England was to restore the faith. But Eliza beth was still sovereign, and Catholic conspiracies so far had only brought their leaders to the scaffold. Mary Stuart was a true believer, but she was herself half a French woman, and Guise's father had defeated Philip's father at Metz, and Guise and Mary masters of France and England both was a perilous possibility. Philip did not assent; he did not refuse. He thanked Santa Cruz for his zeal, but said that he must still wait a little and watch. His waiting did not serve to clear his way. Elizabeth discovered what had been designed for her, and as a return Sir Francis Drake sacked St. Domingo and Carthagena. More than that, she had sent open help to his insurgent provinces, and had taken charge, with the consent of the Hollanders, of Flushing and Brill. Santa Cruz could not but admire the daring of Drake and the genius of the English Queen. They were acting while his own inaster was asleep. He tried again to rouse him. The Queen, he said, had made herself a name in the world. She had enriched her own subjects out of Spanish spoil. In a single month they had taken a million and a half of ducats. Defensive war was always a failure. Once more the opportunity was his own. France was paralyzed, and Elizabeth, though strong abroad, was weak at home, through the disaffection of the Catholics. To delay longer would be to see England grow into a power which he would be unable to deal with. Spain would decline, and would lose in mere money more than four times the cost of war.

*

This time, Philip listened more seriously. Before, he had been invited to act with the Duke of Guise, and Guise was to have the spoils. Now, at any rate, the operation was to be his own. Ile bade Sana Cruz send him a plan of operations and a calculation in detail of the ships and stores which would be required. He made him Lord High Admiral, commissioned him to collect squadrons at

Navio Cesareo Fernández Duro, tomo i. p. 261.

Santa Cruz to Philip the Second, January

13, 1586.

Cadiz and Lisbon, take them to sea, and act against the English as he saw occasion. He would probably have been allowed his way to do what he pleased in the following year but for a new compli cation, which threw Philip again into perplexity. The object of any enterprise led by Santa Cruz would have been the execution of the Bull of Pope Pius, the dethronement of Elizabeth, and the transference of the crown to Mary Stuart, who, if placed on the throne by Spanish arms alone, might be relied on to be true to Spanish interests. Wearied out with Mary's perpetual plots, Elizabeth, when Santa Cruz's preparations were far advanced, sent her to the scaffold, and the blow of the axe which ended her disconcerted every arrangement which had been made. There was no longer a Catholic successor in England to whom the crown could go on Elizabeth's deposition, and it was useless to send an army to conquer the country till some purpose could be formed for disposing of it afterward. Philip had been called King of England once. He was of the blood of the House of Lancaster. He thought, naturally, that if he was to do the work, the prize ought to be his own. Unfortunately, the rest

of the world claimed a voice in the matter.

France would certainly be hostile. The English Catholics were divided. The Pope himself, when consulted, refused his assent. As Pope Sextus the Fifth, he

was bound to desire the reduction of a rebellious island; as an Italian prince, he had no wish to see another wealthy king. dom added to the enormous empire of Spain. Mary Stuart's son was natural heir. He was a Protestant, but gratitude might convert him. At any rate, Philip should not take Elizabeth's place. Sextus was to have given a million crowns to the cost of the armament; he did not directly withdraw his promise, but he haggled with the Spanish Ambassador at the Holy See. He affected to doubt the possibility of Philip's success, and even his personal sincerity. He declined to advance a ducat till a Spanish army was actually on English soil. The Duke of Parina, who was to cross from Flanders and conduct the campaign in England itself, was diffident, if not unwilling; and Philip had to feel that even the successful occupation of London might prove the beginning of greater troubles. He had been driven

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