Famous Sea Fights, from Salamis to Tsu-Shima

by A. Hilliard Atteridge

Howard had been reinforced during the day from the Western Channel ports. After the free expenditure of powder and shot the previous day, his magazines were half empty, and he husbanded his ammunition and followed up the Spaniards out of fighting range, writing to Portsmouth to have all ships there ready to join him. "We mean so to course the enemy," he added, "that they shall have no leisure to land."

Seymour reported to the Council from Dover that the Armada was well up Channel, and he feared they might seize the Isle of Wight. He asked for "powder and shot" for his squadron—"whereof we have want in our fleet, and which I have divers times given knowledge thereof." All the English commanders felt this want of ammunition and supplies. The Queen's parsimony was endangering the country.

On the Tuesday morning, 2 August (23 July, Old Style), the Armada was off Portland. In the night the wind had gone round to the north-east, and as the sun rose Howard's fleet was seen to be between the Spaniards and the land and to leeward of them. Medina-Sidonia was no sailor, but his veteran commanders saw the chance the shift of the wind had given them. The Armada turned from its course up Channel, and on the starboard tack stood towards the English fleet, hoping in Spanish phrase to catch the enemy "between the sword and the wall."

It was an anxious moment for Howard and his captains when the Armada came sweeping down on them, the galleasses in front pushing ahead with sail and oar, behind the long lines of galleons with the wind in the painted sails of their towering masts. It looked as if the Spaniards would soon be locked in close fight with the English squadron, with every advantage on the side of King Philip's floating castles. Led by the "Ark," the English ships began to beat out to seaward with scant room for the manœuvre. But just as the close fight seemed inevitable and the tall "Regazona" had almost run the "Ark" aboard, and while both ships were wrapped in a fog of powder smoke, the wind suddenly shifted again, backing to the northward. Howard was now working out well from the land, and every moment improved the position.

There was a heavy cannonade on both sides, but as the range lengthened, the advantage was with the better gunners of the English ships. The galleasses, led by the great "Florencia," tried, with the help of their long oars, to fall on the English rear, the galleons tacked and made one more attempt "to come to hand-stroke," but, writes Sidonia, "all to little effect, the enemy avoiding our attack by the lightness of their vessels." Good seamanship told. Howard's ships were soon in a position to resume the "fighting loose" tactics of the first battle, and the Spaniards knew that at this game they were the losers. So the Armada bore away, resuming its course up Channel, and the cannonade died down into dropping long shots, and then ceased, for Howard had no ammunition to spare.

On the Wednesday the two fleets crept slowly up Channel, the English some six miles astern of the Armada. Once they closed up, and a few shots were exchanged with the galleasses in Recalde's rearguard. But Howard did not want to fight. He was only "putting on a brag countenance," for he was woefully short of ammunition, and writing urgently for much-needed supplies. The wind had fallen, and in the afternoon some of the galleons were drifting along, heeled over by shifting guns and stores to enable the carpenters slung over the sides to plug shot-holes near the waterline.

On Thursday the fleets were off the Isle of Wight, and it was almost a calm, with occasional flaws of wind to help them on their way. Welcome reinforcements from Portsmouth joined Howard, and he received some ammunition. Soon after sunrise there was a sharp fight. The "Santa Ana" and a Portuguese galleon had fallen astern of the Armada, and Hawkins, in the "Victory," supported by several other ships, attacked them. He had done considerable damage to the "Santa Ana," and already reckoned her a prize, when the ever-ready De Leyva, with the great "Rata" and the galleasses, came to the rescue, and Hawkins reluctantly drew off. Howard, with the "Ark," and his nephew, Lord Thomas Howard, in the "Golden Lion," had come up to cover the retirement of Hawkins. They became involved in a fight with the Spanish rearguard, and the "Ark" was damaged, according to one account, by a collision, but it seems more likely that her steering gear was temporarily put out of order by a chance shot. She fell behind her consorts, and lowered boats to tow her out of action. For the moment the wind was helping the Spaniards, and, led by Medina-Sidonia himself, several galleons turned to attack the "Ark." But the wind freshened and changed suddenly, and the English ships escaped from their dangerous position, and so the fight ended.

On the Friday it was almost a dead calm. It was a bright summer day, and from the hills of the Isle of Wight there was a wondrous spectacle of the two fleets drifting idly over miles of sea, with the sails flapping against the masts. On board the "Ark," now repaired and again fit for action, there was a stately ceremony, the admiral, in the Queen's name, conferring knighthood on Hawkins, Frobisher and several other of the captains who had taken a leading part in the fighting. It was decided not to engage the enemy again till the fleets had reached the Straits of Dover. Shortness of ammunition was the reason for this decision.

Medina-Sidonia was anxious on the same score. He sent off a pilot-boat to the Duke of Parma, asking him to send him a supply of "four, six, and ten-pound shot," "because much of his ammunition had been wasted in the several fights." The mention of such small weights shows with what light artillery most of the galleons were armed. He also asked Parma to send forty light craft to join the Armada, "to the end he might be able with them to close with the enemy, because our ships being very heavy in comparison with the lightness of those of the enemy, it was impossible to come to hand-stroke with them."