At length the Spaniards drew off northward to the German Ocean, the only line of escape open to them. Round the north of Scotland and Ireland they went, damaged by shot and beset by a gale, so that in the end, out of the magnificent fleet of 130 sail which had set out for the conquest of England, only 53 got back, with only about 9000 out of the original 30,000 men.
* * * * *
NELSON.
Two hundred years after Drake came Nelson. He was the son of a clergyman in Norfolk, a poor, sickly little fellow, and was for a time in the merchant service.
His first step to greatness was when the ship which he was in captured an enemy's ship, and the first lieutenant was ordered to take a boat and some men and go aboard the prize. But owing to the heavy sea which was running the officer gave up the attempt as too dangerous, whereupon Nelson, like a good Scout, stepped forward and offered to go.
He succeeded, and thence was marked as a good officer.
Every boy knows how, after a splendid career of fighting for Britain, he finally won the great sea battle of Trafalgar against the French and Spanish fleets, and fell mortally wounded in the hour of victory.
But his work, and that of other great sea-captains who served with him, completed the supremacy of the British Navy begun by Drake and the sea-dogs of his time.
The navies of our enemies were entirely swept from off the seas, and their merchant ships could only carry on their trade so long as their countries remained at peace with Britain.
And that supremacy has remained with us till to-day.