erybody's
caranting about to once each after his own men, nobody'll find nothing
in such a scrimmage as that. Bye, bye, Uncle Martin. We'm going to blow
the Dons up now in earnest."

CHAPTER XXXI

THE GREAT ARMADA

"Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep,
Her march is o'er the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep."

CAMPBELL, Ye Mariners of England.

And now began that great sea-fight which was to determine whether Popery
and despotism, or Protestantism and freedom, were the law which God had
appointed for the half of Europe, and the whole of future America. It
is a twelve days' epic, worthy, as I said in the beginning of this book,
not of dull prose, but of the thunder-roll of Homer's verse: but having
to tell it, I must do my best, rather using, where I can, the words of
contemporary authors than my own.

"The Lord High Admirall of England, sending a pinnace before, called
the Defiance, denounced war by discharging her ordnance; and presently
approaching with in musquet-shot, with much thundering out of his own
ship, called the Arkroyall (alias the Triumph), first set upon the
admirall's, as he thought, of the Spaniards (but it was Alfonso de
Leon's ship). Soon after, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher played stoutly
with their ordnance on the hindmost squadron, which was commanded by
Recalde." The Spaniards soon discover the superior "nimbleness of the
English ships;" and Recalde's squadron, finding that they are getting
more than they give, in spite of his endeavors, hurry forward to join
the rest of the fleet. Medina the Admiral, finding his ships scattering
fast, gathers them into a half-moon; and the Armada tries to keep solemn
way forward, like a stately herd of buffaloes, who march on across the
prairie, disdaining to notice the wolves which snarl around their track.
But in vain. These are no wolves, but cunning hunters, swiftly horsed,
and keenly armed, and who will "shamefully shuffle" (to use Drake's own
expression) that vast herd from the Lizard to Portland, from Portland
to Calais Roads; and who, even in this short two hours' fight, have made
many a Spaniard question the boasted invincibleness of this Armada.

One of the four great galliasses is already riddled with shot, to the
great disarrangement of her "pulpits, chapels," and friars therein
assistant. The fleet has to close round her, or Drake and Hawkins
will sink her; in effecting which man