hat is, while making a turn to bring the wind on the other side), the
water rushed in and heeled her over still more. Then the guns on her
upper side, which had not been lashed, slid across her steeply sloping
decks bang into those on the lower side, whereupon the whole lot
crashed through the ports or stove her side, so that she filled and
sank with nearly everyone on board.

No, the Royal Navy of 1545 was very far from being perfect either in
ships or men. But it had made a beginning towards fighting with
broadsides under sail; and this momentous change was soon to be so well
developed under Drake as to put English sea-power a century ahead of
all its rivals in the race for oversea dominion both in the Old World
and the New. A rowing galley, with its platform crowded by soldiers
waiting to board had no chance against a sailing ship which could fire
all the guns of her broadsides at a safe distance. Nor had the other
foreign men-of-war a much better chance, because they too were crowded
with soldiers, carried only a few light guns, and were far less handy
than the English vessels under sail. They were, in fact, nothing very
much better than armed transports full of soldiers, who were dangerous
enough when boarding took place, but who were mere targets for the
English guns when kept at arm's length.

The actual Portsmouth campaign of 1545 was more like a sham battle than
a real one; though the French fleet came right over to England and no
one can doubt French bravery. Perhaps the best explanation is the one
given by Blaise de Montluc, one of the French admirals: "Our business
is rather on the land than on the water, where I do not know of any
great battles that we have ever won." Henry VIII had seized Boulogne
the year before, on which Francis I (Jacques Cartier's king) swore he
would clear the Channel of the English, who also held Calais. He
raised a very big fleet, partly by hiring Italian galleys, and sent it
over to the Isle of Wight. There it advanced and retired through the
summer, never risking a pitched battle with the English, who, truth to
tell, did not themselves show much more enterprise.

Sickness raged in both fleets. Neither wished to risk its all on a
single chance unless that chance was a very tempting one. The French
fleet was a good deal the bigger of the two; and Lisle, the English
commander-in-chief, was too cautious to attack it while it remained in
one body. When the French were rai