mere three and four-pounders, of
short range and little effect. So small was the dependence the Spaniards
placed upon them that they carried only the scantiest supply of ammunition.

The fighting method of the galleon was to bear close down upon her
opponent, run her aboard, if possible, pour down a heavy fire of musketry
from the high bulwarks and castles, so as to bring a plunging shower of
bullets on the enemy's decks, and then board, and let pike and sword do
their work as they had done at Lepanto. These were, after all, the methods
of the soldier, the tactics of the war-galley. It was the merit of Howard,
Hawkins, Drake, and the other great captains, who commanded against the
Armada, that they fought as seamen, using their more handy and better
handled ships to choose their own position and range, refusing to let the
Spaniards close, and bringing a more powerful, longer-ranging, and better
served artillery to bear with destructive effect on the easy targets
supplied by the tall galleons. It is worth noting that while there were
more soldiers than seamen in the Armada, there were more seamen than
soldiers in the fleet that met it in the narrow seas.

If the Armada had a commander whose only merit was personal courage, the
admirals of the various squadrons were all men of long experience in war,
both by land and sea. Martinez de Recalde, the second in command and
admiral of the armada of Biscay, was a veteran seaman. Diego Flores de
Valdes, the admiral of Castille, was an enterprising and skilful leader,
and if his advice had been taken at the outset there might have been a
disaster for England. Pedro de Valdes, the admiral of Andalusia, had sailed
the northern seas, and Medina-Sidonia was told he might rely on his local
knowledge. Moncada, the admiral of the galleasses, was a "first-rate
fighting-man," and De Leyva, the general of the troops embarked, who had
taken command of the "Rata Coronada," a great galleon of 800 tons in the
Levant armada, showed that he was sailor as well as soldier.

The Duke of Parma, who commanded the army that was to be embarked from the
Netherlands, was counted the best general of the day, and his 30,000
Spanish regular infantry were the most formidable body of troops then in
Europe. His orders from the King were to build or collect a flotilla of
flat-bottomed barges to ferry his army across the straits under the
protection of the Armada, and for months thousands of shipwrights had been