suffered no serious ship injuries and the
loss of not above 100 men. In the council held next day beyond the
Straits of Dover, only a few of the Spanish leaders had stomach
for further fighting; the rest preferred to brave the perils of a
return around the Orkneys rather than face again these defenders
of the narrow seas. Before a fair wind they stood northward, Drake
still at their heels, though by reason of short supplies he left
them at the Firth of Forth.

In October, fifty ships, with 10,000 starved and fever-stricken
men, trailed into the Biscay ports of Spain. Torn by September
gales, the rest of the Armada had been sunk or stranded on the rough
coasts of Scotland and Ireland. "The wreckers of the Orkneys and the
Faroes, the clansmen of the Scottish isles, the kernes of Donegal
and Galway, all had their part in the work of murder and robbery.
Eight thousand Spaniards perished between the Giant's Causeway and
the Blaskets. On a strand near Sligo an English captain numbered
eleven hundred corpses which had been cast up by the sea."[1]

[Footnote 1: HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, Green, Vol. II, p. 448.]

"Flavit Deus, et dissipati sunt"--"The Lord sent His wind, and
scattered them." So ran the motto on the English medal of victory.
But storms completed the destruction of a fleet already thoroughly
defeated. Religious faith, courage, and discipline had availed
little against superior ships, weapons, leadership, and nautical
skill. "Till the King of Spain had war with us," an Englishman
remarked, "he never knew what war by sea meant."[2] It might be
said more accurately that the battle gave a new meaning to war
by sea.

[Footnote 2: Sir Wm. Monson, NAVAL TRACTS, Purchas, Vol. III, p.
121.]

From the standpoint of naval progress, the campaign demonstrated
definitely the ascendancy of sail and artillery. For the old galley
tactics a new system now had to be developed. Since between sailing
vessels head-on conflict was practically eliminated, and since
guns mounted to fire ahead and astern were of little value save
in flight or pursuit, the arrangement of guns in broadside soon
became universal, and fleets fought in column, or "line ahead,"
usually close-hauled on the same or opposite tacks. While these
were lessons for the next generation, there is more permanent value
in the truth, again illustrated, that fortune favors the belligerent
quicker to forsake outworn methods and to develop skill in the use
of new