they listed, came often times very near upon the Spaniards,
and charged them so sore that now and then they were but a pike's length
asunder; and so continually giving them one broad side after another,
they discharged all their shot, both great and small, upon them,
spending one whole day, from morning till night, in that violent kind of
conflict, untill such time as powder and bullets failed them.

"In regard of which want they thought it convenient not to pursue the
Spaniards any longer, because they had many great advantages of the
English, namely, for the extraordinary bigness of their shippes, and
also for that they were so neerely conjoyned, and kept together in so
good array, that they could by no meanes be fought withall one to one.
The English thought, therefore, that they had right well acquitted
themselues in chasing the Spaniards first from Caleis, and then from
Dunkerk, and by that means to have hindered them from joyning with the
Duke of Parma his forces, and getting the wind of them, to have driven
them from their own coasts.

"The Spaniards that day sustained great loss and damage, having many of
their shippes shot thorow and thorow, and they discharged likewise great
store of ordinance against the English, who, indeed, sustained some
hinderance, but not comparable to the Spaniards' loss; for they lost not
any one ship or person of account; for very diligent inquisition being
made, the Englishmen all the time wherein the Spanish navy sayled upon
their seas, are not found to haue wanted aboue one hundred of their
people; albeit Sir Francis Drake's ship was pierced with shot aboue
forty times, and his very cabben was twice shot thorow, and about the
conclusion of the fight, the bed of a certaine gentleman lying weary
thereupon, was taken quite from under him with the force of a bullet.

"Likewise, as the Earle of Northumberland and Sir Charles Blunt were at
dinner upon a time, the bullet of a demy-culvering brake thorow the
middest of their cabben, touched their feet, and strooke downe two of
the standers-by. With many such accidents befalling the English shippes,
which it were tedious to rehearse."

It reflects little credit on the English government that the English
fleet was so deficiently supplied with ammunition as to be unable to
complete the destruction of the invaders. But enough was done to insure
it. Many of the largest Spanish ships were sunk or captured in the
action of this day. And at le