we have formerly spoken, and
who appears never in the whole course of his life to have been at sea
but once before, and that only on an occasion of ceremony. He was every
way an untried man, and as yet distinguished for nothing except the
accomplishments of a courtier: but he exhibited on trial courage,
resolution, and conduct; an affability of manner which endeared him to
the sailors; and a prudent sense of his own inexperience, which rendered
him perfectly docile to the counsels of those excellent sea-officers by
whom he had the good fortune to find himself surrounded. He encouraged
his crew, and manifested his alacrity in the service, by putting his own
hand to the rope which was to tow his ship out of harbour; and he
afterwards gave proof of his good sense and his patriotism, by his
opposition to the orders which her majesty's excess of oeconomy led
her to issue on the first dispersion of the armada by a storm, for
laying up four of her largest ships; earnestly requesting that he might
be permitted to retain them at his own expense rather than the safety of
the country should be risked by their dismissal. John Hawkins, one of
the ablest and most experienced seamen of the age, was chiefly relied
upon for the conduct of the main fleet, in which he acted as
vice-admiral. For his good service he was knighted by the lord-admiral
on board his own ship immediately after the action, when the like honor
was bestowed on that eminent navigator Frobisher, who led into action
the Triumph, one of the three first-rates which were then all that the
English navy could boast.

To the hero Drake, as rear-admiral, a separate squadron was intrusted;
and it was by this division that the principal execution was done upon
the discomfited armada as it fled in confusion before the valor of the
English and the fury of their tempestuous seas. An enormous galleon
surrendered without firing a shot to the much smaller vessel of Drake,
purely from the terror of his name.

Whilst the lord-admiral, with the principal fleet stationed off
Plymouth, prepared to engage the armada in its passage up the Channel,
sir Henry Seymour, youngest son of the protector, was stationed with a
smaller force, partly English partly Flemish, off Dunkirk, for the
purpose of intercepting the duke of Parma, who was lying with his
veteran forces on the coast, ready to embark and co-operate in the
conquest of England.

In the midst of these naval preparations, which happ