account to show the force or loss of the French, nor the time or place of the event. Minot gives more details, but verse is not a satisfactory vehicle for nautical, nor indeed for any other facts. He says that after the French galleys quitted Southampton, they proceeded towards Zeeland and Flanders, and discovered the Christopher at 'Armouth'; that their fleet consisted of more than forty-eight galleys, two carracks, many galliots, and a number of small boats; that, though King Edward was not there at the moment, he soon heard of the arrival of the French, and went with his soldiers to his ships, and found the galley-men were superior by more than hundred to one; that a conflict ensued, in which the English slew sixty French for every ten of their own men: that the English fought both day and night, but were overcome at last by the superior numbers of the enemy. And he adds, that never before did men fight better than the English on that occasion. It will be observed that Minot says nothing of the Edward, and his account of the matter is manifestly imperfect, if not incorrect. The Christopher did not, however, long grace the French navy."
It may possibly be that the Christopher and Edward were two of the four large English ships which, having been sent, during King Edward's presence at Antwerp, to Middelburg, were there captured by French war-galleys. Certain it is that, in this period of the darkness before the dawn, the French at sea did much as they chose. There were fears lest they might seize vessels in English ports, and Sir Thonms Drayton, in the north, and Peter Bard, in the west, were ordered in October, 1338. to arrest additional ships, men, and stores, to guard from capture the wool-ships which were collecting in order to proceed to the king in Flanders.[1] The French fleet, the operations of which were thus feared, was substantially the same as the one which had attacked Portsmouth, and was composed of Genoese—who served both sides with great indifference—Normans, Bretons, Picards, and Spaniards, under, among others, Hughes Quiéret, Nicolas Béhuchet, and Egidio Bocanegra, who, generally known as "Barbenoire" or "Blackbeard,"[2] directed the Genoese galleys.[3] Drayton and Bard were enjoined to watch this force; to attack it wheresoever they should find it; to use Southampton as their base for obtaining provisions and other
