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all forced to give way and to bear room: which his lordship perceiving, together with the distress that the Triumph and the five merchant ships in her company were in, called unto certain of her majesty's ships then near at hand and charged them straitly to follow him, and to set freshly upon the Spaniards, and to go within musket-shot of the enemy before they should discharge any one piece of ordnance, thereby to succour the Triumph; which was very well performed by the Ark, the Elizabeth Jonas, the Galleon of Leicester,^[1] the Golden Lion, the Victory, the Mary Rose, the Dreadnought, and the Swallow; for so they went in order into the fight. Which the Duke of Medina perceiving, came out with sixteen of his best galleons to impeach his lordship and to stop him of assisting of the Triumph. At which assault, after wonderful sharp conflict, the Spaniards were forced to give way, and to flock together like sheep. In this conflict one William Coxe, captain of a small pinnace of Sir William Wynter's, named the Delight, showed himself must valiant in the face of his enemies at the hottest of the encounter, [who] afterwards lost his life with a great shot. Towards the evening some four or five ships of the Spanish fleet edged out of the south-westwards, where some other of our ships met them, amongst which [the] Mayflower, of London, discharged some pieces at them very valiantly, which ship and company at sundry other times behaved themselves stoutly.

"This fight was very nobly continued^[2] from morning until evening, the lord admiral being always [in] the hottest of the encounter; and it may well be said that for the time there was never seen a more terrible value of great shot, nor more hot fight than this was; for although the musketeers and harquebusiers of crock^[3] were then infinite, yet could they not be discerned nor heard, for that the great ordnance came so thick that a man would have judged it to have been a hot skirmish of small shot, being all the fight long within half musket-shot of the enemy.

"This great fight being ended, the next day, being Wednesday, the 24th of July, 1588, there was little done, for that in the fights on Sunday and Tuesday much of our munition had been spent; and therefore the lord admiral sent direct barks and pinnaces unto the shore for a new supply of such provisions.

"This day the lord admiral divided his fleet^[4] into four squadrons, whereof he appointed the first to attend himself; the second his lordship committed to the charge of Sir Francis Drake; the third to Sir John Hawkyns, and the fourth to Sir Martin Frobiser. This afternoon his lordship gave order that, in the night, six merchant ships out of every squadron should set upon the Spanish fleet in sundry places, at one instant in the night time, to keep the enemy waking; but all that night fell out to be so calm that nothing could be done."

Medina Sidonia's relation^[5] of events of the two days is as follows: —

"On Tuesday, July 23rd, the day broke fine, and the enemy's fleet, being to leeward, was standing in towards the land, endeavouring to the best of its ability to recover the wind. The duke also tacked towards the land in order to keep the wind, the galleasses going with him in the van, and the rest of the fleet following. The

1. With the exception of this vessel, which was a merchantman of Drake's squadron, all the relieving ships belonged to the Royal Navy.
2. Vanegas, Calderon and Manrique agree in saying that Medina Sidonia's ship fired one hundred and fifty rounds. She had several shot-holes in her hull below water.
3. Some of the arquebusses of the time were fired from a rest called a crock or crook.
4. Miranda that day counted one hundred and twenty English sail. Duro, doc. 169, p. 268. See, too, Duro, doc. 168, p. 258.
5. Duro, doc. 165.