success. "Their force," he wrote to Valsyngham, "is wonderfully great and stroug; and yet we pluck their feathers hy little nd little." I3ut that it should be more or less decisive was entirely in aeeordanee with Howard's plans; for he had deliberately deter- mined, if possihle, [o postpone general engagement until after the junction with him of Seymour and XVynter. Drake wins a little more clear-sighted. "God," he wrote to XVMsyngham, "hath given us so good a dy in foreiug the enemy so far to leeward, as I hope in God the Prince of Parma and the.Duke of Sidonia shMl not shake hands this few dys; and whensoever they shall meet, I believe neither of them will greatly rejoice of this day's service. " Neither Drake nor Howard can have known that many ships of the Armada had no cannon shot left ; and both, no doubt, overrated the amount of fight still left in the Spaniards. That Gravelines had destroyed the moral of the enemy did not become plxrent until several days afterwards, when, making no attemp[ to return for Parma, and so abandoning i-ts mMn object, the Armad ws fairly on its hazardous course of sauve qui peut round Scotland.

On Tuesday, July 30th, Howard ordered Lord Henry Seymour and Sir 5Villiam 5Vynter to return to the Narrow Seas to guard the coasts there ag;finst any raids which might he attempted by ]'arlu or others; and with the main body of the fleet he followed the Spaniards, determining to pursue them "until they should come so far northward as the Frith in Scotland, if they should bend themselves that way. " The squadrons parted company between seven and eight o'clock on the evening of 5Vednesday, � being then apparently on the line between Lowestoft aud the Brielle; hut the forraM resolution to chase as far northward as the ltitnde of the Frith of Forth was not come to until Thtu'sday, Anoint lst,; when a council of war agreed to the project. Seymour's squadron thence- forward consisted of the ltnguard, Rainbow, Antelope, Bull, Tiger, Tremontaria, ,qcout, .tchatcs, .lieflirt, Sun, ('ygnet, George, and Captain William Borough's galley, besides merchant vessels. s

The decision to pursue as far as the Frith of Forth ws not carried out, it becoming clear to Howard that the Spaniards had

S. P. Dom. ccxiii. 64. July 2tth. a lb. ccxiii. 65. July 2!th.

W3mter, howeveh suspected the truth. 
To the gat disgust of Seymom', as expressed in his letters. 

a I'otl. MS. Julius, F. x. 111-117. $. P. Dom. ccxiv. 2, 7.

B. M. Addit. MS. 33,740, L ;. s S. P. Dom. ccxiv. 6.