t'ortunes, after Howard had given up the chase, scarcely belongs to English Naval History, and nnty be very briefly summafiscal.

On August Ilth, 3h,dina Sidonia sent to I'hilip a dispatch in which he admitted' that the undertaking had failed. "(;od," he wrote, "has seen good to direct matters otherwise than we expected." He went on to lay down the reasons which had prompted the decision to give up the expcditiou. His fleet wats ahnost destroyed; the best vessds had no ammunition; the survivors had no confidence or spirit remaining. The quceu's fleet, owing to its peculiar methods of fighting, had !n'oved its superiority to his. The English strength lay in gunnery and in seamanship. The Spanish strength, on the contrary, lay, un- fortundUly, in small-arms and in fight at close quarters; and as the Spaniards had been unMle to get. to close quarters, this advantage had not trailed them. Looking to all the circumstances, Medina Sidonia deemed that he would best serve Philip by endearouting to save the fleet by taking the admittedly perilous course home round Scotland. Iudeed, the wind, which had steadily blown from the southward, left him no option. Besides his many wounded. he had three thousand sick among his people.

But the Armada had still the worst of its mishaps before it. In the course of the voyage round Scotland and h'eland, it h,st by storm and shipwreck at least nineveh vesls, a and pvbably several more; for the exact fate of no fewer than thirty-five missiug vessels of the great Spanish fleet remains to this day unkuown. In addition to Mmost continuous bad weather, two exceptionally heavy storms were encountered. The galleass Girorot. went to pieces near Giant's Causeway, on a rock still called Spaniards' Rock, and carried down with her Don Alonso de Leyva, the Count of Paredes, and all her crew. The "urca" or hulk, E! Gran (Iri]bn, which bdong to Rostock, was lost on :Fair Island. where Juan Gomes de Medina, admiral of the hulks, reruMned with his men during the whole winter. The Rata Corona&, or, to give her her full name, La Rata Santa Maria Encoronada, a went ashore dud became a wreck on the coast of Erris. Don Alonso de Leyv, who later went on board the Gbna, narrowly escaped losing his life in her. The Duquesa ,Santa ..lna, into which he first removed, was

Duro, doe. 164. a Duro's estimate. h-ish accolllil give vemeen as lost in !re]and three.

s S. P. Ireland, Eliz. cxxxvii. 3.