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 It is nowhere expressly said that it would be for Parma's transports to wait off the English coast, somewhere near Margate, until the English fleet should be beaten. Yet that seems to have been Medina Sidonia's meaning. At all events, Parma was to have no share worth mentioning in the victory which it was purposed to gain after the junction had been effected. Parma's contingent was not regarded as likely to very considerably strengthen the fighting power of the Armada at sea. The letter further indicates that Philip had proposed that, after the junction had been effected, the English fleet should, if possible, be blockaded in some port, and then harassed simultaneously by land and by sea.

After the departure from Lisbon, Medina Sidonia wrote to Parma that the Armada was on its way, and that the people were in good spirits and burning for a fight, "if the enemy would wait for them." Still, apparently bearing in mind the original instructions, he said that the king had ordered him to proceed directly to Parma's assistance. He laid stress upon the fact that he had only to clear the way, attacking if the enemy annoyed him. But he was not to follow the English fleet far, if it gave way. In this letter, the scheme of junction with Parma was touched upon with the same perplexing vagueness as on previous occasions. Medina Sidonia begged Parma, immediately upon receiving the dispatch, to set sail in order to meet the Armada, and at the same time to send a messenger to the fleet, to inform the admiral how far Parma's preparations had advanced, and where the junction was to take place. Supposing Margate to have still been the destination of both forces, Medina Sidonia evidently contemplated the possibility of a junction previous to his arrival off that town.

Recalde's opinion of the plan is noteworthy. Recalde was vice-admiral of the entire fleet; and it would be his duty to exert himself to the utmost in the battle. His remarks are to be found in a letter which, on July 1st, shortly before the final departure of the fleet from Spain, he addressed to the king.

The object of the fleet was, according to the little which Recalde had been able to learn, to fight the enemy at close quarters and