Page:Royalnavyhistory01clow.djvu/612

 that there was no danger of France assisting the Spaniards. After describing how he had looked for Spanish ships off the Scillies, and failed to find them, he wrote: "I have divided myself here into three parts, and yet we lie within sight one of another, so as, if any of us do discover the Spanish fleet, we give notice thereof presently the one to the other, and thereupon repair and assemble together. I myself do lie in the middle of the Channel, with the greatest force. Sir Francis Drake hath 20 ships and four or five pinnaces, which lie towards Ushant; and Mr. Hawkyns, with as many more, lieth towards Scilly." If the Armada were destined for England, he did not doubt of falling in with it; if it were aimed at Scotland, he would follow it through the Narrow Seas. He did not believe that it was bound for Ireland. At the same period Lord Henry Seymour, with his flag in the Rainbow, commanded a detached force in the Downs, to watch Flushing, Dunquerque, and the Straits of Dover; and two Netherlands fleets were under orders to co-operate.

On July 12th, the very day when the Armada quitted Corunna, Seymour wrote to Walsyngham, and, after recounting how the summer weather on his station had been unusually bad, and admitting that the gales were often favourable for the Spaniards, should they choose to come into the Channel, added: "Yet shall they be as greatly damaged by the raging seas as by their enemies. And to heap on braveries for conquering little England, that hath always been renowned, and now most famous by the great discovered strength, as well by sea as by land, the same also united with thousands [of] resolute civil minds — how can the same enter into my conceit they should any ways prevail?" Thus there was