coast of Scotland is rock-bound and formidable even in moderate weather; the short seas among the Orkney and Shetland islands are still more dangerous. They had no pilots; and, tossed about to and fro by the storm, were clashed and dashed on shore by dozens, and hopelessly wrecked. No skill could now keep them together. Some were driven eastward to Norway; some were hurried westward, and there dashed to pieces among the Hebrides, or on the ironbound coast of Antrim and Donegal. Many went down in the open sea. The destruction of the Armada was so complete that it could never be accurately stated. The lowest computation estimated the loss at eighty ships and twenty thousand men. And even those ships that did regain their own harbours were utterly disabled, and incapable of any further service.

It was long before Philip could believe in the downfall of the hopes which he had so confidently nourished and so arrogantly proclaimed; and, when at last he could no longer disguise the disaster and its extent from himself, he tried to conceal it from his subjects by issuing an order that no one should wear mourning. Had no such edict been issued, the whole nation would have been clothed in black, for there was scarcely a family that had not lost some of its members. And he attempted to deceive foreign nations also by publishing a vainglorious statement of the grand success that the Armada had achieved. Lord Howard's flagship, as he affirmed, had been taken; Drake had been killed;

while his own loss was confined to a single ship. He caused this narrative to be translated into the different languages of the Continent, and its appearance brought Drake out in a new character-that of an author; for to show that he had not been killed, he drew up an elaborate letter to contradict the Royal narrative, in which he described with minute accuracy how the ships of the Armada, collected from every part of the Spanish dominions and from all her allies, had been "beaten and buffeted together, from the Lizard to Portland, and from Portland to Calais; from Calais they had been driven with squibs from their anchors; they were chased out of sight of England; their crews, captured by our ships, or wrecked on our shores, were sent from village to village till Her Majesty, of her princely and invincible disposition, disdaining to put them to death, and scorning either to retain or to entertain them, sent them all back to their countries to recount the worthy achievements of their invincible and dreadful navy; not having in all their sailing round about England so much as sunk or taken one ship, bark, pinnace, or cockboat of ours, or burnt so much as one sheepcote in this land."

Strange to say, not one honour or reward of any kind was bestowed by Elizabeth on any one of the gallant men who had thus saved the nation. Lord Howard availed himself of one of the prerogatives belonging to his command to knight Hawkins and Frobisher and others of his officers who had not received such rank before, and had distinguished themselves by especial

skill and energy in the great conflict; but not one of them, not even he himself, received from her, who ought to have been the fountain of honour to all her deserving subjects, the very slightest compliment or recognition of their priceless service.

Her subsequent acts, however, showed that she was aware of Drake's value. The very next year she aimed at retaliating on Philip his endeavour to invade her dominions, by depriving him of a kingdom which he had recently added to his own, and wresting Portugal from his grasp. And with this object she equipped a fleet and army under Drake and General Sir John Norris, to escort Don Antonio, a prince of the house of Braganza, to Corunna. And the result of the expedition scarcely augmented Drake's reputation. In the amount of the force employed Elizabeth had been liberal enough. Fourteen thousand men were conveyed in a hundred and sixty vessels. But only six of these were royal menof-war, and many were only Dutch transports hired for the service. And again Elizabeth's inveterate parsimony denied the commanders a sufficiency of necessary supplies either of provisions or ammunition; the latter, indeed, was so scanty, that the army was not provided with a single field-piece. In spite of this want, Norris, with singular audacity, penetrated into Old Castile with one brigade, and routed a Spanish army at Burgos, forcing his way across the bridge "at push of pike." But beyond this the operations were confined to attacks on Corunna and the suburbs of Lisbon. But even at