The truth is, that neither D'Annebault nor Lisle showed any such inclination. The Frenchman returned from his own coast to ours, and began to stretch along it from west to east. Lisle followed, with the intention of making a stroke at the enemy if a particularly tempting opportunity presented itself. On the 9th of August he wrote to Paget: "If we chance to meet with them, divided as it should seem they be, we shall have some sport with them." From the French account in the memoirs of Martin du Bellay, which is both full and fair, it is clear that D'Annebault was no more adventurous than Lisle. On the coast of Sussex he showed the same incapacity to understand that, in war more than in most enterprises, he who will nothing venture shall nothing have. The English fleet came in sight of the French near Shoreham on the 15th of August. D'Annebault had drawn his vessels as close to the beach as was safe, with his galleys to the west, under a small headland, and therefore between his great ships and the English, who were advancing from Portsmouth. The galleys had been hauled into very shallow water, where the larger of Lisle's ships could not reach them. D'Annebault's calculation was, that the English admiral would not care to run the risk of passing the galleys, for the purpose of attacking the great ships beyond, lest they should fall upon his rear, and so put him between two fires. According to Lisle's statement to the king of the plan on which he intended to fight, he would not have been deterred from attacking by the dispositions of the French admiral. He had made counter arrangements which were skilful in intention, and might have been effective. His plan was to fall upon the great ships of the French fleet, with the Vanwarde and the Battle, leaving the smaller craft which formed the Wing to stay behind, or to windward, and ward off the French galleys. A shift of the wind from the west to north-east rendered it impossible for him to carry out his intention. The change in the wind had transferred the weather-gage to D'Annebault, and if he had been as eager for battle as according to Martin du Bellay he asserted himself to be, he had now an admirable opportunity of fighting. But D'Annebault again found insuperable difficulties in the way of coming to close quarters. All the use he made of his chance was to fight a tardy, inconclusive battle. Martin du Bellay and Lord Lisle substantially agree, but we may give the preference to our own countryman.