The English at last drew off from their persistent attacks on the rearward ships, only because after a hot cannonade of seven hours they were running short of ammunition; so they used the advantage of position and better seamanship and seaworthiness to break off from the battle, Howard hanging out the "council flag" from the "Ark," as a signal to his leading captains to come on board and discuss the situation with him. Medina-Sidonia, in his diary of the day, says nothing of the sinking of the "San Juan de Sicilia," but he goes on to tell how the "San Felipe" and the "San Mateo" were seen drifting helplessly towards the shoals of the Zealand coast; how efforts were made to take off their crews, but these failed, "for the sea was so high that nothing could be done, nor could the damage be repaired which the flagship had suffered from great shot, whereby she was in danger of being lost." This talk of rough seas shows that, brave though he undoubtedly was in battle, the Duke had the landsman's exaggerated alarm at the choppy waves of the Channel, and regarded as a gale and a storm what a sailor would call fine weather with a bit of a breeze. None of the English commanders thought that there was a high sea that summer afternoon. In the night it blew somewhat harder from the north-west, and as the early dawn came it was seen that the Armada was in a perilous position. The galleons, many of them with badly damaged spars and rigging, many more without anchors at their cat-heads ready to bring them up, were being forced nearer and nearer to the low sandy shores that were marked only by the white foam of the breakers, and the leadsmen were giving warning that the keels were already dangerously near to the shelving bottom along the outlying fringe of shoals. The English ships, with plenty of sea-room, looked on without closing in to attack. Little ammunition was left, and Howard and his captains were not going to waste good powder and shot on ships that seemed doomed to hopeless destruction. Some of Medina-Sidonia's captains proposed that he should show the white flag and obtain the help of the English to tow the endangered vessels off the lee shore, but he refused to hear of such base surrender, and told them he was prepared for death. He tells in his journal of the day how a sudden change of the wind saved the fleet:-- "The enemy held aloof, seeing that our Armada must be lost. The pilots on board the flagship--men of experience of that coast--told the Duke at this time that it was not possible to save a single ship of the Armada; for that with the wind as it was in the north-west, they must all needs go on the banks of Zeeland; that God alone could prevent it. Being in this peril and without any remedy, God was pleased to change the wind to west-south-west, whereby the fleet stood towards the north without hurt to any ship."