The Spaniards at last reached Calais and anchored in the Roads. But, when the tidal stream was running toward them full, Drake sent nine fire-ships in among them. There was no time to get their anchors up; so they cut their cables, swung round with the tide in horrible confusion, dashing into one another in the dark, and headed for the shallows of the Flemish coast. This lost them their last chance of helping Parma into England. But it also saved Parma from losing the whole of his army at sea. Once more the brave, though cruel, Spaniards tried to fight the English fleet. But all in vain. This was the end. It came at Gravelines, on the 29th of July 1588, just ten days after Captain Fleming of the _Golden Hind_ had stopped Drake's game of bowls at Plymouth. North, and still north, the beaten Armada ran for its life; round by the stormy Orkneys, down the wild waters of the Hebrides and Western Ireland, strewing the coasts with wreckage and dead men, till at last the few surviving ships limped home. [Illustration: ARMADA OFF FOWEY (Cornwall) as first seen in the English Channel.] There never was a better victory nor one more clearly gained by greater skill. Nor has there ever been a victory showing more clearly how impossible it is to keep sea empires safe without a proper navy. But, after all, it is the whole Sea-Dog war, and not any single battle or campaign, that really made those vast changes in world-history which we enjoy today. For we owe it to the whole Sea-Dog breed that the fair lands of North America are what they are and not as Spain might otherwise have made them. The Sea-Dogs won the English right of entry into Spain's New World. They, strange as it may seem, won French rights, too; for Spain and France were often deadly enemies, and Spain would gladly have kept the French out of all America if she had only had the fleet with which to do it. Thus even the French-Canadians owe Drake a debt of gratitude for breaking down the great sea barriers of Spain. "The Invincible Armada" could not, of course, have been defeated without much English bravery. And we know that the Queen, her Councillors, and the great mass of English people would have fought the Spanish army bravely enough had it ever landed. For even Henry V, calling to his army at the siege of Harfleur, Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! was no braver than Queen Elizabeth addressing her own army at Tilbury Fort, the outwork of London, when the Armada was sailing up the Channel: "I am only a poor weak woman. But I have the heart of a king; and of a King of England too."