Just as the townsfolk of Dartmouth had crowded to the cliffs at the harbour entrance to see Davis depart on his voyages, and wave him God-speed, so climbed they once again to watch the Armada, which Philip of Spain in his pride had named “Invincible,” “wrecking nought that God Himself was with the English fleet and Lord Howard of Effingham,” go surging up the Channel, flags flying, cannon belching, with “pictures of the Holy Saints, and coats of arms wrought upon their sails”; and the little English ships hanging to them in hot and furious pursuit. Then came a time of comparative rest for the beautiful little port on the Dart, which, however, as we have before stated, saw some of the storm and stress of the Civil War. With the bold and successful enterprises of Dartmouth privateers during the long war with Napoleon, or with those of equally daring smugglers at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, there is no space to deal in detail. We need only say that the spirit which had formerly actuated the Hawleys, Davises, Hammonds, Clintons, and Vaughans (to mention but a few)--many of whose enterprises are set forth in the State papers--was not now a-lacking when England experienced once more a time of stress and need, and opportunity for personal gain walked in step with patriotism. The greatness of Dartmouth as a seaport has departed. In the comparative quietude of her streets and alleys one does, however, seem to catch as it were an echo of other and more splendid days. And in the types one meets by the waterside and in the purlieus of the quays the observant can yet trace something of the old seadogs who, adventuring much, went forth in quest of new worlds and new trade routes, or roved the Breton coasts in search of conflict and of plunder. The waters of the harbour are nowadays, however, chiefly ploughed by pleasure craft, white winged yachts in place of the armed sloops and fast sailing craft, once bent on pillage, or commerce with Newfoundland and other far countries.