For some time before the ships of the Armada cast loose their moorings in Lisbon on May 19, 1588, and set out upon the conquest of England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the English fleet, under the command of Lord Charles Howard, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir John Hawkins had been collected together and marshalled in Plymouth Sound awaiting the news that the Spaniards were in the Channel. The ships had been chosen and “found” by men who knew what value to place upon sound ships, rigging, and fittings; and under the eye of Howard, Seymour, Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and others who afterwards bore their gallant part, the English ships (some mere cockboats) which rode at anchor under the lee of Mount Edgcumbe, waiting for the advent of the enemy, and “straining at the cables to get at the Spanish Dons,” were made ready. [Illustration: CREMILL POINT, PLYMOUTH] The Spanish fleet entered the Channel off the coast of Cornwall on July 19 in dirty weather. Up from the Bay the Spanish admiral in the _San Martin_ had led the van, “showing lights at night, and firing guns when the weather was hazy.” On their arrival at the mouth of the Channel they found English fishing boats acting as scouts, and so the news of the Armada’s coming was first brought to land, and flashed along the coast by desperate riders, and at night by kindled watch fires. Froude gives us an arresting and detailed picture of the dangers which had beset the English fleet in Plymouth Sound during the period of waiting--dangers of exhausted provisions and depleted resources, which were (so the historian states) due to the parsimony of Elizabeth and some of her counsellors. Medina Sidonia summoned his captains aboard the flag-ship to decide upon a course of action. Whether they should await the attack of the English fleet as they proceeded up the Channel, or attempt a surprise and fall upon it as it lay in Plymouth. The King’s orders, however, were to make for Margate roads and effect the junction with Parma. So the great unwieldy galleons, crammed to repletion with men, priests, and treasure, made their way up the Channel slowly, and, at first, in order like the shape of a half-moon. “Long before the Spaniards saw the Lizard,” writes Froude, “they had themselves been seen, and on the evening of the 19th (of July), the beacons along the coast had told England that the hour of its trial was come. “To the ships at Plymouth the news was as a message of salvation. By thrift and short rations, by good management, contented care, and lavish use of private means, there was still one week’s provisions, with powder and shot for one day’s sharp fighting, according to English notions of what fighting ought to be.... All wants, all difficulties were forgotten in the knowledge that he (the enemy) was come, and that they could grapple with him, before they were dissolved by starvation.”