_R. Southey, Lives of British Admirals, volume 2, pages 327-334._ _C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, 5th series, chapter 27._ ENGLAND: A. D. 1588. The Destruction of the Armada. "The great number of the English, the whole able-bodied population being drilled, counterbalanced the advantage possessed, from their universal use of firearms, by the invaders. In all the towns there were trained bands (a civic militia); and, either in regular service or as volunteers, thousands of all ranks had received a military training on the continent. The musters represented 100,000 men as ready to assemble at their head-quarters at a day's notice. It was, as nearly always, in its military administration that the vulnerable point of England lay. The fitting-out and victualling of the navy was disgraceful; and it is scarcely an excuse for the councillors that they were powerless against the parsimony of the Queen. The Government maintained its hereditary character from the days of Ethelred the Unready, and the arrangements for assembling the defensive forces were not really completed by them until after the Armada was destroyed. The defeat of the invaders, if they had landed, must have been accomplished by the people. The flame of patriotism never burnt purer: all Englishmen alike, Romanists, Protestant Episcopalians, and Puritans, were banded together to resist the invader. Every hamlet was on the alert for the beacon-signal. Some 15,000 men were already under arms in London; the compact Tilbury Fort was full, and a bridge of boats from Tilbury to Gravesend blocked the Thames. Philip's preparations had been commensurate with the grandeur of his scheme. The dockyards in his ports in the Low Countries, the rivers, the canals, and the harbours of Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Italy, echoed the clang of the shipwrights' hammers. A vast armament, named, as if to provoke Nemesis, the 'Invincible Armada,' on which for three years the treasures of the American mines had been lavished, at length rode the seas, blessed with Papal benedictions and under the patronage of the saints. It comprised 65 huge galleons, of from 700 to 1,300 tons, with sides of enormous thickness, and built high like castles; four great galleys, each carrying 50 guns and 450 men, and rowed by 300 slaves; 56 armed merchantmen, and 20 pinnaces. These 129 vessels were armed with 2,430 brass and iron guns of the best manufacture, but each gun was furnished only with 50 rounds. {844} They carried 5,000 seamen: Parma's army amounted to 30,000 men--Spaniards, Germans, Italians and Walloons; and 19,000 Castilians and Portuguese, with 1,000 gentlemen volunteers, were coming to join him. To maintain this army after it had effected a landing, a great store of provisions--sufficient