The Armada sailed from the Tagus late in May, with the solemn blessing of the Church, and patronized by every influential saint in the calendar. A storm drove it back with loss, and it did not sail again till the 12th of July. It was descried off Plymouth on the 20th, "with lofty turrets like castles, in front like a half-moon; the wings thereof spreading out about the length of seven miles, sailing very slowly, though with full sails, the winds being as it were weary with wafting them, and the ocean groaning under their weight." The English suffered them to pass Plymouth, that they might attack them in the rear. They commenced the fight the next day, with only forty ships. The Spaniards, during this preliminary action, found their ships "very useful to defend, but not to offend, and better fitted to stand than to move." Drake, with his usual luck, captured a galleon in which he found fifty-five thousand ducats in gold. This sum was divided among his crew. Skirmishing and detached fights continued for several days, the Spanish ships being found, from their height and thickness, inaccessible by boarding or ball. They were compared to castles pitched into the sea. The lord-admiral was consequently instructed to convert eight of his least efficient vessels into fire-ships. The order arrived as the enemy's fleet anchored off Calais, and thirty hours afterwards the eight ships selected were discharged of all that was worth removal and filled with combustibles. Their guns were heavily loaded, and their sides smeared with rosin and wild-fire. At midnight they were sent, with wind and tide, into the heart of the invincible Armada. A terrible panic seized the affrighted crews: remembering the fire-ships which had been used but lately in the Scheldt, they shouted, in agony, "The fire of Antwerp! The fire of Antwerp!" Some cut their cables, others slipped their hawsers, and all put to sea, "happiest they who could first be gone, though few could tell what course to take." Some were wrecked on the shallows of Flanders; some gained the ocean; while the remainder were attacked and terribly handled by Drake. The discomfited Spaniards resolved to return to Spain by a northern circuit around England and Scotland. The English pursued, but the exhausted state of their powder-magazines prevented another engagement. The luckless Armada never returned to Spain. A terrific storm drove the vessels upon the Irish coast and upon the inhospitable rocks of the Orkneys. Thirty of them were stranded near Connaught: two had been cast away upon the shores of Norway. In all, eighty-one ships were lost, and but fifty-three reached home. Out of thirty thousand soldiers embarked, fourteen thousand were missing. Philip received the calamity as a dispensation of Providence, and ordered thanks to be given to God that the disaster was no greater. [Illustration: PROCESSION IN HONOR OF THE DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA.]