By the middle of the sixteenth century naval tactics in England had advanced even further still, as the instructions issued in connection with the Battle of Shoreham indicate. They are too long to detail here, but it is noticeable that they show both a knowledge of the handling of ships and a mind that has escaped from medieval muddle. The arranging of the fleet in proper divisions, each with its own work to perform, the exact position which was to be maintained, and so on, are well worth consideration. And each division was to wear the St. George’s ensign at a different place for purposes of recognition. Those in the first rank were to fly it from the fore-topmast, those in the second rank to wear it on the mainmast, and so on. During the latter half of the sixteenth century, when the autumn came round each year and most of the royal ships had ended their cruising till the following spring, it was customary to take these vessels round to the Medway. Even ships from Portsmouth were hither brought, and they lay moored in Gillingham Reach. This made a convenient and sheltered anchorage, and yet was not too far from the Tower of London. When the time arrived again for fitting out, the ammunition was put on board barges at the Tower and these, taking the ebb down the Thames and the flood up the Medway, discharged their load when tied up alongside the warships at Chatham. The great achievements of the Elizabethan seamen could not have occurred unless the English had been engaged in the seafaring life for years, since it is impossible to make a landsman a sailor except after much training. The Armada would never have been defeated except for the superior seamanship and gunnery of our forefathers. Slowly, but surely, since the history of our country began, there had been growing up a nucleus of professional seamen. In Tudor times had there been no race of freight-carriers and fishermen, there would have been no virile body of men to fall back on in the hour of danger on the sea, for the merchant sailor often enough had an exciting passage before he landed his cargo safely in port. Both he and the simple fisherman were liable to be assaulted on the sea by hordes of pirates. In the North Sea, the English Channel (especially in the vicinity of the Scilly Isles, where they swarmed), and off the Irish coast these sea-rovers were a terror to the peaceful, honest seaman.