It was not until Friday the 2nd of August that Howard abandoned the pursuit. He made for the Firth of Forth, took in victuals, powder, and shot, and sailed southwards to be ready for Parma, should he cross from Dunkirk. As they sailed, a storm burst upon them, scattering them so that they did not assemble again in Margate Roads until the 9th of August. A note from Lord Burghley suggests that as the danger is over, the ships shall be at once discharged; but there was no money to pay the men who had saved England in her hour of danger. Towards the end of August, Sir John wrote urgently to Burghley for money to pay the seamen--£19,000 were already due to them before the fight off Gravelines--and Lord Howard added a postscript: "Hawkins cannot make a better return. God knows how the lieutenants and corporals will be paid." Howard and Hawkins could not pay them off. The men were kept hanging on, ill-fed, ill-clad, housed like hogs and dying as by a pestilence. "'Tis a most pitiful sight to see how the men here at Margate, having no place where they can be received, die in the streets. The best lodging I can get is barns and such outhouses, and the relief is small that I can provide for them here. It would grieve any man's heart to see men that have served so valiantly die so miserably." So Howard writes to Burghley. Burghley, at his wits' end, writes to Hawkins a melancholy letter: "Why do you ask for money when you know the exchequer is so empty?" Howard tells the Queen how the men sicken one day and die the next; and as woman she pitied them, but could not find means to help her sailors. "Alas! these things must be--after a famous victory!" Her minister may have suggested some such reflection. Meanwhile the great Armada, left to the judgment of God, was leaving its wrecks on the coasts of Norway, Scotland, and Ireland. It was not until October that fifty-three ships out of one hundred and thirty-two came back wearily to a Spanish port. Sir Francis Drake tells us that many Spanish seamen landed in Scotland and Ireland, of whom a few remained to live amongst the peasantry, but the most part were coupled in halters and sent from village to village till they were shipped to England. "But her Majesty, disdaining to put them to death, and scorning either to retain or entertain them, they were all sent back again to their own country to bear witness to the worthy achievement of their Invincible Navy." Sir John Hawkins in 1589 proposed to Lord Burghley a scheme for capturing Cadiz and sinking all the Spanish galleys he could find there. "It is not honourable for her Majesty to seem to be in any fear of the King of Spain." But Burghley did not approve of any more expenditure of money, and the scheme was dropped.