A few miles off Calais Howard had been overtaken by Seymour's force of some twenty ships, with Sir William Winter second in command; so that his entire force was now about a hundred and forty ships, many of them quite small craft. Many of the men on board were mere landsmen, and knew not which way to turn, or how to set a sail. "If you had seen the simple service done by the merchants' and coast ships," wrote Winter to Walsingham, "you would have said we had been little holpen by them, otherwise than that they did make a show." Sunday, the 28th of July, was a sunny day, and the French shore was full of holiday folk who had come in market carts from town and village to see the grand spectacle of the great Spanish floating castles. Though they were not noisily fighting there was much business being done--messengers were hurrying to the shore for despatches, and hurrying back to the galleons with news that the Prince of Parma was making all possible preparations for debarkation at Dunkirk, but could not be ready for a dozen hours or so. Parma was a great general, but he could not work miracles on sea. His flat-bottomed boats were leaky; his provisions were not on board; his men did not like the look of the sea; the sailors were there on compulsion, and kept deserting in crowds; the Dutch fleet was waiting for him, and if he sailed, it would be to expose his army to certain destruction. But the Armada had reached Calais unbroken and apparently invincible; for the Spanish ships sat on the water like huge castles, their bulks being so planked with great beams that balls and bullets might strike and stick, but never pass through; so that the English cannon could do little damage, except only in playing on their masts and tackle--besides, their enormous height made any attempt to board them impossible. Those English officers who thought on these things might well wonder how the Spaniards were ever to be beaten off from the Thames and London. Howard must have been consulting and wondering how the great battle was to be won. Some say that the Queen herself suggested fire-ships, others say that the device was Winter's, who had it from Gianibelli, an Italian who had practised it with great success in defending Antwerp from Parma three years before. As has been told before, six of the oldest vessels were filled with combustibles and smeared with pitch, and convoyed to the Armada at midnight. It was a rough sea after a three days' calm, the rain fell in torrents, and the wind blew from the south-west, so that when the flaring hulks came careering with deadly detonations amongst the wooden walls of Spain, no wonder if a panic seized them, and they scurried before the wind to the mouth of the Scheldt--all but the Neapolitan galleass, the _Capitana_, which lost her rudder, bumped on the Calais sands and was taken. For Howard had sent his long-boat and a pinnace to seize her.