"We had a pretty skirmish for half-an-hour"--a hundred English armed with muskets and swords against seven hundred Spaniards and forty guns. "They seemed safe in their ship, while we in our open pinnaces and far under them had nothing to shroud and cover us." The captain, Don Hugo de Moncada, smiled a sarcastic smile when asked to surrender. In a few minutes a bullet had struck him in the forehead, and he fell dead upon the deck. On this the crew threw themselves into the sea, and the English enjoyed an hour and a half of plunder; fifty thousand ducats (£10,000) rewarded them well, but the ship was claimed by the Governor of Calais. While the Lord Admiral stayed to watch the capture of the _Capitana_--not quite an admiral's duty, one would suppose--a very great fight was going on off Gravelines, where the Flemish shoals and the stormy sea together helped the English pursuers. Many great galleons were wrecked or taken, while no English ship was seriously damaged. Lord Howard hurried up in time to see the end of the fight, and wrote, "Their force is wonderful great and strong, but we pluck their feathers by little and little." Burghley's want of resources spared the enemy a final defeat, for ammunition was exhausted, and the Spaniards limped lamely away. "Tho' our powder and shot was well near all spent," wrote Howard, "we set on a brag countenance and gave them chase." They followed northwards up to Friday, the 2nd of August, when, being midway between the Firth of Forth and the Skager-Rak, Howard signalled to stop. For they had to refresh the ships with victuals, as well as powder and shot; so some light pinnaces only were sent to dog the Armada to the Isles of Scotland. On their way south again the English were scattered by the storm, which was driving the Spaniards on the rocks; but they assembled in Margate Road on the 9th of August. A medal was struck to commemorate the defeat of the Armada. On it were depicted fire-ships pursuing a fleet, with the motto, "Dux femina fecit" ("The leader who did this was a woman"). We may have our doubts on this point; certainly the fire-ships did much damage, but it was the winds of heaven that finished the fight. "Afflavit Deus, et dissipantur" was more true to the facts--"God has blown on them and they are scattered," a more humble record of the victory. The Queen was so excited by the wonderful escape from invasion that she wished to send off at once an expedition to the Azores, in order to catch the trading ships on their way back from the Indies, and so replenish the exhausted treasury.