By nine o'clock, 31st July, about two miles from Looe on the Cornish coast, the fleets had their first meeting. There were one hundred and thirty-six sail of the Spaniards, of which ninety were large ships; and sixty-seven of the English. It was a solemn moment. The long-expected Armada presented a pompous, almost a theatrical appearance. The ships seemed arranged for a pageant, in honor of a victory already won. Disposed in form of a crescent, the horns of which were seven miles asunder, those gilded, towered, floating castles, with their gaudy standards and their martial music, moved slowly along the channel, with an air of indolent pomp. Their captain-general, the golden duke, stood in his private shot-proof fortress, on the deck of his great galleon the _St. Martin_, surrounded by generals of infantry and colonels of cavalry, who knew as little as he did himself of naval matters. The English vessels, on the other hand--with a few exceptions light, swift, and easily handled--could sail round and round those unwieldy galleons, hulks, and galleys rowed by fettered slave gangs. The superior seamanship of free Englishmen commanded by such experienced captains as Drake, Frobisher,[25] and Hawkins[26]--from infancy at home on blue water--was manifest in the very first encounter. They obtained the weather-gage at once, and cannonaded the enemy at intervals with considerable effect; easily escaping at will out of range of the sluggish Armada, which was incapable of bearing sail in pursuit, altho provided with an armament which could sink all its enemies at close quarters. "We had some small fight with them that Sunday afternoon," said Hawkins. [Footnote 25: Sir Martin Frobisher, who in 1576 commanded an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage, and discovered the bay since called after him.] [Footnote 26: Sir John Hawkins at this time was a rear-admiral. He was knighted after the defeat of the Armada.] Medina Sidonia[27] hoisted the royal standard at the fore; and the whole fleet did its utmost, which was little, to offer general battle. It was in vain. The English, following at the heels of the enemy, refused all such invitations, and attacked only the rear-guard of the Armada, where Recalde commanded. That admiral, steadily maintaining his post, faced his nimble antagonists, who continued to tease, to maltreat, and to elude him, while the rest of the fleet proceeded slowly up the Channel closely followed by the enemy. And thus the running fight continued along the coast, in full view of Plymouth, whence boats with reenforcements and volunteers were perpetually arriving to the English ships, until the battle had drifted quite out of reach of the town. [Footnote 27: The Duke of Medina Sidonia, who commanded the Armada.]