The introduction of this type of vessel came about as follows:-- A fleet of Castillian galleons, bound for Flanders, whiled away the monotony of its trip by acts of piracy against all English ships that it met. It reached Sluys without interference. Here it loaded up with rich cargoes and prepared to return to Spain. The English meanwhile collected a fleet to intercept it, this fleet being in command of King Edward himself, who selected the “cog _Thomas_” as his flagship. The English tactics would seem to have been carefully thought out beforehand. The Castillian ships were known to be of relatively vast size and more or less unassailable except by boarding. The result was that when at length they appeared, the English charged their ships into them, sinking most of their own ships in the impact, sprang aboard and carried the enemy by boarding. The leading figure on the English side was a German body-servant of the name of Hannekin, who distinguished himself just at the crisis of the battle by leaping on board a Castillian ship and cutting the halyards. Otherwise the result of the battle might have been different, because the Castillians, when about half only of the English ships were grappled with them, hoisted their sails, with the object of sailing away and destroying the enemy in detail. Hannekin’s perception of this intention frustrated the attempt. The advantages of the galleons (or carracks as they were then called), must have been rendered obvious in this battle of “Les Espagnols-sur-Mer,” as immediately afterwards ships on the models of those captured began to be hired for English purposes. Concurrent, however, with this building of a larger type of ship, a decline of naval power began; and ten years later, English shipping was in such a parlous state that orders were issued to the effect that should any of the Cinque Ports be attacked from the sea, any ships there were to be hauled up on land, as far away from the water as possible, in order to preserve them. In the French War of 1369, almost the first act of the French fleet was to sack and burn Portsmouth without encountering any naval opposition. In 1372 some sort of English fleet was collected, and under the Earl of Pembroke sent to relieve La Rochelle, which was then besieged by the French and Spanish. The Spanish ships of that period had improved on those of twenty years before, to the extent that (according to Froissart), some carried guns. In any case they proved completely superior to the English, whose entire fleet was captured or sunk.