At the eleventh hour the Marshal’s plan of campaign all but broke down. The English fleet was ready; but it comprised only eighteen, or at the utmost twenty-two, ships of any size, with some smaller ones to the number of about twenty more;[268] and the sight of the enemy’s superior fleet struck such terror into the sailors that they lost their heads completely, left their ships with the sails all hoisted, and took refuge in their little boats.[269] Once more the Marshal appealed to them as only he could appeal. Again he offered to go with them; but again his own men forbade it.[270] Then by a characteristic exhortation he shamed the mariners out of their fears. “God has given us one victory over the French on land. Now they are coming again, to claim the country against Him. But He has power to help the good on sea as well as on shore,[271] and He will help His own. You have the advantage in the game; you will conquer the enemies of God!”[272] The impressionable sailors caught a new spirit from the landsmen who, fresh from their victory over superior numbers at Lincoln, were fearless of the risk of another encounter at similar odds.[273] One ship was quickly filled with the Marshal’s own followers, under his nephew John;[274] Richard the King’s son went on board another with a company of knights;[275] a third was occupied by Earl Warren’s men, the Earl himself remaining on shore with the Marshal;[276] Philip d’Aubigné probably commanded a contingent from the Channel Isles. Hubert de Burgh seems to have joined the muster by sea, coming from Dover in “a fine ship” of his own,[277] and to have taken the supreme command.