But whilst all panic-stricken regards were directed upon Portugal, Drake and his joint-stock Armada suddenly appeared where they were least expected, before Corunna, and cast anchor; and the men, nothing loath, were put on shore in a little bay within a mile of the town. There was no one to stay their landing, and they had come nearly to the gates before a hasty muster of townsfolk met them. These, all unprepared and surprised as they were, soon retreated when they saw the force that was coming against them, and shut themselves up behind the gates and walls of the town. The place was weak and ill-garrisoned, commanded by the Marquis de Cerralba, and could not hope to hold out against a regular siege, but there were three galleons loaded with arms in the harbour, which the new commander-in-chief in Madrid, Alba's son Fernando, said would be a much greater loss than the town {32} itself. The English slept the first night in the cottages and mills belonging to a hamlet on the bank of one of the small streams discharging into the bay, and out of gunshot of the walls. They were, however, quite unmolested by the terrified townsfolk, although the galleon San Juan and her consorts in the harbour kept up a fire upon them as they passed to and fro. The place indeed was utterly taken by surprise. The Cortes of Galicia were in session at the time, the people peacefully pursuing their ordinary avocations; the soldiers of the garrison were nearly all on furlough, scattered over the province; "and, in short, every one was so far from expecting an attack that they had no time to turn the useless out of the town nor put their dearest possessions in safety." The wife and daughter, indeed, of the Governor Cerralba at the first alarm fled in their terror two leagues on foot, through the night, to a place of safety, but after that none dared to move. The lower part of the town fronting the harbour was protected on the land side only by weak walls, and was unfit for protracted defence. The townspeople therefore agreed that if the place were attacked on the water side it would be untenable, and arranged that as soon as those in the higher town on the hill should espy the English boats approaching they were to signal the low town by a fire, so that the people below might make their escape to the better defensible upper portion of the town. Some artillery was landed by the English to stop the fire of the Spanish ships, and on the morning of the second day the town was attacked simultaneously by 1,200 men in long boats and pinnaces under Captain Fenner and {33} Colonel Huntly; and by Colonels Brett and Umpton on one side, and Captains Richard Wingfield and Sampson on the other by escalade. The people in the upper town, either from panic or oversight, neglected to give the signal, and those below, thinking they had only to deal with an escalade on their walls by Captain Wingfield, fought desperately until