Many of the largest Spanish ships were sunk or captured in the
action of this day. And at length the Spanish admiral, despairing of
success, fled northward with a southerly wind, in the hope of rounding
Scotland, and so returning to Spain without a further encounter with the
English fleet.
Lord Effingham left a squadron to continue the blockade of the Prince of
Parma's armament; but that wise general soon withdrew his troops to more
promising fields of action. Meanwhile the lord admiral himself, and
Drake, chased the "vincible" armada, as it was now termed, for some
distance northward; and then, when they seemed to bend away from the
Scotch coast toward Norway, it was thought best, in the words of Drake,
"to leave them to those boisterous and uncouth northern seas."
The sufferings and losses which the unhappy Spaniards sustained in their
flight round Scotland and Ireland are well known. Of their whole armada
only fifty-three shattered vessels brought back their beaten and wasted
crews to the Spanish coast, which they had quitted in such pageantry and
pride.
Some passages from the writings of those who took part in the struggle
have been already quoted, and the most spirited description of the
defeat of the armada which ever was penned may perhaps be taken from the
letter which our brave vice-admiral Drake wrote in answer to some
mendacious stories by which the Spaniards strove to hide their shame.
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