The morning brought little comfort to the anxious people of the Castle, for there came with it four more caravels, three of them of 100 tons apiece. The George joined during the night, but Edward Fenner and the Mayflower were far to leeward. The galleasse engaged the Castle of Comfort to larboard, and one of the caravels attacked to starboard, while the rest lay off in reserve. There could be no rapid fire; it took time to ladle powder into paper cartridges for 18-pounder culverins, and 9-pounder demi-culverins, but Fenner's gunners made their ordnance ready with cross-bars, chain-shot, and hail-shot, and fought both broadsides at once; having four or five carriage-guns of a side, the rest swivels, bases, and fowlers. Galleasse and caravel were soon fain to fall astern and give place to the five reserve ships. After a while they too drew off, and took counsel together, while the George came alongside and conferred with Fenner for a great space. When the seven Portugals made sail again to recommence the action the George was minded to fall astern, intending either to come up on the other side or else to fall into the wake of the Admiral and form line ahead; but the wind being light, she fell astern and to leeward, and presently found herself in the midst of the caravels. The galleasse and one caravel took post again on either side of the Castle and fought her in a leisurely fashion all day, while the George, surrounded by the five caravels,' made reasonable shift with them.' The Mayflower was still far to leeward; being very good by the wind she worked to windward all day, but could not come near.

In these many fights it could not otherwise be but needs some of our men must be slaine, and divers hurt, and our tackle much spoiled; yet we did our best endeavour to repair all things, and to stand to it to the death with our assured trust in the help of God.

Edward Fenner did not win much glory that day. The Mayflower took no part in the action, yet when she fetched up to them at night she could not spare half a dozen men to fill the vacancies in the Castle's quarter bill. Before morning she bore away again; which, when our enemies saw, they came up to us again and gave us a great fight, with much hallowing and hooping, making account either to board or sink us. Lest they should see us any whit dismayed, when they hallowed, we hallowed also as fast as they, and waved them to come and board us if they durst; but they would not, seeing us so courageous; and having given us that day four fights, at night they forsook us with shame, as they came to us at the first with pride.

In that action George Fenner fought for his own hand and his owner's property. Against the Great Armada he fought for his

country in the division that was commanded by Francis Drake. Fenner's ship was the galleon Leicester, at one time called the Bear, of 400 tons and 160 men; in no way to be confounded with her Majesty's White Bear, of 1,000 tons, which was then commanded by Lord Thomas Howard. The Leicester was a privately owned ship, belonging apparently to London but attached to Drake's western fleet. In the fight off Portland on Tuesday, July 23,

the most furious and bloody skirmish of all, in which the Lord Admiral of England continued fighting amid his enemy's fleet; seeing one of his captains afar off, he spake unto him in these words: 'Oh George! what doest thou? Wilt thou now frustrate my hope and opinion conceived of thee? Wilt thou forsake me now?' With which words he, being inflamed, approached forthwith, encountered the enemy, and did the part of a most valiant captain.

That is a story which might have been borrowed from the romances of chivalry, wherein the battle stays and conflicting armies hold their breath while the heroes exchange declamatory defiance. Even if the turmoil of a naval action permitted such an appeal to a captain 'afar off,' it must be remembered that George Fenner had as much experience of sea fighting as any man then living, while the Lord Admiral had little or none. Fenner could choose his own time and wait for opportunity to deliver his attack without risking a reputation whose foundation had been securely laid twenty-one years before. The passing years only added to it. In 1599 it was as in 1588. Philip II., Lord Burghley, and Francis Drake had gone where the wicked cease from troubling; but Philip III. and Lord Robert Cecil had succeeded to the heritage of hatred. The Invincible Armada had come and gone, and its relics were the sport of the Irish and Hebridean tides. Suddenly and without warning came news of a new Armada gathering at 'the Groyne,' with Philip himself in chief command. George Fenner, in the Queen's ship Dreadnought, with the Swiftsure and Advice pinnace, was sent to cruise off the north coast of Spain. On July 14 they brought to Plymouth news of seventy galleys and a hundred ships lying ready for sea in Corunna, with 10,000 troops on board; 15,000 more were to be picked up at Brest, and Chichester, the home of the Fenners, was one of the places designed for the landing of the galleys. Matthew Bredgate, of the Swiftsure, had heard that Philip had sworn to make his finger heavier for England than his father's whole body. In twelve days a fleet of sixteen ships and three crompsters, or cruisers, was mobilised and assembled at the Downs under Lord Thomas Howard, and Fenner's little squadron was cruising off Brest to give timely warning.

The danger was very real while it lasted. On August 23 it was rumoured that the Spanish fleet was actually entering the Channel; but as a matter of fact the whole expedition had been countermanded on August 10, and the ships sent to the Azores to protect the annual treasure fleet, then threatened by a Dutch fleet under Peter van der Does, who was lying in wait for it. But six galleys had made their way to Conquêt Bay, under Frederick Spinola, a younger son of that great Genoese banking-house whose members seem to have been generals, or admirals, or merchant princes as occasion served. They only waited for a wind to carry them to Dunkirk, where the incomparable Spinola-he was only twentyfive-had already constructed a deep-water basin to receive them; for the galleys were too lightly built to take the ground without straining. The wind was set at south-west; Howard's ships, lying about the Forelands, could not beat down against it; but Fenner, who had put into Plymouth for stores and water, might catch them at La Hogue, where they had sheltered from a gale, if he made all speed. Mr. Julian Corbett quotes the draft of a letter, in Robert Cecil's handwriting, preserved at Hatfield; it bears the signatures of the Lord Admiral, the Lord Chamberlain, and Cecil himself. George Fenner is bidden to take his Dreadnought, the Advice, the Lord Admiral's Truelove, and any of Gerbrandtsen's Dutchmen that he can find, and cut off the galleys. Tarry not, good George, but do the best you can; for we would be very glad these might be catched or canvassed. Assure yourself that your ship and the Truelove will beat them if there were no more to assist you.' Then, as if remembering that they were landsmen writing to one of the most experienced sea captains then living, they add in a postscript a tentative suggestion.

George Fenner, you are a wise man, and have experience how to use stratagems. It will not be amiss, if you think good, to lay a bait for them in this sort; that some league before you some bark may be sent, and take in her ordnance as if she were no man-of-war, which peradventure may entice the baggages from the shore to come off and take her.

Mr. Corbett gives his reasons for believing that this letter could not have been written before the evening of Tuesday, August 28. The post-time from London to Plymouth was about thirty-six hours; Fenner was out of the Sound by noon on the 31st; but before the letter had reached him Spinola had got into Havre. Four years later, on May 26, 1603, the great Genoese died gallantly on the deck of his galley in action with Joost de Moor and a Dutch squadron.

Our three long and bitter wars against the Dutch, wherein the prize of victory was the dominion of the sea, did very much to train and harden the British navy. The leisurely methods of the Grand Monarque, which had become the accepted fashion in all land campaigns, were perforce discarded by the men who encountered Martin van Tromp and Michael de Ruyter. First they taught us the bull-dog tenacity without which there can be no naval success; then the discipline and tactical science without which tenacity is only heroic self-sacrifice. Half the lesson was forgotten during the first half of the eighteenth century, to be re-learned (after much national humiliation) under Hawke and Rodney. Among the men who studied the science of naval warfare in the academy of Tromp and De Ruyter were Blake, Albemarle, Rupert, and many others whose names are scored deep in our history; but of the many good seamen who held command under them, how few are remembered outside the text-books! There were among them three men of no particular birth or lineage, bred among yeomen in the same corner of Norfolk, who befriended each other; who were bound by ties of friendship as well as by a common service and a common homeland. Shovell is best known by the mass of marble in Westminster Abbey which records the one great blunder that cost him his life, and three good ships, and three good crews, on the rocks of Scilly. Narbrough is almost forgotten; and of Christopher Myngs, the first and perhaps the best of the three, we should know but little if it were not for honest, gossiping Samuel Pepys. When the busy Secretary came back, the easy tears still wet upon his eminently respectable face, from the shabby funeral that closed the adventurous story of Christopher Myngs, he was full of lamentations that a man of so great parts, dying at that time, poor rather than rich, would be quite forgot in a few months as if he had never been. Has England no better memory for her dead heroes than Pepys gave her credit for? The name of Myngs is still held in honourable remembrance by all who take enough pride in the Navy to glance at its records; but among the millions of good citizens who are typified by the man in the street,' how many have ever heard his name? Yet that great Norfolk admiral was, in his life and death, a prototype of Nelson. He was one of the best officers of his time; a steadfast upholder of the spirit and discipline of the Navy at a time when both were sorely neededbeloved beyond his fellows by all who served under him.

Another good East Coast admiral distinguished himself on the first day of the Four Days' Battle. John Harman was a Suffolk

man; hawk-faced and black-haired, as Lely painted him. Like Myngs he was a trained seaman, a tarpauling captain.' There had been other naval officers in his family, and he himself had thrice commanded a ship in action with the Dutch; twice in 1653 and once in 1665. This time his flag as Rear-Admiral of the White, or rear division, was hoisted in the Henry, 64. She had been the Dunbar in Cromwell's time, but had been re-christened, with many other ships whose names recalled the triumphs of the Great Protector, at the Restoration.

The brunt of the first day's fight fell upon the White division. Several ships broke into the Dutch line and were surrounded. One of them, the Swiftsure, was taken, and Vice-Admiral Sir William Berkeley was killed. The Henry was cut to pieces aloft; and when she was completely unmanageable a fireship grappled her on the starboard quarter. Lieutenant Thomas Lamming boarded her through flame and smoke, cast off the grapplings, and scrambled back into the Henry as the blazing mass drifted clear. Before long a second fire-ship was fast on the larboard quarter and the Henry's aftersails broke into flame. There was an instant panic. Scores of men leaped overboard, frantic with fear; Pepys says that the chaplain and many women followed them, choosing to be drowned rather than burn; but Harman flung himself upon the rest, sword in hand, swearing he would kill the next man who tried to leave the ship or failed to do his duty. The panic was stayed; the crew, making a virtue of necessity, cut the fire-ship adrift and got the flames under, but a falling topsail-yard struck Harman and broke his leg at the ankle. A third fireship bore down upon the Henry; but the crew had rallied and manned their guns again, and the heavy 32-pounders on the lower deck sunk the fire-ship alongside them. As the Henry lay on the water a scorched wreck, Admiral Cornelis Evertsen bore down and hailed Harman to strike, promising quarter. Crippled as he was, he was still unconquered. 'No, no,' he shouted back, it has come not to that yet!' His next broadside killed Evertsen, and the Dutch ship fell away. The Henry, completely disabled, bore up for Harwich. Harman gave himself no rest; the thunder of the guns of the second day's battle only spurred him on. Working night and day his sadly diminished crew got their battered ship refitted by the evening of the next day, and Harman put to sea again for another round of the great battle. He was only in time to meet the shattered fleet making its way to the Thames when the four days were ended.

But there was plenty of work for John Harman yet. He was