Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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Some urged the queen to place no reliance on maritime defence, but to receive the enemy only on shore. Elizabeth thought otherwise, and determined that the enemy should reap no more advantage on the sea than on land. She gave the command of the whole fleet to Charles Lord Howard of Effingham; Drake being vice-admiral, and Hawkins and Frobisher—all grand names in naval history—being in the western division. Lord Henry Seymour was to lie off the coast of Flanders with forty ships, Dutch and English, and prevent the Prince of Parma from forming a junction with the Armada. The whole number of ships collected for the defence of the country was 191, and the number of seamen 17,472. There was one ship in the fleet (the Triumph) of 1,100 tons, one of 1,000, one of 900, and two of 800 tons each, but the larger part of the vessels were very small, and the aggregate tonnage amounted to only about half that of the Armada. For the land defence over 100,000 men were called out, regimented, and armed, but only half of them were trained. This was exclusive of the Border and Yorkshire forces.