Читать книгу Champions of the Fleet. Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire онлайн

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A third day of battle was yet to come—Thursday’s hot fight off the back of the Isle Wight, and here again the Dreadnought took her full share of what was done, until the long summer day drew to its close and the Armada “gathered in a roundel,” sullenly stood off eastward, proposing to fight no more until the coast of Flanders had been made.

Next morning the Dreadnought’s captain was summoned on board Lord Howard’s flagship, the Ark Royal. He returned “Sir George,” knighted by the Lord High Admiral on the quarter-deck, in the presence of the enemy.

Sunday night saw the fireship attack, so disastrous to the Armada, and next morning followed the crowning victory of the week’s campaign, the great fight off Gravelines of Monday, the 29th of July, “the great battle which, more distinctly perhaps than any battle of modern times, has moulded the history of Europe—the battle which curbed the gigantic power of Spain, which shattered the Spanish prestige and established the basis of England’s empire.” Here the Dreadnought distinguished herself again, fighting in the thick of the fray from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, within pistol-shot of the enemy most of the time.


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