Thanks to God that our ships haven’t been damaged very much and are strong enough to keep up with them (the Spanish); we have such an advantage, that if we stay at sea and have enough gunpowder and shot, we shall be able to tire them out from sailing and confuse them.

There are definitely 50 strong and invincible ships, which consist of the following:
9 gallions of Portugal of 800 ton each except 2 that are 400 ton each
20 great Venetians of about 800 ton each
1 ship belonging to the Duke of Florence of 800 ton
20 large Biscaners of 500 or 600 ton
4 galliasses – one of them is in France
There are 30 hulks and 30 other small ships, which don’t matter too much
After they left Lisbon on the 19th of May, they had enough supplies for 6 months. They stayed in the Groyne for 28 days and got fresh water. On their journey from Lisbon, they met a storm and around 14 hulks were almost lost, and so they returned against the wind direction to the Groyne and met up together again there. Otherwise, there were no other ships on our coastline until the whole fleet (Armada) arrived. And on the next part of their journey a small storm took them 50 leagues from the coast of Spain where one large ship and 4 galleys were cut off from the rest of the fleet and they are still missing.

28 000 men left Lisbon, which included 20 000 soldiers and 8000 sailors and other men. Their orders were to join up with the Prince of Parma (I have found out) and then carry out their mission (ie.to defeat England). The Duke (Prince of Parma) was supposed to return to Spain leaving behind the ships, sailors, soldiers etc.

Now this fleet has arrived and is very strong and must be attacked with all our force, which is not very much. We need a constant supply of gunpowder and shot sent to our ships, otherwise there will be a great threat to our country, for I believe that this is the greatest and strongest threat that has ever gathered in Christendom, and therefore everyone must make a great effort to pay attention to this matter.

The men haven’t been paid for a long time and need the money. I hope that the money, which should have gone to Plymouth,