There was scarcely a ship in the Armada that did not suffer severely; for nearly all were engaged in that memorable action off the sands of Gravelines.
The Captain-General himself, Admiral Recalde, Alonzo de Leyva, Oquendo, Diego Flores de Valdez, Bertendona, Don Francisco de Toledo, Don Diego de Pimentel, Telles Enriquez, Alonzo de Luzon, Garibay, with most of the great galleons and galeasses, were in the thickest of the fight, and one after the other each of those huge ships was disabled.

Three sank before the fight was over, many others were soon drifting helpless wrecks towards a hostile shore, and, before five o'clock, in the afternoon, at least sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed, and from four to five thousand soldiers killed.
["God hath mightily preserved her Majesty's forces with the least losses that ever hath been heard of, being within the compass of so great volleys of shot, both small and great.

I verily believe there is not threescore men lost of her Majesty's forces." Captain J.
Fenner to Walsingham, 4/14 Aug.1588.

(S.P.Office MS.)] Nearly all the largest vessels of the Armada, therefore, having, been disabled or damaged--according to a Spanish eye-witness--and all their small shot exhausted, Medina Sidonia reluctantly gave orders to retreat.
The Captain-General was a bad sailor; but he was, a chivalrous Spaniard of ancient Gothic blood, and he felt deep mortification at the plight of his invincible fleet, together with undisguised: resentment against Alexander Farnese, through whose treachery and incapacity, he considered.
the great Catholic cause to have been, so foully sacrificed.

Crippled, maltreated, and diminished in number, as were his ships; he would have still faced, the enemy, but the winds and currents were fast driving him on, a lee-shore, and the pilots, one and all, assured him that it would be inevitable destruction to remain.