two in the
morning
A hundred and fifty ships , large and small , were counted , as a few store ships bound for Flanders had joined the Armada for protection . The Active was one of the privateers that had late the evening before gone out to Ram Head , and just as it was growing dusk the anchors were got up , and the little fleet sailed out from the shelter of the land as the Armada swept along . The Spanish admiral at once ordered the fleet to lie to for the night , and to prepare for a general action at daybreak , as he knew from a fisherman he had captured that the English fleet were at Plymouth . The wind was on shore , but all through the night Howard 's and Drake 's ships beat out from the Sound until they took their places behind the Spanish fleet , whose position they could perfectly make out by the light of the half moon that rose at two in the morning . On board the English fleet all was confidence and hilarity . The sufferings of the last three months were forgotten . The numbers and magnitude of the Spanish ships counted as nothing .