Almost the one half of our men were sick and not able to serve; the ships grown foul and scarcely able to bear any sail for want of ballast, having been six months at the sea before. If all the rest had entered, all had been lost. For the very hugeness of the Spanish fleet, if no other violence had been offered, would have crushed them between them into shivers. Of which the dishonour and loss to the Queen had been far greater than the spoil or harm that the enemy could any way have received.

Notwithstanding, it is very true that the Lord Thomas would have entered between the squadrons, but the rest would not condescend; and the master of his own ship offered to leap into the sea rather than to conduct that her Majesty's ship and the rest to be a prize to the enemy, where there was no hope nor possibility either of defence or victory. This also in my opinion had ill sorted or answered the discretion and trust of a general-to commit himself and his charge to an assured destruction, without hope or any likelihood of prevailing,— thereby to diminish the strength of her Majesty's navy, and to enrich the pride and glory of the enemy.

The Foresight of the Queen's, commanded by Mr. Th. Vavisour, performed a very great fight, and stayed two hours as near the Revenge as the weather would permit him, not forsaking the fight till he was like to be encompassed by the squadrons, and with great difficulty cleared himself. The rest gave divers volleys of shot, and entered as far as the place permitted and their own necessities, to keep the

weather gage of the enemy, until they were parted by night.

A few days after the fight was ended, and the English prisoners were sorted into the Spanish and India ships, there arose so great a storm from the west and north-west that all the fleet was dispersed, as well the Indian fleet which was then come unto them, as the rest of the Armada that attended their arrival; and fourteen sail, together with the Revenge, and in her two hundred Spaniards, were cast away upon the Isle of S. Michael's. pleased them to honour the burial of that renowned ship the Revenge, not suffering her to perish alone, for the great honour she achieved in her lifetime.

So it

On the rest of the islands there were cast away in this storm fifteen or sixteen more of the ships of war; and of a hundred and odd sail of the Indian fleet, expected this year in Spain, what in this tempest, and what before in the bay of Mexico and about the Bermudas, there were seventy and odd consumed and lost, with those taken by our ships. They lost besides one very rich Indian ship, which set herself on fire, being boarded by the Pilgrim, and five other taken by Master Watt's ships of London, between the Havana and Cape S. Antonio. The 4th of this month of November, we received letters from Terceira, affirming that there are three thousand bodies of men remaining in that island, saved out of the perished ships; and that by the Spaniards' own confession there are 10,000 cast away in this storm, besides those that are perished between the islands. and the main.

Thus it hath pleased God to fight for us, and to defend the justice of our cause, against the ambitious. and bloody pretences of the Spaniards, who, seeking to devour all nations, are themselves devoured. This is manifest testimony how unjust and displeasing their attempts are in the sight of God, who hath pleased to witness by the success of their affairs His mislike of their bloody and injurious designs, purposed and practised against all Christian princes, over whom they seek unlawful and ungodly rule and empire.

WHO shall abide Thy tempest? who shall face
The blast that wakes the fury of the sea?
O God! Thy justice makes the world turn pale,
When on the armèd fleet, that royally

Bears down the surges, carrying war to smite
Some city or invade some thoughtless realm,
Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks
Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails
Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts
Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks,
Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf
Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed
In trappings of the battlefield, are whelmed
By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.
Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause,
A moment, from the bloody work of war.

BRYANT.

The Last Fight of the Revenge at sea. The Fight

and Cyclone at the Azores. By Jan Huygen van Linschoten (out of Enckhuysen, a town in the north of Holland, who was living on the Island of Terceira at the time).

THE 25th of August, 1591, the king's Armada coming out of Ferrol arrived in Terceira, being in all thirty Spanish ships, and ten Dutch flyboats, that were arrested in Lisbon to serve the king, besides other small ships that came to serve as messengers from place to place, and to discover the seas. This navy came to stay for and convoy the ships that should come from the Spanish Indies; and the flyboats were appointed in their return home to take in the goods that were saved in the lost ship that came from Malacca, and to convoy it to Lisbon.

The 13th of September the said Armada arrived at the Island of Corvo, where the Englishmen with about fifteen ships as then lay, staying for the Spanish Fleet; whereof some or the most part were come, and there the English were in good hope to have taken them. But when they perceived the king's army to be strong, the admiral, being the Lord Thomas Howard, commanded his fleet not to fall upon them, nor any of them once to separate their ships from him, unless he gave commission so to do. Notwithstanding, the vice-admiral, Sir

Richard Grenville, being in the ship called the Revenge, went into the Spanish fleet, and shot among them, doing them great hurt, and thinking the rest of the company would have followed; which they did not, but left him there, and sailed The cause why could not be known.

away.

The Spaniards perceiving it, with seven or eight ships boarded her, but she withstood them all, fighting with them at the least 12 hours together, and sank two of them, one being a new double flyboat of 1200 tons, and admiral of the flyboats. But in the end, by reason of the number that came upon her, she was taken, but to their great loss; for they had lost in fighting and by drowning above four hundred men, and of the English were slain about a hundred, Sir Richard Grenville himself being wounded in his brain, whereof afterwards he died.

He was borne into the ship called the Saint Paul, wherein was the admiral of the fleet, Don Alfonso de Bassan. There his wounds were dressed by the Spanish surgeons, but Don Alfonso himself would neither see him, nor speak with him; yet all the rest of the captains and gentlemen went to visit him, and to comfort him in his hard fortune, wondering at his courage and stout heart, for that he showed not any sign of faintness nor changing of colour. But feeling the hour of death to approach, he spake these words in Spanish, and said: "Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, and honour, whereby my soul most joyful departeth out