list, for he esteemed it not, and as he was carried out of the ship he swooned: and, reviving again, desired the company to pray for him. The General used Sir Richard with all humanity, and left nothing unattempted that tended to his recovery, highly commending his valor and worthiness and greatly bewailing the danger wherein he was, being unto them a rare spectacle and a resolution seldom approved, to see one ship turn toward so many enemies, to endure the charge and boarding of so many huge armadas, and to resist and repel the assaults and entries of so many soldiers. All which and more is confirmed by a Spanish captain of the same armada and a present actor in the fight, who, being severed from the rest in a storm, was by the Lion of London, a small ship, taken, and is now prisoner in London.

The general commander of the Armada was Don Alphonso Baçan, brother to the Marquis of Santa Cruz. The admiral of the Biscayan squadron was Britandona; of the squadron of Seville, the Marquis of Arumburch. The hulks and flyboats were commanded by Luis Coutinho. There were slain and drowned in this fight well near one thousand of the enemies and two special commanders, Don Luis de St. John, and Don George de Prunaria de Malaga, as the Spanish captain confesseth, besides divers others of special account, whereof as yet report is not made.

The Admiral of the hulks and the Ascension of Seville were both sunk by the side of the Revenge; one other recovered the road of Saint Michael and sank also there ; a fourth ran herself with the shore to save her men. Sir Richard died, as it is said, the second or third day aboard the General: and was by them greatly bewailed. What became of his body, whether it was buried in the sea or on the land we know not. The comfort that remaineth to his friends is, that he hath ended his life honorably in respect of the reputation

won to his nation and country, and of the same to his posterity, and that, being dead, he hath not outlived his own honor.

For the rest of her Majesty's ships that entered not so far into the fight as the Revenge, the reasons and causes were these. . . . The island of Flores was on the one side, fiftythree sail of the Spanish, divided into squadrons, on the other, all as full filled with soldiers as they could contain. Almost the one half of our men sick and not able to serve; the ships grown foul, unrummaged, 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 dishonor 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 prey to the enemy where there was no hope nor possibility either of defence or victory. Which 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 M. Thomas Vavasour, 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 likely to be encompassed by the squadrons, and with great difficulty cleared himself The rest cave 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 dispersed into the Spanish and Indian ships, there arose so great a storm from the west and northwest that all the fleet was dispersed, as well as the Indian fleet which was then come unto them, as the rest of the Armada that attended their arrival, of which fourteen sail, together with the Revenge, and in her two hundred Spaniards, were cast away upon the island of Saint Michael. So it pleased them to honor the burial of that renowned ship, the Revenge, not suffering her to perish alone for the great honor she had achieved in her life time. .

To conclude: it hath ever to this day pleased God to prosper and defend her Majesty, to break the purposes of malicious enemies, of forsworn traitors, and of unjust practices and invasions. She hath ever been honored of the worthiest kings, served by faithful subjects, and shall by the favor of God, resist, repel, and confound all attempts whatsoever against her sacred person or kingdom. In the mean time let the Spaniard and traitor vaunt of their success, and we, her true and obedient vassals, guided by the shining light of her virtues, shall always love her, serve her, and obey her to the end of our lives.

157365A

THE REVENGE.

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

I.

AT Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far

away:

'Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!' Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "Fore God I am no coward; But I can not meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?'

II.

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: 'I know you are no coward; You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.

But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.'

III.

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;

But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land Very carefully and slow,

For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to

Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

IV.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight, And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in

sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
'Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.'
And Sir Richard said again: 'We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.'

V.

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah,

and so

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below; For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were

seen,

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.

VI.

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and

laugh'd,

Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft