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hastily to make any more assaults or entries. But as the day increased, so our men decreased: and as the light grew more and more, by so much more grew our discomforts. For none appeared in sight but enemies, saving one small ship called the Pilgrim, commanded by Jacob Whiddon, who hovered all night to see the success: but, in the morning bearing with the Revenge, was hunted like a hare amongst many ravenous hounds, but escaped.

All the powder of the Revenge to the last barrel was now spent, all her pikes broken, forty of her best men slain, and the most part of the rest hurt. In the beginning of the fight she had but one hundred free from sickness, and fourscore and ten sick, laid in hold upon the ballast. A small troop to man such a ship, and a weak garrison to resist so mighty an army. By those hundred all was sustained, the volleys, boardings, and enterings of fifteen ships of war, besides those which beat her at large. On the contrary, the Spanish were always supplied with soldiers brought from every squadron: all manner of arms and powder at will. Unto ours their remained no comfort at all, no hope, no supply either of ships, men, or weapons; the masts all beaten overboard, all her tackle cut asunder, her upper work altogether rased, and in effect evened she was with the water but the very foundation or bottom of a ship, nothing being left overhead either for fight or defence. Sir Richard finding himself in this distress, and unable any longer to make resistance, having endured in this fifteen hours' fight the assault of fifteen several Armadoes, all by turns aboard him, and by estimation eight hundred shot of great artillery, besides many assaults and entries; and that himself and the ship must needs be possessed by the enemy, who were now all cast in a ring round about him; the Revenge not able to move one way or other, but as she was moved with the waves and billow of the sea: commanded the Master-gunner, whom he knew to be a most resolute man, to split and sink the ship; that thereby nothing might remain of glory or victory to

the Spaniards, seeing in so many hours' fight, and with so great a navy they were not able to take her, having had fifteen hours' time, fifteen thousand men, and fifty and three sail of men-of-war to perform it withal: and persuaded the company, or as many as he could induce, to yield themselves unto God, and to the mercy of none else; but as they had like valiant resolute men repulsed so many enemies, they should not now shorten the honour of their nation, by prolonging their own lives for a few hours, or a few days. The Mastergunner readily condescended, and divers others; but the Captain and the Master were of another opinion, and besought Sir Richard to have care of them: alleging that the Spaniard would be as ready to entertain a composition as they were willing to offer the same: and that there being divers sufficient and valiant men yet living, and whose wounds were not mortal, they might do their country and prince acceptable service hereafter. And (that where Sir Richard had alleged that the Spaniards should never glory to have taken one ship of Her Majesty's seeing that they had so long and so notably defended themselves) they answered, that the ship had six foot water in hold, three shot under water, which were so weakly stopped as with the first working of the sea she must need sink, and was besides so crushed and bruised as she could never be removed out of the place.

And as the matter was thus in dispute, and Sir Richard refusing to hearken to any of those reasons, the Master of the Revenge (while the Captain wan unto him the greater party) was convoyed aboard the General, Don Alonso Bassan. Who finding none over hasty to enter the Revenge again, doubting lest Sir Richard would have blown them up and himself, and perceiving by the report of the Master of the Revenge his dangerous disposition: yielded that all their lives should be saved, the company sent for England, and the better sort to pay such reasonable ransom as their estate would bear, and in the mean season to be free from galley or imprisonment. To this he so much the

rather condescended as well, as I have said, for fear of further loss and mischief to themselves, as also for the desire he had to recover Sir Richard Grenville; whom for his notable valour he seemed greatly to honour and admire.

When this answer was returned, and that safety of life was promised, the common sort being now at the end of their peril, the most drew back from Sir Richard and the Master Gunner, being no hard matter to dissuade men from death to life. The Master Gunner finding himself and Sir Richard thus prevented and mastered by the greater number, would have slain himself with the sword, had he not been by force withheld and locked into his cabin. Then the General sent many boats aboard the Revenge, and divers of our men fearing Sir Richard's disposition, stole away aboard the General and other ships. Sir Richard, thus overmatched, was sent unto by Alonso Bassan to remove out of the Revenge, the ship being marvellous unsavoury, filled with blood and bodies of dead and wounded men like a slaughter house. Sir Richard answered that he might do with his body what he 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 valour and worthiness, and greatly bewailed the danger wherein he was, being unto them a rare spectacle, and a resolution seldom approved, to see one ship turn towards so many enemies, to endure the charge and boarding of so many huge Armadoes, 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 Lyon of London, a small ship, taken, and is now prisoner in London.

The general commander of the Armada was Don Alonso Bassan, brother to the Marquess of Santa Cruce. The Admiral of the Biscaine squadron was

Brittan Dona. Of the squadron of Seville, Marquess of Arumburch. The Hulks and Flyboats were commanded by Luis Cutino. There were slain and drowned in this fight, well near two thousand of the enemies, and two especial commanders Don Luis de Sant John, and Don George de Prunaria de Mallaga, as the Spanish Captain confesses, besides divers others of special account, whereof as yet report is not made.

The admiral of the Hulks and the Ascention of Seville were both sunk by the side of the Revenge; one other recovered the road of Saint Michels, and sunk 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 were 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 honourably 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 honour.-A Report of the Truth of the fight about the Isles of Azores this last Summer betwixt the Revenge, one of Her Majesty's Ships, and an Armada of the King of Spain.

RICHARD HAKLUYT
1553 (?)-1616

FROBISHER'S SECOND VOYAGE

ON Whit Sunday, being the sixth-and-twentieth day of May, in the year of our Lord God 1577, Captain Frobisher departed from Blackwall-with one of the Queen's Majesty's ships called the Aid, of nine score ton or thereabout, and two other little barques likewise, the one called the Gabriel, whereof Master

Fenton, a gentleman of my Lord of Warwick's, was captain; and the other the Michael, whereof Master York, a gentleman of my lord admiral's, was captain, accompanied with seven score gentlemen, soldiers, and sailors, well furnished with victuals and other provisions necessary for one half year-on this, his second year, for the further discovering of the passage to Cathay and other countries thereunto adjacent, by west and north-west navigations, which passage or way is supposed to be on the north and north-west parts of America, and the said America to be an island environed with the sea, where through our merchants might have course and recourse with their merchandise from these our nothernmost parts of Europe, to those Oriental coasts of Asia in much shorter time and with greater benefit than any others, to their no little commodity and profit that do or shall traffic the same. Our said captain and general of this present voyage and company, having the year before, with two little pinnaces to his great danger, and no small commendations, given a worthy attempt towards the performance thereof, is also pressed-when occasion shall be ministered to the benefit of his prince and native country-to adventure himself further therein. As for this second voyage, it seemeth sufficient that he hath better explored and searched the commodities of those people and countries, with sufficient commodity unto the adventurers, which, in his first voyage the year before, he had found out.

Upon which considerations the day and year before expressed, he departed from Blackwall to Harwich, where making an accomplishment of things necessary, the last of May we hoisted up sails, and with a merry wind the 7th of June we arrived at the islands called Orchades, or vulgarly Orkney, being in number thirty, subject and adjacent to Scotland, where we made provision of fresh water, in the doing whereof our general licensed the gentlemen and soldiers, for their recreation, to go on shore. At our landing the people fled from their poor cottages with shrieks and

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