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said, 'but of unquiet mind, and greatly affected to wars,' and from his uncontrollable propensities for blood-eating, he had volunteered his services to the Queen; of so hard a complexion was he, that I (John Huighen von Luischoten, who is our authority here, and who was with the Spanish fleet after the action) have been told by divers credible persons who stood and beheld him, that he would carouse three or four glasses of wine, and take the glasses between his teeth and crush them in pieces and swallow them down.' Such Grenville was to the Spaniard. To the English he was a goodly and gallant gentleman, who had never turned his back upon an enemy, and was remarkable in that remarkable time for his constancy and daring. In this surprise at Florez he was in no haste to fly. He first saw all his sick on board and stowed away on the ballast, and then, with no more than 100 men left him to fight and work the ship, he deliberately weighed, uncertain, as it seemed at first, what he intended to do. The Spanish fleet were by this time on his weather bow, and he was persuaded (we here take his cousin Raleigh's beautiful narrative, and follow it in Raleigh's words) to cut his mainsail and cast about, and trust to the sailing of the ship':

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But Sir Richard utterly refused to turn from the enemy, alleging that he would rather choose to die than to dishonour himself, his country, and Her Majesty's ship, persuading his company that he would pass through their two squadrons in spite of them, and enforce those of Seville to give him way: which he performed upon divers of the foremost, who, as the mariners term it, sprang their luff, and fell under the lee of the Revenge. But the other course had been the better, and might right well have been answered in so great an impossibility of prevailing; notwithstanding, out of the greatness of his mind, he could not be persuaded.'

The wind was light; the San Philip, a huge highcarged ship' of 1,500 tons, came up to windward of him, and, taking the wind out of his sails, ran aboard him.

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After the Revenge was entangled with the San Philip, four others boarded her, two on her larboard and two on her starboard. The fight thus beginning at three o'clock in the afternoon, continued very terrible all that evening. But the great San Philip, having received

the lower tier of the Revenge, shifted herself with all diligence from her sides, utterly misliking her first entertainment.

The Spanish ships were filled with soldiers, in some 200, besides the mariners, in some 500, in others 800. In ours there were none at all, besides the mariners, but the servants of the commander, and a few voluntary gentlemen only. After many interchanged volleys of great ordnance and small shot, the Spaniards deliberated to enter the Revenge, and made divers attempts, hoping to force her by the multitude of their armed soldiers and musketeers; but were still repulsed again and again, and at all times beaten back into their own ship or into the sea. In the beginning of the fight, the George Noble, of London, having received some shot through her by the Armadas, fell under the lee of the Revenge, and asked Sir Richard what he would command him; but being one of the victuallers, and of small force, Sir Richard bade him save himself and leave him to his fortune.'

This last was a little touch of gallantry, which we should be glad to remember with the honour due to the brave English sailor who commanded the George Noble; but his name has passed away, and his action is an in memoriam, on which time has effaced the writing. All that August night the fight continued, the stars rolling over in their sad majesty, but unseen through the sulphurous clouds which hung over the scene. Ship after ship of the Spaniards came on upon the Revenge, 'so that never less than two mighty galleons were at her side and aboard her,' washing up like waves upon a rock, and falling foiled and shattered back amidst the roar of the artillery. Before morning fifteen several Armadas had assailed her, and all in vain; some had been sunk at her side; and the rest, so ill approving of their entertainment, that at break of day they were far more willing to hearken to a composition, than hastily

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to make more assaults or entries.' 'But as the day increased,' said Raleigh, so our men decreased; and as the light grew more and more, by so much the more grew our discomfort, for none appeared in sight but enemies, save 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 among many ravenous hounds-but escaped.'

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Μ

LVIII.

YE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND.

1. Ye gentlemen of England,
That live at home at ease,
Ah, little do you think upon
The dangers of the seas.
Give ear unto the mariners,
And they will plainly show
All the cares and the fears
When the stormy winds do blow.

2. If enemies oppose us,
When England is at war

With any foreign nation,
We fear not wound or scar.
Our roaring guns shall teach them
Our valour for to know,
Whilst they reel on the keel,
And the stormy winds do blow.

3. Then courage, all brave mariners,
And never be dismay'd,

While we have bold adventurers
We ne'er shall want a trade;
Our merchants will employ us
To fetch them wealth, we know ;
Then be bold, work for gold,
When the stormy winds do blow.
MARTYN PARKER.

LIX.

THE "REVENGE.”—II.

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer

sea,

And the Spanish fleet, with broken sides, lay round us all in a ring; But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could

sting.

So they watch'd what the end would be,

And we had not fought them in vain,

But in perilous plight were we,

Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,

And half of the rest of us maim'd for life

In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;

And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it

spent ;

And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side. TENNYSON.

All the powder in the Revenge was now spent, all her pikes were broken, forty out of her 100 men killed, and a great number of the rest wounded. Sir Richard, though badly hurt early in the battle, never forsook the deck till an hour before midnight; and was then shot through the body while his wounds were being dressed, and again in the head. His surgeon was killed while attending on him; the masts were lying over the side, the rigging cut or broken, the upper

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