THE VOYAGERS 



pieces and swallow them down, so that oftentimes the 

 blood ran out of his mouth/ In his own age his 

 action off the Azores was recognised as something out 

 of the beaten path of history, and to be matched only 

 by poetry in its strongest and highest flights. * In 

 the year 1591,* says Bacon, 'was that memorable The Last 

 fight of an English ship called the Revenge^ under the jif^,g^L^ 

 command of Sir Richard Grenville, memorable (I say) 

 even beyond credit and to the height of some heroical 

 fable: and though it were a defeat, yet it exceeded a 

 victory ; being like the act of Samson, that killed more 

 men at his death, than he had done in the time of all 

 his life. This ship, for the space of fifteen hours, sate 

 like a stag amongst hounds at bay, and was sieged 

 and fought with, in turn, by fifteen great ships of 

 Spain, part of a navy of fifty-five ships in all ; the rest like 

 abettors looking on afar oflF. And amongst the fifteen 

 ships that fought, the great San Philippo was one ; a 

 ship of fifteen hundred ton, prince of the twelve Sea- 

 Apostles^ which was right glad when she was shifted oflF 

 from the Revenge, This brave ship the Revenge^ being 

 manned only with two hundred soldiers and marines 

 whereof eighty lay sick, yet nevertheless after a fight 

 maintained (as was said) of fifteen hours, and two ships 

 of the enemy sunk by her side, besides many more 

 torn and battered, and great slaughter of men, never 

 came to be entered, but was taken by composition ; the 

 enemies themselves having in admiration the virtue of 

 the commander and the whole tragedy of that ship/ 



Thomas Cavendish, who served as a volunteer under Thomas 

 Sir Richard Grenville in the Virginian Expedition of 1585, ^^^^«^^'^^' 

 is perhaps the most typical of the adventurous gallants of 



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