AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 187 



Hawkins' History. Any additional particulars relating to 

 a locality so rich in historical incidents may, therefore, be 

 acceptable to the readers of a local journal. 



Stories of shipwreck and maritime adventure can hardly 

 fail to be prominent amongst these incidents. Standing 

 far out into the English Channel, the rocky coast of South 

 Devon has witnessed the loss of but too many gallant ships. 

 The wreck of the Eamilies man-of-war in 1760, and that of 

 the Chantaloupe twelve years later, have been well described 

 by the writers above-named; but I am not aware that the 

 story has yet been told in print of an earlier shipwreck, 

 that may as worthily fill a page of local history. 



Let the reader carry back his thoughts to the reign 

 of Elizabeth, and to the year of grace 1588 — the most 

 eventful of that remarkable era. Early in the month of 

 May the long-expected Armada, fitted out with vast and 

 careful preparation by Philip of Spain, had entered the 

 Channel to fulfil his long-cherished plan for restoring heretic 

 England to the bosom of the Church of Rome. No sooner 

 was the Spanish fleet descried off the Lizard than the ready 

 beacon fires carried the news from headland to headland, 

 all along the southern coast to the capital. On the morning 

 of Saturday, the 20th of May, thousands of eager spectators 

 crowded on the Start, on Bolt Head, and upon every cliff 

 from which a seaward view could be obtained, to look 

 upon a sight, the like of which had never before been 

 witnessed from those grim rocks. One hundred and forty 

 ships, most of them of unwieldy bulk and strange form, 

 were moving slowly up Channel in crescent-shaped array, 

 closely beset by the smaller and less numerous, though 

 nimbler, vessels, in which Drake and Hawkins, and many 

 more renowned sea captains, had issued the night before 



