194 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Harleian Miscellany. It may be interesting to quote a little from 
this almost contemporary account. 
It mentions the advice received by Lord Howard, that the 
Spanish fleet had been sighted off the Lizard by Captain Fleming ; 
not the casual discovery by a pirate, for he had been deputed 
by the Lord High Admiral to watch for their coming. The 
English, being thus aroused, lost no time in getting their vessels 
to sea; and on June 20th, as the Discourse proceeds, "the 
Spanish fleete being manifestly discouered about a hundred and 
forty miles from Edestone, and cleerely seene of euery one toward 
the west, and so far off from Foye as the English fleete was, that 
is twenty-five ordinarie English miles," was soon found to be 
disposed in the form of a crescent moon. 
In another work of about the same date — the Expeditionis 
Hispanorum in Angliam vera Descriptio — the Eddystone reef is 
shown and named in five out of the eleven charts of which the 
book consists. 
It is somewhat surprising that our existing naval records seem 
to have no mention of the numberless cases of wreck that must 
have occurred on the Eddystone in early times. Professor 
Laughton, to whom I applied for assistance in tracing any such, 
replies that he is not aware of any instance of a ship-of-war being 
lost there. Hakluyt, however, writing in 1599, speaks of a storm 
which befell the Earl of Cumberland's expedition to the Azores in 
1589. Eeturning with some ships which they had captured, one 
of these prizes " suffered shipwracke at a place vpon the coast of 
Cornwal, which the Cornishmen cal Als Efferne, that is, Hel-cliffe. 
But the Admirall [of the Spaniards that is] was sunke with much 
leakinge nere to the Idy-stone, a rocke that lieth ouer against 
Plimouth Sound, and the men were saved." 
We hear little or nothing of the reef during the next century. 
A few sets of charts, published within that period, note its 
position. Chief among them must be mentioned Sir Robert 
Dudley's great work, the Arcano del Mare. Having been a naval 
commander and explorer before the time of his enforced retirement 
from England, he brought out the Arcano in 1646 at his own 
expense. At this time he was seventy- two years old, and was 
residing in Tuscany ; and the book contains a great number of 
accurate and valuable maps, in one of which the "Ediston" is 
shown. 
