Walter Raleigh

“ The Spaniards were contending to maintain their hold upon the wealth of the world, and they fought as men will fight in such a cause—courageously, but not desperately; the English fought as, at sea, they must always be fighting, for national existence, and they took care—it was a great part of their strength—to leave their enemies in no doubt that they meant in every engagement to make the affair fatal to one side or the other. ”

“ 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,
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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. ”

“ Navy, which they termed invincible, consisting of 240 sail of ships, not only of their own kingdom, but strengthened with the greatest argosies, Portugal caracks, Florentines and huge hulks of other countries, were, by thirty of her Majesty’s own ships of war and a few of our own merchants, by the wise, valiant and most advantageous conduction of the Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of England, beaten and shuffled together, even from the Lizard in Cornwall, first to Portland, where they shamefully left Don Pedro de Valdes with his mighty ship ”

“ It is agreeable with all good reason, for manifestation of the truth, to overcome falsehood and untruth; that the beginning, continuance and success of this late honourable encounter of Sir Richard Grenville, and other her Majesty’s Captains, with the Armada of Spain, should be truly set down and published without partiality or false imaginations.
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And it is no marvel that the Spaniard should seek, by false and slanderous pamphlets, advices and letters, to cover their own loss, and to derogate from others their due honours, especially in this fight being performed far off ”

“ Sir Richard Hawkins is more whole-hearted. “At the Ile of Flores, Sir Richard Greenfield got eternall honour and reputation of great valour, and of an experimented Soldier, chusing rather to sacrifice his life, and to passe all danger whatsoever, than to fayle in his Obligation, by gathering together those which had remained ashore in that place, though with the hazard of his ship and companie: and rather we ought to imbrace52 an honourable death than to live with infamie and dishonour, by fayling in dutie.” ”

“ Thus it hath pleased God to fight for us, and to defend the justice of our cause against the ambitious and bloody pretences of the Spaniard, who, seeking to devour all nations, are themselves devoured. ”

“ What good, honour or fortune ever man yet by them achieved is yet unheard of or unwritten. And if our English Papists do but look into Portugal, against whom they have no pretence of religion, how the nobility are put to death, imprisoned, their rich men made a prey, and all sorts of people
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captived, they shall find that the obedience even of the Turk is easy and a liberty, in respect of the slavery and tyranny of Spain. ”

“ To this evidence we may add the statement of a Spanish prisoner, bearing the delightful name of Gonsalo Gonsalez del Castillo, who writes in 1592 that in England “they have been much pained by the loss of one of the Queen’s galleons, called the Revenge; they say she was the best ship the Queen had, and the one in which they had the most confidence for her defence.” ”

“ The Foresight of the Queen, commanded by Thomas Vavasour, performed a very great fight, and stayed two hours as near the Revenge as the weather would permit him, not forsaking the fight, till he was like to be encompassed by the squadrons, and with great difficulty cleared himself. The rest gave divers volleys of shot, and entered as far as the place permitted and their own necessities, to keep the weather gauge of the enemy, until they were parted by night. ”

“ No man would have been quicker to lay down such a principle than Grenville, but it is clear that on this occasion he did not observe it, and to maintain that he did so would be to mistake the nature of the man. ”

“ This is a policy which we did not follow in the latest of our wars; we may have been justified, we had our reasons, and we paid the full price; but on the day when we abandon it upon the sea, we shall have thrown away our only sure defence and our deadliest weapon. Men and nations are never so nearly invincible and never26 half so terrible as when they are armed with contempt of death; and that such an ardent temper can defy, discourage and destroy mere bulk or numbers, “even beyond credit and to the Height of some Heroicall Fable”—this is the meaning of the last fight of the Revenge. ”

“ The men of courage without discipline, of enthusiasm without reason, of will without science—a type of arrested development surviving from the days beyond the Renaissance—fell with the Stuart Kings and were finally buried with the rebels of the ’45. ”

“ Almost the one half of our men sick and not able to serve: the ships grown foul, unrummaged, and scarcely able to bear any sail for want of ballast, having been six months at the sea before. If all the rest had entered, all had been lost. For the very hugeness of the Spanish fleet, if no other violence had been offered, would have crushed them between them into shivers. Of which the dishonour and loss to the Queen had been far greater than the spoil or harm that the enemy
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“ On the contrary, the Spanish were always supplied with soldiers brought from every squadron: all manner of arms and powder at will. Unto ours there 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 razed, and in effect evened
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she was with the water, but the very foundation or bottom of a ship, nothing being left overhead either for flight or defence. ”

“ To conclude, it hath ever to this day pleased God to prosper and defend her Majesty, to break the purposes of malicious enemies, of foresworn traitors, and of unjust practices and invasions. She hath ever been honoured of the worthiest Kings, served by faithful subjects, and shall by the favour of God, resist, repel, and confound all whatsoever attempts against her sacred person or kingdom. ”

“ Let not therefore any Englishman of what religion soever, have other opinion of the Spaniards, but that those whom he seeketh to win of our nation,
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he esteemeth base and traitorous, unworthy persons, or unconstant fools: and that he useth his pretence of religion for no other purpose but to bewitch us from the obedience of our natural prince ”

“ But there was a sense abroad of something more than brute strength: a memory of great traditions, of inherited skill, of undaunted and indomitable tenacity. When on that January 15, 1896, the English Admiral hoisted his flag in the Revenge, and Her Majesty’s Marines marched on board under the command of Captain Drake, the enemy disappeared from the seas, and we made haste to forget another naval victory.
The lesson, we may hope, remains; this was not a triumph of physical force. The challenger’s nerve, and not his ships, failed him; he feared his
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own destruction more than he desired ours. ”

“ In an age even more materially minded, if possible, than those which went before it, we are increasingly diligent to measure our armour and our guns, to reckon up our horse-power and the number of our hits at target practice. It is not for any man to blame us ”

“ He had no sooner delivered the news but the
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fleet was in sight: many of our ship’s companies were on shore in the island; some providing ballast for their ships; others filling of water and refreshing themselves from the land with such things as they could, either for money, or by force recover. ”

“ Where they dare not with their own forces to invade, they basely entertain the traitors and vagabonds of all nations, seeking by those and by their runagate Jesuits to win parties, and have by that means ruined many noble houses and others in this land, and have extinguished both their lives and families. ”

“ A manifest testimony how injust and displeasing their attempts are in the sight of God, who hath pleased to witness by the success of their affairs His mislike of their bloody and injurious designs, purposed and practised against all Christian princes, over whom they seek unlawful and ungodly rule and Empery. ”

“ After the fight had thus, without intermission, continued while the day lasted and some hours of the night, many of our men were slain and hurt, and one of the great galleons of the Armada and the Admiral of the Hulks both sunk, and in many other of the Spanish ships great slaughter was made. ”

“ Sir Richard Grenville was the last weighed, to recover the men that were upon the island, which otherwise had been lost. The Lord Thomas with the rest very hardly recovered the wind, which Sir Richard Grenville not being able to do, was persuaded by the master and others to cut his
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main sail and cast about, and to trust to the sailing of the ship, for the squadron of Seville were on his weather bow. ”

“ This agrees also with an examination taken by Sir Francis Godolphin, of four other mariners of the same ship being returned, which examination the said Sir Francis sent unto Master William Killigrew, of Her Majesty’s Privy Chamber.
But to return to the fight, the Spanish ships which attempted to board the Revenge, as
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they were wounded and beaten off, so always others came in their places, she having never less than two mighty galleons by her sides and aboard her. ”

“ 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
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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 master Gunner readily condescended and divers others ”

“ And it is otherwise of late certified, that of this whole fleet that should have come into Spain this year, being 123 sail, there are as yet arrived but 25. This note was taken out of the examination of certain Spaniards, that were brought into England by six of the ships of London, which took seven of the above named Indian fleet, near the Islands of Azores.
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“It may be truly said that the commandment of the sea is an abridgement or a quintessence of a universal monarchy.” ”

“ They stormed the Manor-house, the Sanctuary and the Manse; killed some of the defenders, took plunder to the value of two hundred marks (the Bishop’s estimate) and otherwise “multipliciter perturbarunt pacem et tranquillitatem Domini nostri Regis.” The Bishop’s peace and tranquillity being also disturbed, he at once excommunicated the entire army. Sir Theobald
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then brought and won an action against Raleigh in the King’s Bench ”