there were in all only one hundred and ninety
persons, of whom ninety were sick.

After discharging their guns the Spanish ships endeavoured to board
_The Revenge_; but, notwithstanding the multitude of their armed men,
they were repulsed again and again, and driven back either into their
ships or into the sea.

After the battle had lasted well into the night many of the British
were slain or wounded, whilst two Spanish ships had been sunk. An hour
before midnight Sir Richard Grenville was shot in the body, and a
little later was wounded in the head, whilst the doctor who was
attending him was killed.

The company on board _The Revenge_ was gradually getting less and
less; the Spanish ships, meanwhile, as they received a sufficient
evidence of _The Revenge's_ powers of destruction, dropped off, and
their places were taken by others; and thus it happened that ere the
morning fifteen ships had been engaged, and all were so little pleased
with the entertainment provided that they were far more willing to
listen to proposals for an honourable arrangement than to make any
more assaults.

As Lord Tennyson writes:--

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship the whole night long their high-built galleons came,

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and
flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her
shame.
For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no
more--
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

_The Revenge_ had by this time spent her last barrel of gunpowder; all
her pikes were broken, forty of her best men slain, and most of the
remainder wounded. For her brave defenders there was now no hope,--no
powder, no weapons, the masts all beaten overboard, all her tackle cut
asunder, her decks battered, nothing left overhead for flight or below
for defence.

Sir Richard, finding himself in this condition after fifteen hours'
hard fighting, and having received about eight hundred shots from
great guns, besides various assaults from the enemy, and seeing,
moreover, no way by which he might prevent his ship falling into the
hands of the Spanish, commanded the master gunner, whom he knew was
a most resolute man, to split and sink the ship. He did this that
thereby nothing might remain of