honour. Whereby my soul
most joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave
behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier that
hath done his duty as he was bound to do.' When he had finished
these or other such like words, he gave up the ghost with great and
stout courage, and no man could perceive any sign of heaviness in
him.

Such was the fight at Florez, in that August of 1591, without its equal
in such of the annals of mankind as the thing which we call history has
preserved to us; scarcely equalled by the most glorious fate which the
imagination of Barrere could invent for the 'Vengeur.' Nor did the
matter end without a sequel awful as itself. Sea battles have been often
followed by storms, and without a miracle; but with a miracle, as the
Spaniards and the English alike believed, or without one, as we moderns
would prefer believing, 'there ensued on this action a tempest so
terrible as was never seen or heard the like before.' A fleet of
merchantmen joined the Armada immediately after the battle, forming in
all 140 sail; and of these 140, only 32 ever saw Spanish harbour. The
rest foundered, or were lost on the Azores. The men-of-war had been so
shattered by shot as to be unable to carry sail; and the 'Revenge'
herself, disdaining to survive her commander, or as if to complete his
own last baffled purpose, like Samson, buried herself and her 200 prize
crew under the rocks of St. Michael's.

And it may well be thought and presumed (says John Huighen) that it
was no other than a just plague purposely sent upon the Spaniards;
and that it might be truly said, the taking of the 'Revenge' was
justly revenged on them; and not by the might or force of man, but
by the power of God. As some of them openly said in the Isle of
Terceira, that they believed verily God would consume them, and that
he took part with the Lutherans and heretics ... saying further,
that so soon as they had thrown the dead body of the Vice-Admiral
Sir Richard Grenville overboard, they verily thought that as he had
a devilish faith and religion, and therefore the devil loved him, so
he presently sunk into the bottom of the sea and down into hell,
where he raised up all the devils to the revenge of his death, and
that they brought so great a storm and torments upon the Spaniards,
because they only maintained the Catholic and Romish religion. Suc