with me; but some of my company advertising me thereof, I caused it to
be cut off, and so he fell back into his place, whom I guarded, all but
his very prow, from the sight of the enemy.' In his _Commentaries_ Vere
has his revenge, and carefully disparages Raleigh on every occasion.

For some reason or other, the fly-boats continued to delay, and Raleigh
began to despair of them. What he now determined to do, and what revenge
he took for Sir Richard Grenville, may best be told in his own vigorous
language:

Having no hope of my fly-boats to board, and the Earl and my
Lord Thomas having both promised to second me, I laid out a warp
by the side of the 'Philip' to shake hands with her--for with
the wind we could not get aboard; which when she and the rest
perceived, finding also that the 'Repulse,' seeing mine, began
to do the like, and the rear-admiral my Lord Thomas, they all
let slip, and ran aground, tumbling into the sea heaps of
soldiers, as thick as if coals had been poured out of a sack in
many ports at once, some drowned and some sticking in the mud.
The 'Philip' and the 'St. Thomas' burned themselves; the 'St.
Matthew' and the 'St. Andrew' were recovered by our boats ere
they could get out to fire them. The spectacle was very
lamentable on their side, for many drowned themselves, many,
half-burned, leaped into the water; very many hanging by the
ropes' end, by the ships' side, under the water even to the
lips; many swimming with grievous wounds, stricken under water,
and put out of their pain; and withal so huge a fire, and such
tearing of the ordnance in the great 'Philip' and the rest, when
the fire came to them, as, if a man had a desire to see Hell
itself, it was there most lively figured. Ourselves spared the
lives of all, after the victory, but the Flemings, who did
little or nothing in the fight, used merciless slaughter, till
they were by myself, and afterwards by my Lord Admiral, beaten
off.

The official report of the Duke of Medina Sidonia to Philip II. does not
greatly differ from this, except that he says that the English set fire
to the 'St. Philip.' Before the fight was over Raleigh received a very
serious flesh wound in the leg, 'interlaced and deformed with
splinters,' which made it impossible for him to get on horseback. He
was, therefore, to his great disappointment, unable to take part in
Esse