t it is true; and neither
Raleigh's glowing prose nor Tennyson's glowing verse exaggerates it.
Lord Thomas Howard, 'almost famished for want of prey,' had been
cruising in search of treasure ships when Captain Middleton, one of the
gentlemen-adventurers who followed the gallant Earl of Cumberland, came
in to warn him that Don Alonzo de Bazan was following with fifty-three
sail. The English crews were partly ashore at the Azores; and Howard had
barely time to bring them off, cut his cables, and work to windward of
the overwhelming Spaniards.

Grenville's men were last. The _Revenge_ had only 'her hundred fighters
on deck and her ninety sick below' when the Spanish fleet closed round
him. Yet, just as he had sworn to cut down the first man who touched a
sail when the master thought there was still a chance to slip through,
so now he refused to surrender on any terms at all. Then, running down
close-hauled on the starboard tack, decks cleared for action and crew at
battle quarters, he steered right between two divisions of the Spanish
fleet till 'the mountain-like _San Felipe_, of fifteen hundred tons,'
ranging up on his weather side, blanketed his canvas and left him almost
becalmed. Immediately the vessels which the _Revenge_ had weathered
hauled their wind and came up on her from to-leeward. Then, at three
o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of September, 1591, that immortal
fight began.

The first broadside from the _Revenge_ took the _San Felipe_ on the
water-line and forced her to give way and stop her leaks. Then two
Spaniards ranged up in her place, while two more kept station on the
other side. And so the desperate fight went on all through that
afternoon and evening and far on into the night. Meanwhile Howard, still
keeping the weather gage, attacked the Spaniards from the rear and
thought of trying to cut through them. But his sailing master swore it
would be the end of all Her Majesty's ships engaged, as it probably
would; so he bore away, wisely or not as critics may judge for
themselves. One vessel, the little _George Noble_ of London, a
victualler, stood by the _Revenge_, offering help before the fight
began. But Grenville, thanking her gallant skipper, ordered him to save
his vessel by following Howard.

With never less than one enemy on each side of her, the _Revenge_ fought
furiously on. _Boarders away!_ shouted the Spanish colonels as the
vessels closed. _Repel boarders!_ shouted Grenville in reply. A