foreigner, who is held in great reputation for his judgment and
fidelity, and who has sounded the praise of our countrymen even beyond
what has been done by our own historians. On the other hand, the reader
will be no less concerned to find what immense treasures some of our
adventurers lost, by unaccountably missing the fleets of which they went
in search, when at the same time they were so near them, that it seemed
almost impossible they should escape. This shews, after all, how
uncertain is the meeting of ships at sea, and that two great fleets may
sail almost close to one another, without having the least
suspicion."--_Astley._

* * * * *

The 22d of July 1589, about evening, being near the islands of Flores
and Corvo, we perceived three ships making towards us, which came from
under the land and put us in great fear, for they came close to our
admiral and shot diverse times at him and at another ship of our
company, whereby we perceived them to be English, for they bore the
English flag at their main-tops, but none of them seemed above 60 tons
burden. About evening they followed after us, and all night bore
lanterns with candles burning at their sterns, although the moon shined.
That night we passed hard by the island of Fayal; and next morning,
being between the isle of St George on our right and the small isle of
Graciosa on our left, we espied the three English ships still following
us. They consulted together, upon which one of them sailed backwards, as
if one ship had followed after us without company, and for a time that
ship was out of sight; but in no long time afterwards, it returned to
the other two, when they consulted again, and came all three together
against our ship, because we were to leeward of all our ships, having
the island of St George on one side instead of a sconce, [fort] thinking
so to deal with us as to force us to run on shore, to which we were very
near. In that manner they came bravely towards us, with their flags
displayed, sounding their trumpets, and sailed at least three times
about us, discharging at us their muskets and calivers and some pieces
of great ordnance, doing us no harm in the hull of our ship, but spoiled
all our sails and ropes, and so plagued us that no man durst put forth
his head. When we shot off a piece of ordnance, we had at the least an
hours work to load it again, there being a great noise and cry in our
ship, as if we had been