ready to take part in such
successes as it should please God to send.

[Footnote 370: This waving amain seems to have been some salutation of
defiance, then usual at sea.--E.]

The gallies came upon us very fiercely at the first encounter, yet God
so strengthened us that, even if they had been ten times more, we had
not feared them at all. The Salomon, being a hot ship with sundry cast
pieces in her, gave the first shot in so effectual a manner on their
headmost galley, that it shared away so many of the men that sat on one
side of her, and pierced her through and through, insomuch that she was
ready to sink: Yet they assaulted us the more fiercely. Then the rest of
our ships, especially the four chiefest, the Salomon, Margaret and John,
Minion, and the Ascension, gave a hot charge upon them, and they on us,
commencing a hot and fierce battle with great valour on both sides,
which continued for the space of six hours. About the commencement of
this fight, our fleet was joined by two Flemish vessels. Seeing the
great force of the gallies, one of these presently struck his sails and
yielded to the enemy; whereas, had they exerted themselves on our side
and in their own defence, they needed not to have been taken in this
cowardly manner. The other was ready also to have yielded immediately,
and began to lower his sails: But the trumpeter of that ship drew his
faulcion, and stepping up to the pilot at the helm, vowed that he would
put him instantly to death, if he did not join and take part with the
English fleet: This he did, for fear of death, and by that means they
were defended from the tyranny which they had otherwise assuredly found
among the Spaniards.

When we had continued the fight somewhat more than six hours, God gave
us the upper hand, so that we escaped the hands of so many enemies, who
were constrained to flee into harbour to shelter themselves from us.
This was the manifest work of God, who defended us in such sort from all
danger, that not one man of us was slain in all this long and fierce
assault, sustaining no other damage or hurt than this, that the shrouds
and back-stays of the Salomon, which gave the first and last shot, and
sore galled the enemy during the whole battle, were clean shot away.
When the battle ceased, we were constrained for lack of wind to stay and
waft up and down, and then went back again to _Tition_ [Tetuan] in
Barbary, six leagues from Gibraltar, where we found the people
wondr