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.  And they did repel them, time and again, till the English pikes dripped red with Spanish blood.  A few Spaniards gained the deck, only to be shot, stabbed, or slashed to death.  Towards midnight Grenville was hit in the body by a musket-shot fired from the tops—­the same sort of shot that killed Nelson.  The surgeon was killed while dressing the wound, and Grenville was hit in the head.  But still the fight went on.  The Revenge had already sunk two Spaniards, a third sank afterwards, and a fourth was beached to save her.  But Grenville would not hear of surrender.  When day broke not ten unwounded Englishmen remained.  The pikes were broken.  The powder was spent.  The whole deck was a wild entanglement of masts, spars, sails, and rigging.  The undaunted survivors stood dumb as their silent cannon.  But every Spanish hull in the whole encircling ring of death bore marks of the Revenge’s rage.  Four hundred Spaniards, by their own admission, had been killed, and quite six hundred wounded.  One hundred Englishmen had thus accounted for a thousand Spaniards besides all those that sank!

Grenville now gave his last order:  ‘Sink me the ship, Master-Gunner!’ But the sailing master and flag-captain, both wounded, protesting that all lives should be saved to avenge the dead, manned the only remaining boat and made good terms with the Spanish admiral.  Then Grenville was taken very carefully aboard Don Bazan’s flagship, where he was received with every possible mark of admiration and respect.  Don Bazan gave him his own cabin.  The staff surgeon dressed his many wounds.  The Spanish captains and military officers stood hat in hand, ’wondering at his courage and stout heart, for that he showed not any signs of faintness nor changing of his colour.’  Grenville spoke Spanish very well and handsomely acknowledged the compliments they paid him.  Then, gathering his