The names of her majestys ships were as follows:  The Defiance, admiral, the Revenge, vice-admiral, the Bonaventure commanded by captain Crosse, the Lion by George Fenner, the Foresight by Thomas Vavasour, and the Crane by Duffild.  The Foresight and Crane were small ships, the other four were of the middle size.  All the others, except the bark Raleigh, commanded by captain Thin, were victuallers, and of small or no force.  The approach of the Spanish fleet being concealed by means of the island, they were soon at hand, so that our ships had scarce time to weigh their anchors, and some even were obliged to slip their cables and set sail.  Sir Richard Grenville was the last to weigh, that he might recover the men who were a land on the island, who had otherwise been lost.  The lord Thomas Howard, with the rest of the fleet, very hardly recovered the wind, which Sir Richard was unable to do; on which his master and others endeavoured to persuade him to cut his main sail and cast about, trusting to the swift sailing of his ship, as the squadron of Seville was on his weather bow.  But Sir Richard absolutely refused to turn from the enemy, declaring he would rather die than dishonour himself, his country, and her majestys ship, and persuaded his company that he would be able to pass through the two squadrons in spite of them, and force those of Seville to give him way.  This he certainly performed upon divers of the foremost, who, as the sailors term it, sprang their luff, and fell under the lee of the Revenge.  The other course had certainly been the better, and might very properly have been adopted under so great impossibility of prevailing over such heavy odds; but, out of the greatness of his mind, he could not be prevailed on to have the semblance of fleeing.

In the meantime, while Sir Richard attended to those ships of the enemy that were nearest him and in his way, the great San Philip being to windward of him, and coming down towards him, becalmed his sails in such sort that his ship could neither make way nor feel the helm, so huge and high was the Spanish ship, being of fifteen hundred tons, and which presently laid the Revenge on board.  At this time, bereft of his sails, the ships that had fallen under his lee, luffed up and laid him on board also, the first of these that now came up being the vice-admiral of the Biscay squadron, a very mighty and puissant ship, commanded by Brittandona.  The San Philip carried three tier of ordnance on a side, and eleven pieces in each tier, besides eight pieces in her forecastle chase, and others from her stern-ports.  After the Revenge was thus entangled by the huge San Philip, four others laid her on board, two to larboard and two to starboard.  The fight thus began at three in the afternoon, and continued very terribly the whole of that evening.  But the great San Philip, having received a discharge from the lower tier of the Revenge, loaded with cross-bar shot, shifted herself with all diligence from her side, utterly disliking