this her first entertainment.  Some say the San Philip foundered, but we cannot report this for a truth, not having sufficient assurance.  Besides the mariners, the Spanish ships were filled with companies of soldiers, some having to the number of two hundred, some five hundred, and others as far even as eight hundred.  In ours, there were none besides the mariners, except the servants of the commanders, and some few gentlemen volunteers.

After interchanging many vollies of great ordnance and small shot, the Spaniards deliberated to enter the Revenge by boarding, and made several attempts, hoping to carry her by the multitudes of their armed soldiers and musketeers, but were still repulsed again and again, being on every attempt beaten back into their own ships or into the sea.  In the beginning of the fight, the George Noble of London being only one of the victuallers, and of small force, having received some shot through her from the Spanish armadas, fell under the lee of the Revenge, and the master of her asked Sir Richard what he was pleased to command him; on which Sir Richard bad him save himself as he best might, leaving him to his fortune.  After the fight had thus continued without intermission, while the day lasted, and some hours of the night, many of our men were slain and hurt; one of the great galeons of the armada and the admiral of the hulks both sunk, and a great slaughter had taken place in many of the other great Spanish ships.  Some allege that Sir Richard was very dangerously hurt almost in the beginning of the fight, and lay speechless for a time ere he recovered:  But two men belonging to the Revenge, who came home in a ship of Lyme from the islands, and were examined by some of the lords and others, affirmed, that he was never so much wounded as to forsake the upper deck till an hour before midnight, and being then shot in the body by a musket ball, was shot again in the head as the surgeon was dressing him, the surgeon himself being at the same time wounded to death.  This also agrees with an examination of four other returned mariners of the same ship, taken before Sir Francis Godolphin, and sent by him to master William Killegrue of her majestys privy chamber.

To return to the fight:  As the Spanish ships which attempted to board the Revenge were wounded and beaten off, so always others came up in their places, she never having less than two mighty galeons by her sides and close on board her; so that ere morning, from three o’clock of the day before, she had been successively assailed by no less than fifteen several armadas or great ships of war; and all of them had so ill approved their entertainment, that, by break of day, they were far more willing to hearken to a composition, than hastily to make any more assaults or entries for boarding.  But as the day advanced, so our men decreased in number, and as the light grew more and more, by so much more increased the discomforts of our men.  For now nothing appeared in sight but enemies, save one small ship called the Pilgrim, commanded by Jacob Whiddon, who hovered all night to see what might be the event; but, bearing up towards the Revenge in the morning, was hunted like a hare among so many ravenous hounds, yet escaped.