For a little time it seemed as if Sir Richard’s daring might succeed.  But a great ship, the San Philip, came between him and the wind “and coming towards him, becalmed his sails in such sort, as the ship could neither make way, nor feel the helm:  so huge and high-carged* was the Spanish ship. . . .  The fight thus beginning at three of the clock of the afternoon continued very terrible all that evening.  But the great San Philip having received the lower tier of the Revenge, discharged with cross-bar shot, shifted herself with all diligence from her sides, utterly misliking her first entertainment. . . .  The Spanish ships were filled with companies of soldiers, in some two hundred, besides the mariners; in some five, in other eight hundred.  In ours there were none at all beside the mariners, but the servants of the commanders and some few voluntary gentlemen only.”  And yet the Spaniards “were still repulsed, again and again, and at all times beaten back into their own ships, or into the seas.”

The meaning of the word is uncertain.  It may be high-charged.

In the beginning of the fight one little store ship of the English fleet hovered near.  It was small and of no use in fighting.  Now it came close to the Revenge and the Captain asked Sir Richard what he should do, and “Sir Richard bid him save himself, and leave him to his fortune.”  So the gallant Revenge was left to fight alone.  For fifteen hours the battle lasted, Sir Richard himself was sorely wounded, and when far into the night the fighting ceased, two of the Spanish vessels were sunk “and in many other of the Spanish ships great slaughter was made.”  “But the Spanish ships which attempted to board the Revenge, as they were wounded and beaten off, so always others came in their places, she having never less than two might galleons by her sides and aboard her.  So that ere the morning, from three of the clock the day before, there had fifteen several Armadas* assailed her.  And all so ill approved their entertainment, as they were, by the break of day, far more willing to hearken to a composition** than hastily to make any more assaults or entries.

Armada here means merely a Spanish ship of war.

**An arrangement to cease fighting on both sides.

“But as the day increased so our men decreased.  And as the light grew more and more, by so much more grew our discomforts.  For none appeared in sight but enemies, saving one small ship called the Pilgrim, commanded by Jacob Whiddon, who hovered all night to see the success.  But in the morning bearing with the Revenge, she was hunted like a hare amongst many ravenous hounds, but escaped.

“All the powder of the Revenge to the last barrel was now spent, all her pikes broken, forty of her best men slain, and the most part of the rest hurt.  In the beginning of the fight she had but one hundred free from sickness and four score and ten sick, laid in hold upon the ballast.  A small troop to man such a ship, and a weak garrison to resist so mighty an army.  By those hundred all was sustained, the volleys, boarding and enterings of fifteen ships of war, besides those which beat her at large.