Raleigh having once dared to oppose the generals, he received instant moral support. All the other commanders and gentlemen present clustered round him and entreated him to persist. Essex now declared himself convinced, and begged Raleigh to repeat his arguments to the Lord Admiral. Raleigh passed on to Howard's ship, 'The Ark Royal,' and by the evening the Admiral also was persuaded. Returning in his boat, as he passed the 'Repulse' Raleigh shouted up to Essex 'Intramus,' and the impetuous Earl, now as eager for a fight by sea as he had been a few hours before for a fight by land, flung his hat into the sea for joy, and prepared at that late hour to weigh anchor at once.
It took a good deal of time to get the soldiers out of the boats, and back into their respective ships. Essex, whom Raleigh seems to hint at under the cautious word 'many,' 'seeming desperately valiant, thought it a fault of mine to put off [the attack] till the morning; albeit we had neither agreed in what manner to fight, nor appointed who should lead, and who should second, whether by boarding or otherwise.' Raleigh, in his element when rapid action was requisite, passed to and fro between the generals, and at last from his own ship wrote a hasty letter to the Lord Admiral, giving his opinion as to the best way to arrange the order of battle, and requesting him to supply a couple of great fly-boats to attack each of the Spanish galleons, so that the latter might be captured before they were set on fire.
Essex and Howard were completely carried away by Raleigh's vehement counsels. The Lord Admiral had always shown deference to Raleigh's nautical science, and the Earl was captivated by the qualities he could best admire, courage and spirit and rapidity. Raleigh's old faults of stubbornness and want of tact abandoned him at this happy moment. His graceful courtesy to Essex, his delicacy in crossing dangerous ground, won praise even from his worst enemies, the satellites of Essex. It was Raleigh's blossoming hour, and all the splendid gifts and vigorous charms of his brain and character expanded in the sunrise of victory. Late in the busy evening of the 20th, the four leaders held a final council of war, amiably wrangling among themselves for the post of danger. At last the others gave way to what Raleigh calls his 'humble suit,' and it was decided that he should lead the van. Essex, Lord Howard of Effingham, and the Vice-Admiral, Lord Thomas Howard, were to lead the body of the fleet; but it appeared next morning that the Vice-Admiral had but seemed to give way, and that his ambition was still to be ahead of Raleigh himself. As Raleigh returned to sleep on board the 'War Sprite,' the town of Cadiz was all ablaze with lamps, tapers, and tar barrels, while there came faintly out to the ears of the English sailors a murmur of wild festal music.
Next day was the 21st of June. As Mr. St. John pleasantly says, 'that St. Barnabas' Day, so often the brightest in the year, was likewise the brightest of Raleigh's life.' At break of day, the amazed inhabitants of Cadiz, and the sailors who had caroused all night on shore and now hurried on board the galleons, watched the magnificent squadron sweep into the harbour of their city. First came the 'War Sprite' itself; next the 'Mary Rose,' commanded by Sir George Carew; then Sir Francis Vere in the 'Rainbow,' carrying a sullen heart of envy with him; then Sir Robert Southwell in the 'Lion,' Sir Conyers Clifford in the 'Dreadnought,' and lastly, as Raleigh supposed, Robert Dudley (afterwards Duke of Northumberland, and a distinguished author on naval tactics) in the 'Nonparilla.' As a matter of fact, the Vice-Admiral, hoping to contrive to push in front, had persuaded Dudley to change ships with him. These six vessels were well in advance of all the rest of the fleet. In front of them, ranged under the wall of Cadiz, were seventeen galleys lying with their prows to flank the English entrance, as Raleigh ploughed on towards the galleons. The fortress of St. Philip and other forts along the wall began to scour the channel, and with the galleys concentrated their fire upon the 'War Sprite.' But Raleigh disdained to do more than salute the one and then the other with a contemptuous blare of trumpets. 'The "St. Philip,"' he says, 'the great and famous Admiral of Spain, was the mark I shot at, esteeming those galleys but as wasps in respect of the powerfulness of the others.'
The 'St. Philip' had a special attraction for him. It was six years since his dear friend and cousin, Sir Richard Grenville, under the lee of the Azores, with one little ship, the 'Revenge,' had been hemmed in and crushed by the vast fleet of Spain, and it was the 'St. Philip' and the 'St. Andrew' that had been foremost in that act of murder. Now before Raleigh there rose the same lumbering monsters of the deep, that very 'St. Philip' and 'St. Andrew' which had looked down and watched Sir Richard Grenville die, 'as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honour.' It seems almost fabulous that the hour of pure poetical justice should strike so soon, and that Raleigh of all living Englishmen should thus come face to face with those of all the Spanish tyrants of the deep. As he swung forward into the harbour and saw them there before him, the death of his kinsman in the Azores was solemnly present to his memory, 'and being resolved to be revenged for the "Revenge," or to second her with his own life,' as he says, he came to anchor close to the galleons, and for three hours the battle with them proceeded.
It began by the 'War Sprite' being in the centre and a little to the front; on the one side, the 'Nonparilla,' in which Raleigh now perceived Lord Thomas Howard, and the 'Lion;' on the other the 'Mary Rose' and the 'Dreadnought;' these, with the 'Rainbow' a little farther off, kept up the fight alone until ten o'clock in the morning; waiting for the fly-boats, which were to board the galleons, and which, for some reason or other, did not arrive. Meanwhile, Essex, excited beyond all restraint by the volleys of culverin and cannon, slipped anchor, and passing from the body of the fleet, lay close up to the 'War Sprite,' pushing the 'Dreadnought' on one side. Raleigh, seeing him coming, went to meet him in his skiff, and begged him to see that the fly-boats were sent, as the battery was beginning to be more than his ships could bear. The Lord Admiral was following Essex, and Raleigh passed on to him with the same entreaty. This parley between the three commanders occupied about a quarter of an hour.
Meanwhile, the men second in command had taken an unfair advantage of Raleigh's absence. He hurried back to find that the Vice-Admiral had pushed the 'Nonparilla' ahead, and that Sir Francis Vere, too, in the 'Rainbow,' had passed the 'War Sprite.' Finding himself, 'from being the first to be but the third,' Raleigh skilfully thrust in between these two ships, and threw himself in front of them broadside to the channel, so that, as he says, 'I was sure no one should outstart me again, for that day.' Finally, Essex and Lord Thomas Howard took the next places. Sir Francis Vere, the marshal, who seems to have been mad for precedence, 'while we had no leisure to look behind us, secretly fastened a rope on my ship's side toward him, to draw himself up equally with me; but some of my company advertising me thereof, I caused it to be cut off, and so he fell back into his place, whom I guarded, all but his very prow, from the sight of the enemy.' In his Commentaries Vere has his revenge, and carefully disparages Raleigh on every occasion.
For some reason or other, the fly-boats continued to delay, and Raleigh began to despair of them. What he now determined to do, and what revenge he took for Sir Richard Grenville, may best be told in his own vigorous language:
Having no hope of my fly-boats to board, and the Earl and my Lord Thomas having both promised to second me, I laid out a warp by the side of the 'Philip' to shake hands with her—for with the wind we could not get aboard; which when she and the rest perceived, finding also that the 'Repulse,' seeing mine, began to do the like, and the rear-admiral my Lord Thomas, they all let slip, and ran aground, tumbling into the sea heaps of soldiers, as thick as if coals had been poured out of a sack in many ports at once, some drowned and some sticking in the mud. The 'Philip' and the 'St. Thomas' burned themselves; the 'St. Matthew' and the 'St. Andrew' were recovered by our boats ere they could get out to fire them. The spectacle was very lamentable on their side, for many drowned themselves, many, half-burned, leaped into the water; very many hanging by the ropes' end, by the ships' side, under the water even to the lips; many swimming with grievous wounds, stricken under water, and put out of their pain; and withal so huge a fire, and such tearing of the ordnance in the great 'Philip' and the rest, when the fire came to them, as, if a man had a desire to see Hell itself, it was there most lively figured. Ourselves spared the lives of all, after the victory, but the Flemings, who did little or nothing in the fight, used merciless slaughter, till they were by myself, and afterwards by my Lord Admiral, beaten off.
The official report of the Duke of Medina Sidonia to Philip II. does not greatly differ from this, except that he says that the English set fire to the 'St. Philip.' Before the fight was over Raleigh received a very serious flesh wound in the leg, 'interlaced and deformed with splinters,' which made it impossible for him to get on horseback. He was, therefore, to his great disappointment, unable to take part in Essex's land-attack on the town. He could not, however, bear to be left behind, and in a litter he was carried into Cadiz. He could only stay an hour on shore, however, for the agony in his leg was intolerable, and in the tumultuous disorder of the soldiers, who were sacking the town, there was danger of his being rudely pushed and shouldered. He went back to the 'War Sprite' to have his wound dressed and to sleep, and found that in the general rush on shore his presence in the fleet was highly desirable.