The latter had left Plymouth early in March and made for the Azores; there they waited five months for the West Indian treasure-ships in vain. For Philip had heard of the expedition of Howard and Grenville, and had ordered the further detention of his ships at Havannah, until his fleet could go from Spain to defeat the English, and convoy the treasure safely home.
This was to be the greatest fleet sent out of Spanish ports since the Armada; it comprised over fifty sail, Portuguese, Biscayan, and Andalusian galleys, ten Dutch boats seized near Lisbon, and other smaller craft.
Lord Thomas Howard had six of her Majesty's ships, six victuallers of London, the barque Raleigh, and two or three pinnaces. They were riding at anchor near Flores, one of the westerly islands of the Azores, on an afternoon on the last day of August, when a ship hove in sight, speeding along under full sail.
Captain Middleton reported himself, and announced that he had kept company with a large Spanish fleet three days before; he had crowded on all sail and hastened to bring the news.
As he spoke a cry was raised, "Sail-ho!" and there on the horizon they saw an unwelcome sight—a large force of Spanish war vessels.
It was unwelcome, not only because of their own small numbers, but also because many of the ships' companies were on shore in the island; some providing ballast for their ships, others filling in water and securing provisions. "By reason whereof," says Sir Walter Raleigh, "our ships being all pestered and romaging everything out of order, very light for want of ballast, and that which was most to our disadvantage, the one halfe part of the men of every shippe being sicke and utterly unserviceable; for in the Revenge there were ninety diseased: in the Bonaventure not so many in health as could handle her main-saile. The rest, for the most part, were in little better state."
The island had shrouded the approach of the Spaniards since they were first seen, and now the enemy hove in sight again full near, and our ships had scarce time to weigh their anchors, but some of them were driven to slip their cables and set sail.
Sir Richard was the last that weighed anchor, for he had waited to recover his men that were upon the island, who otherwise would have been lost—"Choosing," says Sir Richard Hawkins, "rather to sacrifice his life, and to pass all danger whatsoever, than to fail in his obligation, by gathering together those who were ashore; though with the hazard of his ship and company."
Raleigh and Hawkins agree in giving this high motive.
Sir William Monson says: "When the Lord Thomas warily, and like a discreet general, weighed anchor and made signs to the rest of his fleet to do the like, with a purpose to get the wind of them, Sir Richard Grenville, being a stubborn man, and imagining this fleet to come from the Indies, and not to be the Armada of which they had been informed, would by no means be persuaded by his master, or company, to cut his cable and follow his admiral; nay, so headlong and rash he was, that he offered violence to those that advised him so to do. But the old saying, that a wilful man is the cause of his own woe, could not be more truly verified than in him; for when the Armada approached, and he beheld the greatness of the ships, he began to see and repent of his folly, and when it was too late, would have freed himself of them, but in vain."