Shortly after the publication in Madrid of the second volume of Captain Duro's book—"La Armada Invencible"—the Earl of Ducie drew special attention to it in an article which appeared in the number of the Nineteenth Century for September, 1885.
Subsequently Mr. Froude took up the subject, and discoursed upon it in Longman's Magazine for September, October, and November, 1891, giving a general sketch of the salient features of the ill-fated expedition from the Spanish point of view, as disclosed in the pages of the book in question.
These glowing pictures aroused much public interest at the time; but they were especially attractive to those persons who happened to combine the conditions of possessing antiquarian tastes, and living near the localities brought into prominence by the recital of the great disasters which befel the "Invincible Armada."
Of all the exciting scenes in that eventful episode in our history, none was more tragic than the wreck of three of the largest of the Spanish ships, which took place, simultaneously, in the bay of Donegal, on the north-west coast of Ireland, in September, 1588.
The fact that in Captain Duro's book there appeared a hitherto unpublished narrative of the event, written at the time by Don Francisco Cuellar, one of the survivors of the catastrophe, and giving a minute account of his wanderings and adventures in the country where he was cast away, contributed to increase the local interest in the matter.
Mr. Hugh Allingham at once began a series of exhaustive investigations in relation to Cuellar's descriptions, the results of which he subsequently placed before the public in the pages of the Ulster Journal of Archæology, April, 1895.
It was solely with the object of assisting him in the researches he then undertook that this translation was prepared, and there was no intention at the time of any future publication of it.
It was a matter of importance to facilitate the process of identification as regards the various localities referred to, as well as to avoid the danger of misinterpreting the writer's meaning when dealing with obscure passages; conditions requiring the translation to be as literal as possible, and leaving the translator with but little freedom in treating a language that at best does not lend itself easily to reproduction in the English idiom.
These facts are mentioned to account for the style in which it has been prepared, as it has no pretensions to merit, except in so far as care has been taken to follow closely the wording of the original Spanish.
As Mr. Allingham is now about to publish a new edition of his "Spanish Armada in Ulster and Connacht," it has been considered desirable that this translation should be added to it in extenso for the convenience of reference. I have, therefore, gone carefully over it again, comparing it with the Spanish text, and have made some slight alterations of an occasional word or phrase in it to make the matter more explicit.