He left his men, took horse and rode, and joined the Admiral’s flag!
And now from every western port the ships came more and more,
From Bristol and from Barnstaple, from all along the shore;
From Dartmouth and from Bridport town, from Weymouth, Poole, and Lyme,
And every ship spread all her sail, in haste to be in time.
’Twas off the point of Portland Bill the first great fight took place;
The year was fifteen-eighty-eight, of our Redeemer’s grace,
Throughout a glorious summer day, July the twenty-third,
A cannonade both fierce and loud on either coast was heard.
The hulking Spanish galleons then were sorely put about,