between the islands and the main. Thus it hath pleased God to fight for us, and to defend the justice of our cause against the ambitious and bloody pretences of the Spaniard, who, seeking to devour all nations, are themselves devoured. A manifest testimony how injust and displeasing their attempts are in the sight of God, who hath pleased to witness by the success of their affairs His mislike of their bloody and injurious designs, purposed and practised against all Christian princes, over whom they seek unlawful and ungodly rule and Empery.
One day or two before this wreck happened to the Spanish fleet, when as some of our prisoners desired to be set on shore upon the islands, hoping to be from thence transported into England, which liberty was formerly by the General promised: One Maurice Fitz John, son of old John of Desmond a notable traitor, cousin german to the late Earl of Desmond, was sent to the English from ship to ship, to persuade them to serve the King of Spain. The arguments he used to induce them were these. The increase of pay which he promised to be trebled: advancement to
the better sort: and the exercise of the true Catholic religion, and safety of their souls to all. For the first, even the beggarly and unnatural behaviour of those English and Irish rebels, that served the king in that present action, was sufficient to answer that first argument of rich pay. For so poor and beggarly they were, as for want of apparel they stripped their poor country men prisoners out of their ragged garments, worn to nothing by six months’ service, and spared not to despoil them even of their bloody shirts, from their wounded bodies, and the very shoes from their feet; a notable testimony of their
