If you want a fight in which the Sea-Dog hearts might well have quailed against appalling odds, then turn to the glorious end of Drake's old flagship, the Revenge, when her new captain, Sir Richard Grenville, fought her single-handed against a whole encircling fleet of Spain.
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE ON BOARD THE REVENGE
receiving the surrender of Don Pedro de Valdes.]
Grenville, Drake, and Sir Philip Sidney had been among those members of Parliament who had asked Queen Elizabeth to give Sir Walter Raleigh a Royal Charter to found the first of the English oversea Dominions—the colony on Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina. Grenville himself went out to Roanoke. He was a born soldier of fortune and "first-class fighting man"; an explorer, scout, and pioneer; but not a colonist at all. On his return from founding Raleigh's colony his boats were swept away in a storm just before he saw a Spanish treasure ship. But he made his carpenter put together some sort of boat with bits of boxes; and in this he boarded the Spaniard, just reaching her deck before his makeshift craft went down.
On the 1st of September, 1591, the Revenge, with Grenville in command of her less than two hundred men, was at "Flores in the Azores" when Don Alonzo de Bazan arrived with fifty-three ships of Spain. The little English squadron under Lord Thomas Howard had no chance against this overwhelming force. So it put to sea just in time to escape destruction. But when Howard saw that the Revenge was being surrounded he gallantly came back and attacked the Spaniards in rear; while the little George Noble of London ran alongside the Revenge, offering to stand by through thick and thin. Grenville ordered her off, and Howard himself also retired, seeing no chance whatever of helping the Revenge and every chance of losing all his own ships.
Then, at three in the afternoon, the whole Spanish fleet closed in on the Revenge, which had only one hundred men really fit for duty. The rest were sick. Grenville, who had sworn he would cut down the first man who touched a rope while there still seemed a chance to escape, now refused the Spanish summons to surrender and prepared to fight to the last. Trimming his sails as carefully as if for a yacht race he ran down close-hauled on the starboard tack, right between the two divisions of the Spanish fleet, till the flagship, three times the size of the Revenge, ranged up on his weather side, thus blanketing his canvas and stealing the wind. As the Revenge lost way the ships she had passed on the other side began ranging up to cut her off completely. But meanwhile her first broadside had crashed into the flagship, which hauled off for repairs and was replaced by two more ships. The fight raged with the utmost fury all that sunny afternoon and far into the warm dark night. Two Spaniards were sunk on the spot, a third sank afterwards, and a fourth could only be saved by beaching. But still the fight went on, the darkness reddened by the flaming guns.
Maddened to see one English ship keeping their whole fleet of fifty-three at bay the Spaniards closed in till the Revenge was caught fast by two determined enemies. In came the Spanish grapplings, hooking fast to the Revenge on either side. "Boarders away!" yelled the Spanish colonels. "Repel Boarders!" shouted Grenville in reply. And the boarders were repelled, leaving a hundred killed behind them. Only fifty English now remained. But they were as defiant as before, giving the Spaniards deadly broadsides right along the water-line, till two fresh enemies closed in and grappled fast. Again the boarders swarmed in from both sides. Again the dauntless English drove them back. Again the English swords and pikes dripped red with Spanish blood.
But now only twenty fighting men were left, while Grenville himself had been very badly wounded twice. Two fresh enemies then closed in, grappled, boarded, fought with fury, and were barely driven back. After this there was a pause while both sides waited for the dawn. Four hundred Spaniards had been killed or drowned and quite six hundred wounded. A hundred Sea-Dogs had thus accounted for a thousand enemies. But they themselves were now unable to resist the attack the Spaniards seemed unwilling to resume; for the first streak of dawn found only ten men left with weapons in their hands, and these half dead with more than twelve hours' fighting.
"Sink me the ship, Master Gunner!" was the last order Grenville gave. But meanwhile the only two officers left alive, both badly wounded, had taken boat to treat for terms; and the terms had been agreed upon. Don Bazan promised, and worthily accorded, all the honours of war. So Grenville was carefully taken on board the flagship, laid in Don Bazan's cabin, and attended by the best Spanish surgeon. Then, with the Spanish officers standing before him bareheaded, to show him all possible respect, Grenville, after thanking them in their own language for all their compliments and courtesies, spoke his farewell to the world in words which his two wounded officers wrote home: