The San Philip Carried Three Tier Of Ordnance On A Side,
And Eleven Pieces In Each Tier, Besides Eight Pieces In Her Forecastle
Chase, And Others From Her Stern-Ports.
After the Revenge was thus
entangled by the huge San Philip, four others laid her on board, two to
larboard and two to starboard.
The fight thus began at three in the
afternoon, and continued very terribly the whole of that evening. But
the great San Philip, having received a discharge from the lower tier
of the Revenge, loaded with cross-bar shot, shifted herself with all
diligence from her side, utterly disliking this her first entertainment.
Some say the San Philip foundered, but we cannot report this for a
truth, not having sufficient assurance. Besides the mariners, the
Spanish ships were filled with companies of soldiers, some having to the
number of two hundred, some five hundred, and others as far even as
eight hundred. In ours, there were none besides the mariners, except the
servants of the commanders, and some few gentlemen volunteers.
After interchanging many vollies of great ordnance and small shot, the
Spaniards deliberated to enter the Revenge by boarding, and made several
attempts, hoping to carry her by the multitudes of their armed soldiers
and musketeers, but were still repulsed again and again, being on every
attempt beaten back into their own ships or into the sea. In the
beginning of the fight, the George Noble of London being only one of the
victuallers, and of small force, having received some shot through her
from the Spanish _armadas_, fell under the lee of the Revenge, and the
master of her asked Sir Richard what he was pleased to command him; on
which Sir Richard bad him save himself as he best might, leaving him to
his fortune. After the fight had thus continued without intermission,
while the day lasted, and some hours of the night, many of our men were
slain and hurt; one of the great galeons of the armada and the admiral
of the hulks both sunk, and a great slaughter had taken place in many of
the other great Spanish ships. Some allege that Sir Richard was very
dangerously hurt almost in the beginning of the fight, and lay
speechless for a time ere he recovered: But two men belonging to the
Revenge, who came home in a ship of Lyme from the islands, and were
examined by some of the lords and others, affirmed, that he was never so
much wounded as to forsake the upper deck till an hour before midnight,
and being then shot in the body by a musket ball, was shot again in the
head as the surgeon was dressing him, the surgeon himself being at the
same time wounded to death. This also agrees with an examination of four
other returned mariners of the same ship, taken before Sir Francis
Godolphin, and sent by him to master William Killegrue of her majestys
privy chamber.
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