shall be a reckoning for the blood of his old friend; he is 'resolved
to be revenged for the "Revenge,"' Sir Richard Grenvile's fatal ship,
or second her with his own life'; and well he keeps his vow. Three
hours pass of desperate valour, during which, so narrow is the
passage, only seven English ships, thrusting past each other, all but
quarrelling in their noble rivalry, engage the whole Spanish fleet of
fifty-seven sail, and destroy it utterly. The 'Philip' and 'Thomas'
burn themselves despairing. The English boats save the 'Andrew' and
'Matthew.' One passes over the hideous record. 'If any man,' says
Raleigh, 'had a desire to see hell itself, it was there most lively
figured.' Keymis's prayer is answered in part, even while he writes
it; and the cry of the Indians has not ascended in vain before the
throne of God!

The soldiers are landed; the city stormed and sacked, not without
mercies and courtesies, though, to women and unarmed folk, which win
the hearts of the vanquished, and live till this day in well-known
ballads. The Flemings begin a 'merciless slaughter.' Raleigh and
the Lord Admiral beat them off. Raleigh is carried on shore with a
splinter wound in the leg, which lames him for life: but returns on
board in an hour in agony; for there is no admiral left to order the
fleet, and all are run headlong to the sack. In vain he attempts to
get together sailors the following morning, and attack the Indian
fleet in Porto Real Roads; within twenty-four hours it is burnt by
the Spaniards themselves; and all Raleigh wins is no booty, a lame
leg, and the honour of having been the real author of a victory even
more glorious than that of 1588.

So he returns; having written to Cecil the highest praises of Essex,
whom he treats with all courtesy and fairness; which those who will