Frederic Spinola, a volunteer belonging to the great and wealthy Genoese
family of that name, had been performing a good deal of privateer work
with a small force of galleys which he kept under his command at Sluys.
He had succeeded in inflicting so much damage upon the smaller
merchantmen of the republic, and in maintaining so perpetual a panic in
calm weather among the seafaring multitudes of those regions, that he was
disposed to extend the scale of his operations. On a visit to Spain he
had obtained permission from Government to employ in this service eight
great galleys, recently built on the Guadalquivir for the Royal Navy.
He was to man and equip them at his own expense, and was to be allowed
the whole of the booty that might result from his enterprise. Early in
the autumn he set forth with his eight galleys on the voyage to Flanders,
but, off Cezimbra, on the Portuguese coast, unfortunately fell in with
Sir Robert Mansell, who; with a compact little squadron of English
frigates, was lying in wait for the homeward-bound India fleet on their
entrance to Lisbon. An engagement took place, in which Spinola lost two
of his galleys. His disaster might have been still greater, had not an
immense Indian carrack, laden with the richest merchandize, just then
hove in sight, to attract his conquerors with a hope of better prize-
money than could be expected from the most complete victory over him and
his fleet.

With the remainder of his vessels Spinola crept out of sight while the
English were ransacking the carrack. On the 3rd of October he had
entered the channel with a force which, according to the ideas of that
day, was still formidable. Each of his galleys was of two hundred and
fifty slave power, and carried, beside the chain-gang, four hundred
fighting men. His flag-ship was called the St. Lewis; the names of the
other vessels being the St. Philip, the Morning Star, the St. John, the
Hyacinth, and the Padilla. The Trinity and the Opportunity had been