his little handful of ships by so superior a force of the enemy in a position where he could not avoid attack. He therefore very properly prepared to stand out to sea without delay. It was of course impossible to desert the men on shore. They were provided for by leaving the =Revenge=, the flagship of Sir Richard Grenville, the second in command, which was esteemed the best sailer of the queen's ships, to pick them up and then to join the flag outside. Before the men were collected, the Spanish fleet was opposite the roadstead. Apparently Lord Thomas Howard had stood out to sea, so that the fleet of Don Alonso de Bazan was between him and the =Revenge=. When Sir Richard Grenville stood out from the anchorage, he had an easy means of rejoining his admiral. All he had to do was to put before the wind, to run to leeward of the Spaniards, and join Lord Thomas on the other side. As a matter of fact, this course was actually followed by a small transport, or victualler, left behind with the =Revenge=. But although this was the safe and sensible course, it had about it an air of flight. Flight in the circumstances would not have appeared discreditable to an ordinary officer, but Sir Richard Grenville was not an ordinary officer. He was a man of a passionate nature, with a large share of what we may with all due reverence describe as the swaggering courage of the Elizabethans. We must not judge him as a man of to-day, but as a gentleman of Devon, with a mediæval spirit on the point of honour and a superb valour, who had probably been fed upon tales of chivalry, and was very capable of acting after the manner of a knight-errant. It was, in fact, exactly as a knight-errant that he behaved. His sailing-master advised him to put before the wind and trust to the speed of his ship, but Grenville refused. To understand what exactly was the point of honour upon which he fought, it is necessary to remember that at sea the windward position is the place of honour. He who makes way for another, and passes to leeward of him, acknowledges the superiority of the ship for which he makes way. If, then, Grenville had put before the wind, and had run to leeward of the Spaniards, he would in his own opinion have confessed that they were his betters. Now this he would not do, and he therefore decided that at whatever hazard to himself, his ship, and his crew, "he would pass through the two squadrons in spite of them, and enforce that of Seville to give him way." This, it seems, if the English version of the story is to be believed, "he performed upon divers of the foremost who sprang and fell under the lee of the =Revenge="; that is to say, in the modern phrase, they bore up and made way for the =Revenge=. It is probable that these were small vessels, perhaps _urcas_, for a large proportion of the fifty-three ships under the command of Don Alonso de Bazan were certainly transports employed to carry soldiers, and not provided with a battery of guns.