Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empireFraser, Edward
History
Champions of the fleet : $b Captains and men-of-war and days that helped to make the empire
Fraser, Edward
Great Britain -- History, Naval; Naval battles -- Great Britain
Once more the _Dreadnought_ followed the fortunes of Drake’s flag
to battle; again, too, as Captain Fenner’s ship. In the year after
the Armada she had her part in escorting the Corunna expedition, the
“counter-Armada,” designed to beat up the quarters of the enemy at home
and attempt the wresting of Portugal from the Spanish yoke. A landing
party of “Dreadnoughts” fought ashore. Led by Drake and the general of
the soldiers, Sir John Norris, they drove the Spaniards before them.
“Unto every volly flying round their ears,” says old Stow, “the generall,
turning his face towards the enemie would bow and vale his bonnet, saying
‘I thank you, Sir! I thank you, Sir!’ to the great admiration of all
his campe and of Generall Drake.” The wine vaults of Corunna, however,
interposed on behalf of Spain. Soldiers and sailors alike broke in and
got drunk, and all that could be done after that was to reship the men
and write the campaign down a failure.
In the attack on Brest in 1594, when Sir Martin Frobisher met his death,
the _Dreadnought_ had her share. Two years after that she fought with
Essex and Raleigh in the grand attack on Cadiz—this time as one of the
picked ships of Sir Walter Raleigh’s own “inshore squadron.” She sailed
with Sir Walter again after that in the celebrated “Islands Voyage”; and
then the curtain rings down on the memorable days of the story of the
_Dreadnought_ of the Great Queen’s fleet. The old ship lasted afloat
(after an expensive rebuild in James the First’s reign) until the time of
the Civil War. She figured in the interim in the Rochelle Expedition and
also in one of Charles the First’s Ship-money fleets. The _Dreadnought_
of St. Bartholomew’s Day and Matthew Baker made her last cruise of all in
the year of Marston Moor.
* * * * *
Six _Dreadnoughts_ in all have flown the pennant since England’s Armada
_Dreadnought_ passed away.
[Illustration: “OLD DREADNOUGHT’S” _DREADNOUGHT_
_From the original drawing made in 1740 for the official dockyard model.
Now in the Author’s Collection._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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