'So it pleased them,' says Raleigh, 'to honour the burial of that renowned ship the _Revenge_, not suffering her to perish alone, for the great honour she achieved in her life-time.' A noble elegy! which even Tennyson's genius has been unable to surpass. This is not perhaps the time or the place to consider how it was possible for this one little English vessel with a crew of 100 men, to contend so long against 50 (or according to some accounts 53) Spanish galleons with 10,000 men, sinking four of the largest, and slaying 1,000 Spaniards; but it was no doubt owing to more causes than one:--to the low and short hull, which made her more manageable--to superior gunnery and seamanship--but mainly to the stoutest, freest, and fiercest _hearts_ upon earth--the hearts of Englishmen. They _believed_ they were more than a match for their foes, and confidence begat victory; and if ever there was an English victory, in the fullest sense of the word, it was the triumphant loss of the '_Revenge_.' The Spanish proverb ran 'Guerra con todo il mondo;--y paz con Inghilterra;' and it has well been said that the episode of the _Revenge_ dealt a deadlier blow to the fame and moral strength of Spain, than even the defeat of the Armada itself.[18] But Sir Richard was not left without a witness. Passing over his son John, who, Carew says, followed Raleigh, and was drowned in the ocean, which 'became his bedde of honour;' and also another son Sir Bernard, who died in 1605, after having served as Sheriff of Cornwall and M.P. for Bodmin--as not being of such transcendent merit as either Sir Bernard's father or son--we come to the 'immortal' Sir Bevill Grenville, eldest son of the said Sir Bernard and his wife Elizabeth Beville of Killigarth near Polperro--(or, according to another account, of Brinn)--a man no whit inferior in loyalty and courage to his illustrious grandsire. Sir Bevill was born, somewhat unexpectedly, on 23rd March, 1595, at Brinn--probably Great Brinn, the seat of the Bevills, but not a stone of the old mansion is now standing--in the little Cornish parish of Withiel; four years after the little _Revenge_ went down by the island crags, 'To be lost evermore in the main.' He was doubtless carefully brought up at Stow--the _old_ Stow--which was in those days a sort of nursery for the better sort of young Cornishmen. The late Rev. R. S. Hawker, vicar of Morwenstow, has given us the following pleasant picture of it in Sir Bevill's days: