It would, perhaps, be invidious to say that Cornwall has produced men of more brilliant and varied achievements than any other county in England, but she can certainly show a very notable roll of honour. As might be expected from her geographical position, aided by good harbours, she has produced some great seamen who have done gallant service for England. At the head of these must come Sir Richard Grenville, hero of the _Revenge_, whose action off the Azores in 1591 has rendered him one of England's immortals. Trapped by the huge Spanish fleet off Flores, Sir Richard had many of his crew sick on shore, but declined to leave till they had been brought on board. The _Revenge_ engaged fifteen large Spanish men-of-war and stood at bay from three in the afternoon all through the night till the following morning, when the last barrel of powder was spent. Ralegh told of it, as did Gervase Markham in 1595, and Tennyson nearly 300 years later in the stirring lines:-- "Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame; Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame. For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more-- God of Battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?" His grandson, Sir Bevil Grenville, "the Mirror of Chivalry," was a scarcely less notable warrior on land and fell in the Royalist victory of Lansdowne near Bath in 1643. Admiral Edward Boscawen, "Old Dreadnought," third son of Viscount Falmouth, distinguished himself at the taking of Cartagena and in the Cape Breton expedition, but his most memorable deed was the defeat of the French Toulon fleet in Lagos Bay in 1759. Captain Bligh, noteworthy as the captain of the _Bounty_, of which the mutiny is one of the most familiar tragedies of the sea, was perhaps in great measure the author of his own misfortunes, for he was a man of very overbearing temper, but his journey of 3618 miles in an open boat after having been set adrift with others by the mutineers was a remarkable feat. The Pellew family has added at least two names to the roll of distinguished sailors. Edward Pellew, when in command of the _Nymphe_, manned by Cornish miners, captured the French man-of-war _Cléopâtre_ under peculiarly gallant circumstances, the first of a series of brilliant exploits which led to his being created Baron Exmouth. Later, in 1816, he bombarded Algiers, reduced the Dey to submission, and put an end to the Barbary corsairs. His brother, Admiral Sir Isaac Pellew, commanded the _Conqueror_ at the battle of Trafalgar. [Illustration: Captain Bligh]