For the rest of Her Majesties' ships that entered not so far into the fight as the _Revenge_, the reasons and causes were these. There were of them but six in all, whereof two but small ships; the _Revenge_ engaged past recovery; the Island of Flores was on the one side, fifty-three sail of the Spanish divided into squadrons, on the other, all as full filled with soldiers as they could contain. Almost the one half of our men sick and not able to serve; the ships grown foul, unroomaged, and scarcely able to bear any sail for want of ballast, having been six months at the sea before. If all the rest had entered all had been lost. For the very hugeness of the Spanish fleet, if no other violence had been offered, would have crushed them between them into shivers. Of which the dishonour and loss to the queen had been far greater than the spoil or harm that the enemy could any way have received. Notwithstanding, it is very true that the Lord Thomas would have entered between the squadrons, but the rest would not condescend; and the master of his own ship offered to leap into the sea rather than to conduct that Her Majesties' ship and the rest to be a prey to the enemy where there was no hope nor possibility either of defence or victory. Which also in my opinion had ill-sorted or answered the discretion and trust of a general to commit himself and his charge to an assured destruction without any hope or any likelihood of prevailing, thereby to diminish the strength of Her Majesties' Navy and to enrich the pride and glory of the enemy. [The story of Sir Richard Grenville's last fight has been told many times in prose and verse. Sir Walter Raleigh tells it in the prose epic from which the foregoing is taken; Froude made it the subject of one of his essays, Gerald Massey and Lord Tennyson have both exploited it in ballads of power and beauty. These ballads are too long for quotation here, but there are some stanzas in Gerald Massey's poem which may be given. "Signalled the English admiral, 'Weigh or cut anchors.' For A Spanish fleet bore down in all The majesty for war, Athwart our tack for many a mile, As there we lay off Florez Isle, With crews half sick; all tired of toil. "Eleven of our twelve ships escaped; Sir Richard stood alone! Though they were three and fifty sail-- A hundred men to one-- The old Sea Rover would not run, So long as he had man or gun; But--he could die when all was done. * * * * * "Ship after ship like broken waves That wash up on a rock, Those mighty galleons fall back foiled And shattered from the shock. With fire she answers all their blows; Again, again in pieces strows The girdle round her as they close.