Sir Francis Vere and Lord Thomas Howard could not rest content with second places. Sir Francis Vere secretly caused a rope to be fastened to the _Warspite_ that he might draw his ship ahead of her. But sailors told Ralegh of this, and he ordered the rope to be severed. Then Ralegh started to board. He laid out a warp by the side of the _Philip_ "to shake hands with her," and the other English ships followed suit. Fear seized the Spaniards. "They all let slip, and ran aground, tumbling into the sea heaps of souldiers, so thick as if coals had been powred out of a sack in many ports at once: some drowned and some sticking in the mud.... The spectacle was very lamentable on their side; for many drowned themselves; many, half-burnt, leapt into the water; very many hanging by the ropes' ends by the ship's side under the water even to the lips; many swimming with grievous wounds, strucken under water and put out of their pain: and so huge a fire, and such tearing of the ordnance in the great _Philip_ and the rest, when the fire came to them, as, if any man had a desire to see Hell itself, it was there most lively figured." Then followed the capture and sack of Cadiz. In the assault Ralegh received "a grievous blow in the leg interlaced and deformed with splinters." But he was carried on shore on men's shoulders until a horse was forthcoming, when he mounted. For an hour he remained in the town, but then the pain of the wound became intolerable; the streets were filled with jostling tumultuous soldiers, and they pressed against his leg in their disorder, do what he would to prevent them. So he returned to his ship to rest, while the sack raged in the town. The plunder taken was immense in quantity and value: and as was invariably the case, there was much ill-feeling as to its distribution. The Queen quarrelled with the generals, thinking that they had much held back, and the generals with each other, thinking that the share of each was disproportionate. Ralegh especially fared ill. "For my own part I have gotten a lame leg and a deformed. For the rest either I spake too late, or it was otherwise resolved. I have not wanted good words, and exceeding kind and regardful usance. But I have possession of naught but poverty and pain." Ralegh was better able to win a first place in the fighting-line, than in the prize list. This he resented with absolute candour: but to deduce from his resentment that he cared only for gain is totally to misunderstand the nature of the man. The results of the victory, for which Ralegh was chiefly responsible, were far-reaching and decisive. It crippled Spain's power more effectually even than the Armada. Cadiz was razed to the ground; as the Council of State decided that to raze the town was safer than to garrison it for English purposes.