In Portugal Row, as the southern side of the square used to be called, lived Sir Richard Fanshawe, the translator of the _Lusiad_ of Camoens, and of Guarini’s _Pastor Fido_. Sir Richard was our ambassador in Spain; but Charles, wishing to get rid of Lord Sandwich from the navy, recalled Fanshawe, on the plea that he had ventured to sign a treaty without authority. He died in 1666, on the intended day of his return, of a violent fever, probably caused by vexation at his unmerited disgrace. Sir Richard appears to have been a religious, faithful man and a good scholar, but born in unhappy times and to an ill fate. Charles I. had very justly a great respect for him. His wife was a brave, determined woman, full of affection, good sense, and equally full of hatred and contempt for Lord Sandwich, Pepys’s friend, who had supplanted her husband in the embassy. On one occasion, on their way to Malaga, the Dutch trading vessel in which she and her husband were was threatened by a Turkish galley which bore down on them in full sail. The captain, who had rendered his sixty guns useless by lumbering them up with cargo, resolved to fight for his £30,000 worth of goods, and therefore armed his two hundred men and plied them with brandy. The decks were partially cleared, and the women ordered below for fear the Turks might think the vessel a merchant-ship and board it. Sir Richard, taking his gun, bandolier, and sword, stood with the ship’s company waiting for the Turks.[733] But we must quote the brave wife’s own simple words:--“The beast the captain had locked me up in the cabin. I knocked and called long to no purpose, until at length the cabin-boy came and opened the door. I, all in tears, desired him to be so good as to give me the blue thrum cap he wore and his tarred coat, which he did, and I gave him half-a-crown; and putting them on, and flinging away my night-clothes, I crept up softly and stood upon the deck by my husband’s side, as free from fear as, I confess, from discretion; but it was the effect of that passion which I could never master. By this time the two vessels were engaged in parley, and so well satisfied with speech and sight of each other’s forces, that the Turks’ man-of-war tacked about and we continued our course. But when your father saw me retreat, looking upon me, he blessed himself and snatched me up in his arms, saying, ‘Good God! that love can make this change!’ and though he seemingly chid me, he would laugh at it as often as he remembered that journey.” This same vessel, a short time after, was blown up in the harbour with the loss of more than a hundred men and all the lading.[734]