A storm coming on soon afterwards, the _Revenge_, as had been expected, went to the bottom, while fifteen Spanish men-of-war were cast away, as were many of the merchantmen; so that of the whole fleet, which originally amounted to upwards of a hundred, seventy were lost. While the English sailors were scattered among the Spanish fleet, they received a visit from a traitor, one of the Earl of Desmond's family, who endeavoured to persuade them to serve the King of Spain, but in most cases without success. In 1592 an expedition was fitted out by Sir Walter Raleigh, consisting of several queen's ships and some of his own, with which he intended to attack Carthagena and other places in the West Indies; but as he was about to sail, he was superseded in the command by Sir Martin Frobisher, the queen wishing to retain him in England. Sir Martin was directed to proceed only to the coast of Spain, where he captured a large Portuguese carrack, which, to escape the English, ran on shore, and was burned by her people after the goods had been landed; but the English following made themselves masters of a large part of the booty and of the town of Santa Cruz. After waiting patiently for some weeks, another still larger carrack, called the _Madre de Dios_ hove in sight. Though the Portuguese fought bravely to defend her, she was captured in the space of an hour and a-half. On going on board, the English, after hunting about for plunder, each man with a lighted candle in his hand, a cabin was entered in which there was a quantity of powder. The carrack was set on fire, and had it not been for the courage of Captain Norton, both the plundered and the plunderers would have been blown together into the air. The carrack, which was brought home in safety, was larger than any man-of-war or merchantman belonging to England. She was of 1600 tons burden, and measuring from the beak-head to the stern, on which was erected a large lantern, she was 165 feet in length. Her greatest beam was 46 feet 10 inches. On leaving Cochin China she had drawn 31 feet of water, but on her arrival at Dartmouth she drew only 26. She had seven decks--one main or sleeping, three close decks, one forecastle, and a spar deck of two floors. The length of her keel was 100 feet, and of the main-mast 121 feet; the main-yard was 106 feet long. She carried between 600 and 700 persons, and considering the length of the voyage, the large amount of provisions can be calculated. She carried fully 900 tons of cargo, consisting of jewels, spices, drugs, silks, calicoes, quilts, carpets, and colours, as also elephants' teeth, porcelain vessels and china, cocoa-nuts, hides, ebony, bedsteads of the same, cloths made from the rinds of trees, probably of the paper-mulberry tree; the whole valued at not less than 150,000 pounds sterling. This shows that a merchant-vessel of those days was not much less in size than an East Indiaman of late years.