And still the battle raged; and still ship after ship drew out of action, utterly defeated by the splendid gunnery and desperate courage of Grenville’s men. Gradually the fire slackened; before daylight it ceased altogether, for the Spaniards abandoned their attempts to sink the _Revenge_ or carry her by board. Yet fifteen out of their twenty men-of-war had been hotly engaged with her: two of them she had sunk outright; a third was so damaged that her crew ran her on shore to save their lives; a fourth was in a sinking condition. Dawn found the enemy’s immense fleet encircling the one English ship like wolves round a dying lion, and wary of approaching him in his last agony. When the sun rose, the survivors of the crew began to realise their desperate plight. Sir Richard commanded the master-gunner to split and sink the ship, that thereby nothing might remain of glory or victory to the Spaniards, and endeavoured to persuade the crew “to yield themselves to God and to the mercy of none else, but as they had, like valiant resolute men, repulsed so many enemies, they should not now shorten the honour of their nation by prolonging their own lives by a few hours or a few days.” The chief gunner and a few others consented; but the rest having dared quite enough for mortal men, refused to blow up the ship, and surrendered to the enemy. Grenville was carried in a dying condition to the ship of the Spanish Admiral, and as he lay upon his couch on the deck, the captains of the fleet crowded round to see the expiring hero, who, feeling his end approaching, showed not any sign of faintness, but spake these words in Spanish, and said: “Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his country, Queen, religion and honour. Wherefore my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier that hath done his duty as he was bound to do.” Such was the fight at Flores in that August of 1591—“a fight memorable even beyond credit and to the height of some heroic fable.” It has been called “England’s naval Thermopylæ.” It was from the first as hopeless a battle as that of the Spartans under the brave Leonidas, and its moral effects at the time were hardly less than that of Thermopylæ. Froude tells us it struck a deeper terror, though it was but the action of a single ship, into the hearts of the Spanish people—it dealt a more deadly blow upon their fame and moral strength than even the destruction of the Armada itself, and in the direct results which arose from it it was scarcely less disastrous to them. Men may blame Sir Richard Grenville for his obstinacy, and what they deem his false notion of honour in scorning to turn his back upon the foe when the odds were so overwhelmingly against him, but at least it must be conceded that his courage and that of his crew have immortalised his name.