Early in November, Cavendish, who had been told by the pilot he had taken that a vessel from the Philippines was expected, richly laden, at Acapulco, lay in wait for her off the headland of California. She was discovered on the 4th, bearing in for the Cape. She was the Santa Anna, of seven hundred tons, belonging to the King of Spain, and commanded by the Admiral of the South Sea. Cavendish gave chase, and, after a broadside and a volley of small-arms, boarded her. He was repulsed, but renewed the action with his guns and musketry. The Spaniard was soon forced to surrender, and her officers, going on board the Desire, gave an account of her contents,--which they stated at thirty thousand dollars in gold, with immense quantities of damasks, silks, satins, musk, and provisions. This glorious prize was divided by Cavendish, a mutiny being very nearly the result: it was, however, prevented by the generosity of the commander. The prisoners were set on shore with sufficient means of defence against the Indians; the Santa Anna was burned, together with five hundred tons of her goods; and Cavendish then set sail for the Ladrone Islands, five thousand five hundred miles distant. He arrived at Guam, one of the group, in forty-five days, and from thence prosecuted his homeward voyage, through the Philippine Islands and the Moluccas, to Java. He passed the months of April and May, 1588, in crossing the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope. He touched at St. Helena early in June, and, when near the Azores, in September, heard from a Flemish ship the news of the total defeat of the great Spanish Armada. He lost nearly all his sails in a storm off Finisterre, and replaced them by sails of silken grass, which he had taken from his prizes in the South Sea. The voyage of Cavendish was the third that had been performed round the world, and was the shortest of the three,--being accomplished in eight months' less time than that of Drake. Cavendish at once wrote a letter to Lord Hunsdon, in which occurs the following brief relation of his achievements:--"It hath pleased the Almighty to suffer me to encompass all the whole globe of the world. I navigated along the coasts of Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I burned and sank nineteen sail of ships, great and small. All the towns and cities that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled, and, had I not been discovered upon the coast, I had taken a great quantity of treasure.... All which services, together with myself, I humbly prostrate at her majesty's feet, desiring the Almighty long to continue her reign among us; for at this day she is the most famous and victorious prince that liveth in the world. Thus, humbly desiring pardon for my tediousness, I leave your lordship to the tuition of the Almighty."