In the year 1592 the privateer _Amity_, of London, commanded by Thomas Whyte, captured two armed Spanish vessels, the _St. Francisco_ and _St. Peter_, respectively of 130 and 150 tons. The crew of the _Amity_ numbered forty-three, but we are not told her armament. The _St. Francisco_ carried three iron guns, two copper pieces of twenty quintals each, and one of fourteen quintals--that is, two pretty nearly one ton in weight, and one about two-thirds of a ton; but it is not quite clear what weight of shot they fired. She had also twenty muskets on board, and carried a crew of twenty-eight men and two boys; she was licensed to carry twenty passengers. The force of the _St. Peter_ is not given, but was probably slightly in excess of that of the _St. Francisco_. They were bound for the West Indies, with cargoes in which were included 112 tons of quicksilver--a pretty valuable freight--28 tons of papal Bulls,[3] and some wine. The description of the action, by someone on board the _Amity_, is given in the Lansdowne MSS., and transcribed by Mr. M. Oppenheim, in his "History of the Administration of the Royal Navy," as below, except that the spelling is here modernised, to render the account more readily intelligible to the reader: "The order and manner of the taking of the two ships laden with quicksilver and the Pope's Bulls, bound for the West Indies, by the _Amity_ of London, Master Thomas Whyte. "The 26th of July, 1592, being in 36 degrees, or thereabouts [somewhere off the Strait of Gibraltar], we had sight of the said ships, being distant from us about three or four leagues; by 7 of the clock we fetched them up and were within gunshot, whose boldness (having the King's arms displayed) did make us conceive them rather to be ships of war than laden with merchandise. And, as it doth appear by some of their own speeches, they made full account to have taken us, and was question among them whether they should carry us to St. Lucar [just north of Cadiz] or Lisbon. We waved each other amain [_i.e._ called upon each other to strike or lower the sails], they having placed themselves in warlike order, the one a cable's length before the other; we begun the fight, in the which we continued so fast as we were able to charge and discharge the space of five hours, being never a cable's length distant either of us the one from the other, in which time we received divers shots both in the hull of our ship, masts, and sails, to the number of 32 great shot which we told after the fight, besides five hundred musket-shot and harquebus à croc [a large musket, fired from a stand] at the least. And for that we perceived they were stout, we thought good to board the Biscayan [_i.e._ the _St. Francisco_], which was ahead the other, where lying aboard about an hour plying our ordnance and small shot, with the which we stowed all his men [_i.e._ drove them from the deck]; now they in the fly-boat[4]--the _St. Peter_--making account that