The _Dainty_ then stood out of the bay to meet them that there might be sea-room to fight, but the wind fell, and the _Dainty_ was forced to leeward; then the Spanish admiral came down upon her, as she hailed the foe, first with noise of trumpets, then with waytes, and after with artillery. The Spaniards were much stronger both in guns and men, but this might have been of no avail against English seamanship, had not the chief gunner shamefully neglected his duty. For "they came shoving aboard of us upon our lee-quarter, contrary to our expectation and the custom of men-of-war; and doubtless, had our gunner been the man he was reputed to be, she had received great hurt by that manner of boarding; but, contrary to all expectation, our stern pieces were unprimed, and so were all those which were to leeward. Hereby all men are to take warning by me, not to trust any man in such extremities when he himself may see it done: this was my oversight, this my overthrow." Poor Richard! very dearly did he suffer for this want of attention to details. We are reminded of the great Nelson, who, when he was being carried to the cock-pit, mortally wounded, noticed that one of the tiller ropes was frayed, and ordered a new one to be put in at once. Hawkins trusted too much to his gunner; while he with the rest of his officers was busy clearing the decks, lacing the nettings, fastening the bulwarks, arming the tops, tallowing the pikes, slinging the yards, placing and ordering the men,--half his guns were useless from sheer neglect! "Plenty of cartridges ready, master-gunner?" "Aye, aye, sir; there be over 500 in readiness." Yet within an hour the cartridges fell short, and three men had to be employed in making and filling more. "Master-gunner, I gave you out 500 ells of canvas and cloth to make cartridges, but we can't find a single yard of it." "Got stowed away somewhere, I suspect, sir; we must make shift to charge and discharge with the ladle--rayther a dangerous job in a hot fight." "There were brass balls of artificial fire--not one of them will go off." "Why, no, sir; I guess the salt-water has spoiled them all." The commander's heart misgave him: was the man false, or incapable? At length he and the master of the ship were forced to play the gunner. They found that few of the pieces were clear when they came to use them, and others had the shot first put in, and after the powder! No wonder that many believed the master-gunner to be a vile traitor. When the action began Hawkins had only seventy-five men in all, and the Spaniards had 1300, many of them "the choice of Peru."