Meanwhile the richly laden vessels of Spain were on their way home, with orders to rendezvous at St. Helena. Some of the Earl's cruisers sighted them, but did not dare attack the huge carracks, though Linschoten tells us--and he was aboard one of them--that if the English had attacked they must easily have been taken; for scurvy, caused by bad food, was making ravages on the crews. "Every day men who had been some days dead were discovered in the places whither they had crept that they might lie down and die in peace." But all the English cruisers did was to insult them with reproaches and annoy them with musketry, and such small cannon-shot as vessels of thirty tons could carry. As Admiral Colomb used to say, "A captain of a man-of-war in those days could carry a cannon-ball in his coat-tail pocket," so small and light were they. When the Earl was told that the West Indian fleet had sailed past, he returned to Fayal and took possession of the town, consisting then of some five hundred well-built houses; the inhabitants had abandoned it at his approach. He set a guard to preserve the churches and monasteries and stayed there four days, till a ransom of 2000 ducats, mostly in church-plate, was brought to him, with sixty butts of wine. While taking two Brazilian ships at St. Mary's laden with sugar, the bar detained his vessel in a position exposed to the enemy; eighty of his men were killed, the Earl was wounded slightly in the side; "his head also was broken with stones, so that the blood covered his face, and both his face and legs were burnt with fire-balls." On their way home they fell in with a Portuguese ship laden with sugar, hides, and silver. Full of joy at their good speed they resolved upon going home. Captain Lister was sent in the prize to Portsmouth. He was wrecked at Helcliff, in Cornwall; all in her was lost, and only five lives saved. The Earl was delayed so long by bad weather that drink began to fail, and they had to collect what they could in sheets during a storm of rain. Many licked the moist boards and masts with their tongues, like dogs. In every corner of the ship were heard the lamentable cries of the sick and hurt, ten or twelve men died every night. Yet, we are told, the Earl ever encouraged his men by his presence of mind and his example; then they spoke a vessel which helped them with a little beer, and at last they put into Ventre-haven on the west coast of Ireland.