“Nowe when the Jesus and the Minion were gotten about two shippes length from the Spanish fleete the fight beganne so hotte on all sides that within one houre the Admirall of the Spaniards was supposed to be sunke, their Viceadmirall burned, and one other of their principall ships supposed to be sunke, so that the shippes were little able to annoy us.” But the guns on the island which had fallen into the Spaniards’ hands, were worked with direful results. All the masts and yards of the “Jesus” were so cut by their shot that “there was no hope to carrie her away”; and one of the small ships was sunk. Thereupon it was decided to bring the battered “Jesus” to the land side of the “Minion” and use her as a defence for the “Minion” against the batteries, till night, and then to shift as much of her provisions and other necessities to the “Minion” as time would permit, and abandon her. But just as the “Jesus” had been so placed alongside the “Minion,” suddenly the Spaniards had “fired two great shippes which were comming directly with” them. Having no means to avoid the fire this “bredde among our men a marvellous feare, so that some sayd let us depart with the Minion, other said, let us see whither [whether] the winde will carrie the fire from us.” Then “the Minions men which had alwayes their sayles in a readinesse, thought to make sure worke, and so without either consent of the Captaine or Master cut their saile, so that very hardly I was received into the Minion. The most part of the men that were left alive in the Jesus made shift and followed the Minion in a small boat, the rest which the little boate was not able to receive, were inforced to abide the mercie of the Spaniards (which I doubt was very little) so that with the Minion only and the Judith [Drake’s little bark] we escaped.” Throughout the engagement Hawkins was at the fore, and his coolness was superb, as this dramatic incident at the height of the action, quaintly related by one of the survivors, Job Hartop, shows: "Our Generall couragiously cheered up his souldiers and gunners, and called to Samuel his page for a cup of Beere, who brought it to him in a silver cup; and hee, drinking it to all men, willed the gunners to stand by their ordnance lustily like men. He had no sooner set the cup out of his hand but a demy Culverin shot stroke away the cup and a Coopers plane that stoode by the maine mast, and ranne out on the other side of the ship; which nothing dismaied our Generall, for he ceased not to incourage us, saying ‘feare nothing, for God who hath preserved me from this shot, will also deliver us from these traitours and villaines.’"