Thus, As I Said Before, Thursday We Entered The Port, Friday
We Saw The Fleet, And On Monday, At Night,
They entered the port; then
we laboured two days, placing the English ships by themselves, and the
Spanish ships by
Themselves, the captains of each part, and inferior
men of their parts, promising great amity of all sides; which, even as
with all fidelity was meant of our part, though the Spanish meant
nothing less of their parts, but from the mainland had furnished
themselves with a supply of men to the number of one thousand, and
meant the next Thursday, being the 23rd of September, at dinner-time,
to set upon us of all sides. The same Thursday, the treason being at
hand, some appearance showed, as shifting of weapons from ship to ship,
planting and bending of ordnance from the ship to the island where our
men were, passing to and fro of companies of men more than required for
their necessary business, and many other ill likelihoods, which caused
us to have a vehement suspicion, and therewithal sent to the Viceroy to
inquire what was meant by it, which sent immediately straight
commandment to unplant all things suspicious, and also sent word that
he, in the faith of a Viceroy, would be our defence from all
villainies. Yet we, not being satisfied with this answer, because we
suspected a great number of men to be hid in a great ship of nine
hundred tons, which was moored next unto the Minion, sent again unto
the Viceroy the master of the Jesus, which had the Spanish tongue, and
required to be satisfied if any such thing were or not; on which the
Viceroy, seeing that the treason must be discovered, forthwith stayed
our master, blew the trumpet, and of all sides set upon us. Our men
which were on guard ashore, being stricken with sudden fear, gave
place, fled, and sought to recover succour of the ships; the Spaniards,
being before provided for the purpose, landed in all places in
multitudes from their ships, which they could easily do without boats,
and slew all our men ashore without mercy, a few of them escaping
aboard the Jesus. The great ship which had, by the estimation, three
hundred men placed in her secretly, immediately fell aboard the Minion,
which, by God's appointment, in the time of the suspicion we had, which
was only one half-hour, the Minion was made ready to avoid, and so,
loosing her headfasts, and hailing away by the sternfasts, she was
gotten out; thus, with God's help, she defended the violence of the
first brunt of these three hundred men. The Minion being passed out,
they came aboard the Jesus, which also, with very much ado and the loss
of many of our men, were defended and kept out. Then were there also
two other ships that assaulted the Jesus at the same instant, so that
she had hard work getting loose; but yet, with some time, we had cut
our headfasts, and gotten out by the sternfasts. Now, when the Jesus
and the Minion were gotten two ship-lengths from the Spanish fleet, the
fight began hot on all sides, so that within one hour the admiral of
the Spaniards was supposed to be sunk, their vice-admiral burned, and
one other of their principal ships supposed to be sunk, so that the
ships were little to annoy us.
Then is it to be understood that all the ordnance upon the island was
in the Spaniards' hands, which did us so great annoyance that it cut
all the masts and yards of the Jesus in such sort, that there was no
hope to carry her away; also it sank our small ships, whereupon we
determined to place the Jesus on that side of the Minion, that she
might abide all the battery from the land, and so be a defence for the
Minion till night, and then to take such relief of victual and other
necessaries from the Jesus as the time would suffer us, and to leave
her. As we were thus determining, and had placed the Minion from the
shot of the land, suddenly the Spaniards had fired two great ships
which were coming directly to us, and having no means to avoid the
fire, it bred among our men a marvellous fear, so that some said, "Let
us depart with the Minion," others said, "Let us see whether the wind
will carry the fire from us." But to be short, the Minion's men, which
had always their sails in a readiness, thought to make sure work, and
so without either consent of the captain or master, cut their sail, 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
boat was not able to receive, were enforced to abide the mercy of the
Spaniards (which I doubt was very little); so with the Minion only, and
the Judith (a small barque of fifty tons) we escaped, which barque the
same night forsook us in our great misery. We were now removed with
the Minion from the Spanish ships two bow-shots, and there rode all
that night. The next morning we recovered an island a mile from the
Spaniards, where there took us a north wind, and being left only with
two anchors and two cables (for in this conflict we lost three cables
and two anchors), we thought always upon death, which ever was present,
but God preserved us to a longer time.
The weather waxed reasonable, and the Saturday we set sail, and having
a great number of men and little victual, our hope of life waxed less
and less. Some desired to yield to the Spaniards, some rather desired
to obtain a place where they might give themselves to the infidels; and
some had rather abide, with a little pittance, the mercy of God at sea.
So thus, with many sorrowful hearts, we wandered in an unknown sea by
the space of fourteen days, till hunger enforced us to seek the land;
for hides were thought very good meat; rats, cats, mice, and dogs, none
escaped that might be gotten; parrots and monkeys, that were had in
great prize, were thought there very profitable if they served the turn
of one dinner.
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