While On This Service, Ten
Paraws Came Off To Attack Them, And An Engagement Ensued.
On the rest of
the fleet hearing the sound of the ordnance, they bore up as close to the
wind as possible, and came to anchor[7].
In a council of war, it was
resolved to attack the seventeen ships of the Moors, which lay all
aground; and as the ships were unable to get near them, because they lay
within the bar, the attack was determined to be made by the boats of the
fleet, with orders to set the Moorish ships on fire. This being resolved
upon, the admiral and all the captains of the fleet embarked in the boats,
taking with them all the soldiers belonging to the expedition.
The Moorish ships were all drawn on the beach in a close line, having
their sterns to the shore, and were well armed with ordnance, and had
many soldiers on board armed with bows and arrows, a considerable number
of them being men of a fair complexion[8]. Besides all these, the Moors
had two pieces of ordnance on a small bulwark or redoubt which flanked
the passage of the bar. Our boats, seeing all these formidable
preparations, returned towards the fleet[9], whence they towed several
caravels within the bar to assist the boats in the attack. After a severe
conflict, in which the Portuguese had twenty-five men killed, and 127
wounded, the whole seventeen ships of the Moors were boarded and taken,
with the loss of 2000 men.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 776 of 812
Words from 214552 to 214809
of 224388
