Part 29 (1/2)
So all fell to; and though there was co been kept as far as could be in fighting order all night, yet there was ”clearing of decks, lacing of nettings,of tops, tallowing of pikes, slinging of yards, doubling of sheets and tacks,” enough to satisfy even the pedantical soul of Richard Hawkins hie of the poop, Cary of the forecastle, and Yeo, as gunner, of the main-deck, while Drew, as master, settled himself in the waist; and all was ready, and reat shi+p ithin two land and the bloodhounds of Spain are nearing and nearing over the rolling surges, thirsting for each other's blood, let us spend a fewthe causes which in those days enabled the English to face and conquer armaments immensely superior in size and number of shi+ps, and to boast that in the whole Spanish war but one queen's shi+p, the Revenge, and (if I recollect right) but one private man-of-war, Sir Richard Hawkins's Dainty, had ever struck their colors to the enemy
What was it which enabled Sir Richard Grenville's Revenge, in his last fearful fight off the Azores, to endure, for twelve hours before she struck, the attack of eight Spanish armadas, of which two (three times her own burden) sank at her side; and after all her one, and she had been boarded three times without success, to defy to the last the whole fleet of fifty-four sail, which lay around her, waiting for her to sink, ”like dogs around the dying forest king”?
What enabled young Richard Hawkins's Dainty, though half her guns were useless through the carelessness or treachery of the gunner, to ht with two Spaniards of equal size with her, double the weight of metal, and ten tie Cary's illustrious shi+p, the Content, to fight, single-handed, froreat arun was but one nine-pounder, and for many hours she had but thirteen men fit for service?
What enabled, in the very year of which I write, those two ”valiant Turkey Merchantmen of London, the Merchant Royal and the Tobie,” with their three small consorts, to cripple, off Pantellaria in the Mediterranean, the whole fleet of Spanish galleys sent to intercept theh the Straits of Gibraltar?
And lastly, what in the fight of 1588, whereof lish fleet to capture, destroy, and scatter that Great Armada, with the loss (but not the capture) of one pinnace, and one gentleman of note?
There were more causes than one: the first seelish shi+ps; the second in their superior gunnery and weight of metal; the third (without which the first would have been useless) in the hearts of the English lish shi+p wasof those days) gave the, which utterly confounded their Spanish foes ”The English shi+ps in the fight of 1588,” says Ca discharged their broadsides, flew forth presently into the deep, and levelled their shot directly, without reat shi+ps of the Spaniards, which were altogether heavy and unwieldy” Moreover, the Spanish fashi+on, in the West Indies at least, though not in the shi+ps of the Great Ar merchandise, to build their men-of-war flush-decked, or as it was called ”race” (razes), which left those on deck exposed and open; while the English fashi+on was to heighten the shi+p as much as possible at stem and stern, both by the sweep of her lines, and also by stockades (”close fights and cage-works”) on the poop and forecastle, thus giving to thebulkheads (”cobridgeheads”) across thethe shi+p thus into a number of separate forts, fitted with swivels (”bases, fowlers, and murderers”) and loopholed for reat source of superiority was, after all, in the lish sailor was then, as now, a quite a his hand to everything, frounnery or hand-to- hand blows; and he was, moreover, one of a nation, every citizen of which was not merely permitted to carry arms, but compelled by law to practise from childhood the use of the bow, and accustomed to consider sword-play and quarter-staff as a necessary part and parcel of education, and the pastime of every leisure hour The ”fiercest nation upon earth,” as they were then called, and the freest also, each ht for hier, and once bidden to do his work, was trusted to carry it out by his oit as best he could In one word, he was a free lish officers, too, as now, lived on terms of sympathy with their men unknown to the Spaniards, who raised between the commander and the commanded absurd barriers of rank and blood, which forbade to his pride any labor but that of fighting The English officers, on the other hand, brought up to the same athletic sports, the same martial exercises, as their men, were not ashamed to care for theency to consult their judgment; and used their rank, not to differ from their men, but to outvie them; not merely to command and be obeyed, but, like Hos, to lead and be followed Drake touched the true e round the world) indignantly rebuked soentleentleman that will refuse to set his hand to a rope I entlemen to hale and draith the mariners” But those were days in which her majesty's service was as little overridden by absurd rules of seniority, as by that etiquette which is at once the counterfeit and the ruin of true discipline Under Elizabeth and her ministers, a brave and a shrewd e be what they hthood covered once and for all any lowliness of birth; and the merchant service (in which all the best sea-captains, even those of noble blood, were ed) was then a nursery, not only for seauese traders (whenever they had a chance) got rid of English competition by salvos of cannon-shot
Hence, as I have said, that strong fellow-feeling between officers and men; and hence mutinies (as Sir Richard Hawkins tells us) were all but unknown in the English shi+ps, while in the Spanish they broke out on every slight occasion For the Spaniards, by some suicidal pedantry, had allowed their navy to be crippled by the same despotism, etiquette, and official routine, by which the whole nation was gradually frozen to death in the course of the next century or two; forgetting that, fifty years before, Cortez, Pizarro, and the early Conquistadores of America had achieved their miraculous triumphs on the exactly oppositebetween co theanized on a plan coh; but on one which was, as the event proved, utterly fatal to their prowess and unaniainst the assaults of free men ”They do, in their armadas at sea, divide theunners The soldiers and officers watch and ward as if on shore; and this is the only duty they undergo, except cleaning their arunners are exempted from all labor and care, except about the artillery; and these are either Alers; for the Spaniards are but indifferently practised in this art The mariners are but as slaves to the rest, to ht; and those but few and bad, and not suffered to sleep or harbor under the decks For in fair or foul weather, in storms, sun, or rain, they must pass void of covert or succor”
This is the account of one as long prisoner on board their shi+ps; let it explain itself, while I return to reat shi+p is noithin twoof Spain floating at her poop; and her tru defiance up the breeze, from a dozen brazen throats, which two or three answer lustily froland, and froh and Cary side by side, and over theood town of Bideford And then Amyas calls: ”Now, silence trumpets, waits, play up! 'Fortune my foe!' and God and the Queen be with us!”
Whereon (laugh not, reader, for it was the fashi+on of those musical as well as valiant days) up rose that noble old favorite of good Queen Bess, from cornet and sackbut, fife and drum; while Parson Jack, who had taken his stand with the musicians on the poop, worked away lustily at his violin, and like Volker of the Nibelungen Lied
”Well played, Jack; thy elbow flies like a la a jest
”It shall fly to a better fiddle-bow presently, sir, an I have the luck--”
”Steady, helm!” said Amyas ”What is he after now?”
The Spaniard, who had been coht down the wind under a press of sail, took in his light canvas
”He don't knohat tofor hih, andup the foot of his mainsail, but he wants to keep the wind of us”
”Let him try, then,” quoth Amyas ”Keep her closer still Let no one fire till we are about Man the starboard guns; to starboard, and wait, all sunner, and bid all fire high, and take the rigging”
Bang went one of the Spaniard's bow guns, and the shot ide Then another and another, while theof their muskets, and loosened their arrows in the sheaf
”Lie down,a psalm When I want you, I'll call you Closer still, if you can, hel one We can sail two points nearer the wind than he”
As Ah have stood across the Rose's bows, but knowing the English readiness, dare not for fear of being raked; so her only plan, if she did not intend to shoot past her foe down to leeward, was to put her head close to the wind, and wait for her on the sahed to hi a cat than choking her with cream Drew, there, are yourfast with the Spaniard, till within a pistol-shot
”Ready about!” and about she went like an eel, and ran upon the opposite tack right under the Spaniard's stern The Spaniard, astounded at the quickness of the et about also, as his only chance; but it was too late, and while his lu in the wind's eye, Amyas's bowsprit had all but scraped his quarter, and the Rose passed slowly across his stern at ten yards' distance
”Now, then!” roared Amyas ”Fire, and with a will! Have at her, archers: have at her, muskets all!” and in an instant a storm of bar and chain-shot, round and canister, swept the proud Don froh the white cloud of smoke the musket- balls, and the still deadlier cloth-yard arrohistled and rushed upon their venomous errand Doent the steersman, and every soul who manned the poop Doent the alleries; and as the s of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart full of seven swords, which, in a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish stern, was shi+vered in splinters; while,of Spain, which the lastin the water The shi+p, her tiller shot away, and her helered helplessly a moment, and then fell up into the wind
”Well done, men of Devon!” shouted Amyas, as cheers rent the welkin
”She has struck,” cried so hurrahs died away
”Not a bit,” said Amyas ”Hold on, helalleys”
On they shot hts again, were two gooddown fast upon the craft they were, as they shot through the short chopping sea upon so sword-fish snouts over the water, as if snuffing for their prey Behind this long snout, a strong square forecastle was crarinned out through portholes, not only in the sides of the forecastle, but forward in the line of the galley's course, thus enabling her to keep up a continual fire on a shi+p right ahead
The long loaist was packed full of the slaves, some five or six to each oar, and down the centre, between the two banks, the English could see the slave-drivers walking up and down a long ganghip in hand A raised quarter-deck at the stern heldun-barrels; as they neared, the English could hear plainly the cracks of the whips, and the yells as of wild beasts which answered them; the roll and rattle of the oars, and the loud ”Ha!” of the slaves which accompanied every stroke, and the oaths and curses of the drivers; while a sickening musky smell, as of a pack of kennelled hounds, came down the wind fro heart shuddered as it faced, for the first ti hells, the cruelties whereof had rung so often in English ears, from the stories of their own countryht them, and now and then passed years of lish a wretches?
”Must we fire upon the slaves?” asked hed
”Spare them all you can, in God's name; but if they try to run us down, rake thealleys came on abreast of each other, some forty yards apart To outmanoeuvre their oars as he had done the shi+p's sails, Aht between them and the shi+p
He ame
”Lay her head up in the wind, helmsman, and ait for them”
They were noithinto the chopping sea, their aim ild Amyas, as usual, withheld his fire
Theas to coave his orders calmly and decisively The ly
The Spaniards, seeing hilish to strike him full, one on each bow
They ithin forty yards--another lish way, he plunged upon the larboard galley
”A dozen gold nobles to his down the steersht of arrows froalley's quarter-deck
Hit or not hit, the steersalley's hel Arind, and then loud crack on crack, as the Rose sawed slowly through the bank of oars fro the wretched slaves in heaps upon each other; and ere herround, to strike hireat and small, had been poured into her at pistol-shot, answered by a yell which rent their ears and hearts
”Spare the slaves! Fire at the soldiers!” cried Amyas; but the as too hot for alley, crippled but not undaunted, swung round across his stern, and hooked herself venomously on to him
It was a alley fro herself a second tilish broadside; and a desperate atteh the stern-ports and up the quarter was met with such a demurrer of shot and steel, that they found thealley's poop, accoh and twenty English swords
Five , hand to hand, and the poop was clear The soldiers in the forecastle had been able to give them no assistance, open as they lay to the arrows andthe central gangway, shouting in Spanish, ”Freedom to the slaves! death to the masters!” clambered into the forecastle, followed close by his swarood an exas, that in three minutes more there was not a Spaniard on board as not dead or dying
”Let the slaves free!” shouted he ”Throw us a halish voice!”