disobedient, immortalised himself by a defence such as has never, either before or since, been witnessed upon the sea.
At one time his ship was simultaneously laid aboard by five large vessels, including the San Felipe, of 1500 tons and seventy-eight guns. At no time had she less than two vessels alongside, and in hot and close action. As one Spaniard withdrew disabled, another, with fresh men, cool guns, and new supplies of ammunition, took her place. Fifteen ships engaged her. Of these she sank at least two, including the Asuncion. Early in the fight, one of the victuallers, the George Noble, of London, at great peril to herself, drew near, and, falling under the lee of the Revenge, asked Sir Richard if he had any commands. Greynvile bid her shift for herself, and leave him to his fortune.
The fight had begun at about three o'clock in the afternoon. Soon afterwards Greynvile had been wounded, but he refused, until 11 P.M., to quit the deck, and then, receiving a wound in the body from a musket bullet, went unwillingly below to get it dressed. The surgeon who attended to him was killed at his side, and, for a third time, Greynvile was wounded, on this occasion in the head.
In the small hours, the situation of the devoted ship was deplorable. All her best men lay killed or wounded; she was perfectly unmanageable, and her last barrel of powder had been expended. Greynvile, seeing the futility of further fighting, ordered the Revenge to be sunk; but to this the surviving officers would not agree, and terms were at length made with the Spaniards upon the understanding that the lives and liberties of the gallant ship's company should be spared.
When the Revenge surrendered, she had six feet of water in her hold, not a mast standing, and but about sixty men, nearly all of whom were wounded, alive, out of a crew which, at the outset, may have numbered two hundred and fifty, if all were on board. But sickness had been rife in the fleet, and no matter what may have been the number of men victualled in the Revenge on the day of the action, only about a hundred of them went into the fight fit for duty.
Greynvile, with every mark of admiration and respect, was carried on board the Spanish admiral. Two days later he died. His ship, overtaken five days after the battle by a storm, foundered off St. Michael's with two hundred Spaniards in her, and in the same storm there perished fifteen or sixteen Spanish men-of-war.
