exercise of superior seamanship, and rejoined the Foresight and one other vessel which had been placed by Frobiser under his command, with orders to cruise to the Azores. Frobiser himself, with three or four ships, remained off the Spanish coast, and his craft being all indifferent sailers, did but little.
Taking several caravels on their passage, Sir John Burgh and Captain Crosse reached Flores, and there fell in with three ships belonging to the Earl of Cumberland's expedition[1] which were in chase of a carrack. The Portuguese crew, despairing of escape, ran this carrack ashore, took out some of her cargo, and set her on fire; but the English, landing a hundred men, extinguished the flames, and saved part of the lading. They also captured the carrack's purser, who was by threats induced to admit that another carrack had been ordered to make the island, and was probably in the neighbourhood.
Sir John Burgh joined his friends in the search for this vessel, and the ships of the two commanders were so disposed northward and southward, on a line about seven leagues westward of Flores, as to cover and observe one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty miles of sea.
Thus the united squadrons lay, from June 29th to August 3rd, when some carracks being sighted, a sharp engagement presently ensued with them. The English were still scattered, and the enemy appears to have concentrated on he ships of Sir John Burgh and of those captains nearest to him. Sir John himself was reduced to an almost sinking condition, and might have been taken had not Captain Robert Crosse, in H.M.S. Foresight,[2] placed himself athwart the threatened vessel's stern, and gallantly borne the brunt of the attack for three hours. This gave time for other English ships to come up. How many carracks were originally engaged does not appear, but it would seem that ere the bulk of the English forces arrived on the scene, all save one of the enemy had withdrawn from the fight. Crosse then carried that remaining one by boarding. She proved to be the Madre de Dios, a seven-decked[3] ship, measuring one hundred and sixty-five feet from stem to stern, and carrying six hundred men, and a miscellaneous cargo valued, upon its arrival in
