which Nuno Velho paid for both.*

It was not, however, immediately after this deplorable
action that the earl sailed homeward : he continued cruising

* Historia Tragico-Maritimn, ii., 520-526. Purchas, 1148.



134 ENGLISH SEAMEN

among the islands about a month longer, when they came in
sight of another carrack of 1500 tons, homeward bound from
India. They took her for a Spanish ship of war, and under
that mistake began a more cautious action. After a while a
boat was sent to summon her to surrender to the Queen of
England's ships under the Earl of Cumberland's command,,
unless she would undergo the same fate as the Chagas ; to
bear testimony of which two prisoners were put in the boat,
and, the Portuguese say, bound. The Portuguese captain
returned a brave answer : he acknowledged Don Philip, King
of Spain, he said, not the Queen of England ; and if the Earl
of Cumberland had been at the burning of the C'mco Chagas,
so had he, D. Luis Coutinho, been at the defeat and capture
of Sir Richard Grenville in the Queen of England's ship the
Revenge. Let the earl do what he dared for his queen, and
he, D. Luis, would do what he was able for his king : his
ship was homeward bound from India, laden with riches, and
with many jewels on board ; let the English take her if they
could ! The fight was then renewed,* but intermitted by
the calm, and remitted (as the English relater allows) by the
remisser company, their captains being slain and wounded ;
" whereupon they gave over," and sailed for England, " having
done much harm to the enemy, and little good to them-
selves ".t

' ' The earl, not liking his ill partage in the Madre de Dios,

* The Portuguese account states, that the English attempted to destroy
this ship, by converting the earl's vessel, which was an old one, into a
fire-ship ; but that they were prevented from grappling the carrack, first,
by a shot that carried away the earl's foremast, and then by a thunder-
storm, during which Coutinho got so much ahead of the disabled ship,
that the other two dared not pursue them farther (p. 527). This is less
probable than the English account. It is unlikely that the earl would
have sacrificed his own ship ; and still more so, after the recent fate
of the Chagas, that he should have sought to destroy the carrack, instead
of attempting to capture it.

f Purchas, 1148. Historia Tragico-Maritima, ii. , 526-528,



THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND 135

nor this unhappier loss of two carracks for want of sufficient
strength to take them, built a ship of his own of 800 tons * at
Deptford, which the queen, at her launching, named the
Scourge of Malice, ,f the best ship that had ever before been
built by any subject." In this, with three other vessels in
company, he would have made what is called his ninth
voyage ; but when he had reached Plymouth, the queen recalled
him ; and the ships took only three Baltic vessels laden with
Spanish property of little value. He set forth again in the
ensuing year, but sprung his mainmast, and was forced to
return. His next enterprise was upon a smaller scale ; for
Essex and the lord admiral going to the coast of Spain with
a large fleet of the queen's, together with a squadron of
Flemish men of war, " his lordship thought good to await some
gleanings in so great a vintage ". So he sent out Captain
Francis Slingsby, in the Ascension of 300 tons, carrying thirty-
four guns and 1 20 men, " chiefly to look for such ships as
should come from Lisbon". The captain got sore wounded

* Purchas says 900 ; but Monson is better authority ; she was " pro-
portioned in all degrees to equal any of her Majesty's ships of that rank,
and no way inferior to them in sailing, or other property or condition
of ships ". Monson states the earl's motives for building her. " At
last my lord," he says, " began discreetly to consider the obligation
he had to the queen for the loan of her ships from time to time ; and
withal weighed what fear of danger he brought himself into, if unluckily
any of those ships should miscarry ; for he valued the reputation of the
least of them at the rate of his life. Upon these considerations, no
persuasions being of force to divert him from attempting some great
action on the sea, where he had spent much time and money ; and
thinking thereby, as well to enrich himself, as to show his forwardness
to do his prince and country service, he resolved to build a ship from
the stocks, that should equal the middle rank of her Majesty's : an act
so noble and so rare, it being a thing never undertaken before by a
subject, that it deserved immortal fame " (p. 189).

t The Malice-Scourge, Monson calls it ; " for by that name, it seems
he tasted the envy of some that repined at his honourable achievement "
(P- 189).



136 ENGLISH SEAMEN

in a vain attempt made with his boats against a caravel : after
which the Spanish admiral set forth six ships against him ;
and himself and another ship, falling in with the Ascension, laid
aboard, one on the bow and the other on the quarter ; " and
now the mouths of the great ordnance, being near in place to
whisper, roared out their thunders, and pierced thorow and
thorow on all hands ; which ended, the Spaniards leaped into
the fore-chains and main-chains, thinking to have entered
the ship, but were bravely repelled. And the English, seeing
many together under the admiral's half-deck, discharged
among them a fowler laden with case shot, to their no small
harm, so that the Spaniards were content to fall off. Of ours,
two and twenty were slain and hurt ; which loss lighted as
much on them which hid themselves, as those which stood to
the fight. To prevent the like afterwards, they put safe in
hold the chirurgeon, carpenter, and cooper, for the public
dependence on them ; and made fast the hatches, that others
should not seek refuge. But the Spanish admiral tacked
about and went in for Lisbon ; arid the Ascension, continuing
till they had but a fortnight's provision left, returned, with
hurt to themselves and loss also to his lordship."

From the conduct of the men in this action, and from other
instances, it appears that an English sea captain could not, in
those days, rely with that perfect confidence upon his crew,
which has uniformly been felt within our remembrance. The
national character was always brave ; but that national spirit
had not yet been formed among our sailors, which renders
courage as much a moral principle as an animal impulse.

The earl's success in so many adventures had not been such
as would have encouraged a prudent man to repeat them ;
but a prudent man would not have engaged in them at first.
He now obtained letters patent authorising him to levy sea
and land forces, and prepared for the greatest expedition that
had ever been undertaken by a subject without the assistance
of the sovereign, both in number of ships and land forces.



THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND 137

The force consisted of eighteen sail ; and the earl " having
by several voyages before attained to a perfect knowledge in
sea affairs," took the command in person. " Besides his
general design to take, destroy, or any way else to impoverish
and impeach the King of Spain or his subjects, he grounded
his voyage upon two hopes." The first was that of intercept-
ing the outward-bound East Indiamen as soon as they should
sail from the Tagus. The time of their departure was certain;
it could not be later than April ; and as in burden they
exceeded all other European ships, and went out full freighted
with commodities for the East Indies, and much money also
was sent out in them, they would have abundantly enriched
him and the other adventurers. This was his first hope. His
other was, if this should fail, to make an attempt with his
land forces upon some island or town " that would yield him
wealth and riches, being the chief end of his undertaking,"
a most unworthy one for one born of such a line, in such a
station, and to such an inheritance ! The success of his first
object depended greatly upon the secrecy of the expedition ;
and if he had done well and providently, " his fleet," says
Monson, " should have been furnished, without rumour, noise,
or notice, in several harbours ; and the men should not have
known the design of their voyage, nor that they were to meet
and compose a main fleet". The whole fleet, however,
assembled at Plymouth, and sailed from thence on the 6th of
March.

The wind being prosperous, though there was much of it,
their passage was so fair as to put him in hope that God had
prepared them an unlooked-for fortune, if it were well handled,
and that he might get sure intelligence concerning the de-
parture of the carracks ; " the doing of which undiscovered,"
says he, " though hard, yet I knew was not impossible for him
that could well work " ; and considering the mighty importance,
he resolved to do it himself, taking with him two other ships ;
which two only he meant should be seen on the coasts ; and



138 ENGLISH SEAMEN

accordingly he left the rest of the fleet, appointing them whereto
lie till he should rejoin them. " But God," says he, " whose
will is beyond man's resolutions, forced me to alter this ; for
my masts, not made so sufficiently as I expected, both now
began to show their weakness, especially my mainmast, which
I continually looked would have gone overboard. My mariners
were at their wits' end ; and I protest I would have given
5000/. for a new one ; the greatest part of my strength both
by sea and land having been lost, if that ship had returned
in this extremity. Hearing all that would, I heard many
opinions to little purpose." So he resolved for himself (though
many thought it dangerous, lest the wind should with a storm
come up at W.N.W.) to go to the Berlings, and there ride
till his masts were fished. He knew the road, which no one
else in the ship did ; and his fear was not of the wind, but
lest he should be discovered, being within three leagues of
Peniche, from whence caravels came off to fish. " Go thither,"
says he, " I must, hopeless otherwise to repair those desperate
ruins. My ship was black, which well furthered my device ;
and though she were great, yet showed not so afar off.
Wherefore I came in about eight of the clock at night upon
Thursday, when I was sure all the fishermen were gone to
sell their fish at Lisbon, and from the main they could not
make me. Before the morning I had down my topmasts,
my main yard unrigged, and all things ready for my car-
penters to work. The small ships with me I made stand off
to sea all day, that, not having any in my company, I should
be the less suspected ; and thus with a strange flag dancing
upon my poop, I rid, without giving chase to any, as though I
had been some merchant, every day divers ships coming by
me that were both good prize, and had been worth the
taking." By working night and day, he was ready to sail on
Saturday night. The fishermen would return to their fishing
ground on the night following ; and his hope was to get
away undiscovered by them, and rejoin his fleet, which he



THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND 139

had appointed to wait for him in the same latitude, between
twenty and thirty leagues off.*

At night, however, he heard firing between him and the
shore, and rightly guessed that it was his own small ship and
little pinnace in action with a vessel which they had seen
them chasing to windward before the night closed ; and
judging, also, that she was above their strength, he slipped his
anchor, and "soon came to help the poor little ones, much
over-matched". He took her fora Biscayan, and therefore
concluded that she would fight well ; and, in fact, she returned
such an answer to his broadside, that he had three men
killed, six or seven hurt, and his ship shot in six or seven
places, some of them very dangerous. But, upon boarding
and taking her, she proved to be a Hamburgher laden with
prohibited commodities. Much as this action exposed him
to discovery, he got out of sight of land by daybreak ;
succeeded, by stratagem, in capturing a fishing-boat from the
Tagus ; and learned from the men, that, with the next fair
wind, five carracks would sail, " with more treasure on board
than ever went in one year for the Indies, and also twenty-
five ships for Brazil. This welcome news," says the earl,
" was accompanied with the meeting again of my whole fleet,
which at that very instant I descried : so now being joined,
I wished for nothing but a happy hour to see those long-
looked-after monsters, whose wealth exceeds their greatness,
yet be they the greatest ships in the world." Not doubting
to meet them now, and well knowing the way they would
come, and being made restless by the joy of such hope, the
earl and his fleet " continued gazing for that which came
not," till disappointment stared them in the face ; then the
commander stood for the Tagus in one of his smaller vessels,
captured a boat, and learned, that at the time he took the
first fishing-boat, a ship, with Spaniards on board, from

* Purchas, 1150.



140 ENGLISH SEAMEN

England, had arrived at Lisbon, which ship was in Plymouth *
when he sailed from the sound, and had given intelligence
that he was at sea, and that his object certainly was to
intercept the Indian fleet. He learned, also, that caravels
had been sent out to search everywhere for him ; one of
which, when he returned to his fleet, he understood had
come by them to windward, and discovered them all. t

It was now evident, that the carracks would alter their
course, if they put to sea at all ; and, in despair of winning
them by any other means, the earl went again to the Tagus,
to see whether tjiey were come so low down the river that
it might be possible to board them in the night. The wind
favoured him ; he got in between the Cachopos, J and saw
them riding in the Bay of Oeyras. " Here," says he, " had I
too much of my desire, seeing what I desired to see, but
hopeless of the good I expected by seeing them ; for they
were where no good could be done upon them, riding within
the Castle of St. Julian, which hath in it above 100 pieces of
great ordnance ; so as though I could have got in (which I verily
believe I could), it had not been possible to have returned, the
wind being ever very scant to come forth withal, and hanging, for
the most part, so far northerly, as that, for fear of the Cachopos,
I must of force have run close by their platforms. With this

* Monson might justly censure the earl for want of secrecy in his
preparations ; but the earl's own narrative shows that another part of
his censure was undeserved. " He worthily deserved blame," says
Monson, " to present himself and fleet in the eye of Lisbon, to be there
discovered, knowing that the secret carriage thereof gave life and hope
to the action. By a familiar example of a man that being safely seated
in a house, and in danger of an arrest, knows that catchpoles lie to
attack him, so fared it with the carracks at that time, who rather chose
to keep themselves in harbour, than venture upon an unavoidable
danger " (p. 190).

t Purchas, 1151.

I The Cat-ships they are called in Purchas, and Oeyras is called
Weirs.



THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND 141

unpleasant sight I returned for my fleet." * Here ended his
hope of enriching himself by this enterprise. To the
Spaniards,, however, or rather to the Portuguese, the injury
was very great ; for rather than put themselves in hazard of
him and his fleet, " they chose to give over their voyage, and
lose the excessive charge they had been put unto in furnishing
their ships ; and these carracks lay at home without employ-
ment the whole year after ". Sanguine adventurers had
carried their hopes at this time very far : they thought that
the Indians, or rather the Portuguese in India, could not
subsist without those commodities which they received from
Portugal ; and that, if the outward-bound fleet were inter-
cepted, or prevented from sailing for three or four years, the
Portuguese Indians must have been compelled to trade with
England, rather than endure the want of European goods ;
and that in time the Indies might have been divided from
Portugal, especially if a younger son of the Prior D. Antonio
had been carried out, " whom, no doubt," says Monson, " they
might have been forced to accept as king".

The earl sailed now for the Canaries ; and having been
informed by some Spaniards, and by some of our own people
who had been prisoners there, that there dwelt a marquis
on the Island of Lancerota, whose ransom would be worth
100,000/., he determined upon attempting to surprise him.
But these persons, who undertook to pilot him into the road,
and then guide him to the castle, even in the darkness, had
nearly carried him upon a ledge of rocks in the road ; so he
was fain to cast anchor till the morning ; and then, though
he had " no hope left to catch the marquis," unless he were
to shut himself up in the castle, yet the earl thought it meet
to set all his soldiers on shore, seeing that he had never till
then given them any training, and " well knew many of them
to be very raw, and unpractised to service at land". The

* Purchas, 1151.



142 ENGLISH SEAMEN

day selected for the service was Good Friday. The earl, in
fear of an ague from the cold which he had taken in the last
night's watching, confined himself to his cabin, "took some
strong physic, and was let blood" ; and Sir John Berkeley
was sent in command of the men, it being certain that the
place could make no resistance against such a force. They
landed near Porto de Naos. The guide said the chief town
upon the island, Cayas, or Rubicon (from whence the bishops
of the Canary Islands were styled Bishops of Rubicon, till the
Island of Gran Canaria was conquered), was but three miles
from the landing-place ; it proved more than three leagues,
and of "the most wicked marching for loose stones and
sand ". The town was abandoned before they reached it ;
only, as they marched, " the mountaineers would watch if any
straggled, and desperately assault them with their lances,*
being so swift of foot that none could come near them ". The
castle was about half a mile from the town, within and about
which were now some four or five score men ; but they retired
without fighting, and the privateers took possession of it.
They found within it twelve or more brazen guns, ..." the
least bases, the most culverins and demi-culverins, and an
innumerable company of stones laid in places of greatest
advantage. The house itself, built of squared stones, flanked
very strongly and cunningly both for offence and defence ;
the entrance thereunto not, as in our forts, of equal height
with the foundation ground, but raised about a pike's length
in height, so that, without the use of a ladder, there could be
no entering. Some of our wisest commanders said, that if

* " When a piece is presented to them, so soon as they perceive the
cock or match to fall, they cast themselves flat to the ground, and the
report is no sooner heard, but they are upon their feet, their stones out
of their hands, and withal they charged with their pikes ; and this in
scattered encounters, or single fight (for either they knew not, or neglect
orderly battalion), oftener giveth than receiveth hurt" (Layfield in
Purchas, 1156).



THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND 143

they had drawn in their ladders, and only shut the door,
twenty men might have kept it against 500." *

Lancerota was the first of the Canary Islands upon which
the Europeans established themselves. A party of Norman
adventurers, under Jehan de Betancour, landed there in
1400 ; and their history is the exact prototype of Columbus's.
They were hospitably received ; they took advantage of that
hospitality to construct a fort ; they left a garrison there ;
and that garrison behaved "in such a licentious and cruel
manner towards the king and the nation," that their com-
mander and many others were deservedly cut off, and the
survivors reduced to the last extremity when the conquerors
returned there. t We know not enough of the Canarians, to
perceive how far they deserved the misery which the Spaniards
brought upon them ; but for the Spaniards here, as in the
West Indies, and along the coast of America, the sins of the
fathers were visited upon the children ; and the English, the
buccaneers, and the Algerines,J were to them what they had
been to the indigenous inhabitants. The Earl of Cumberland's
object in touching at these islands was no better than that of
the Algerines ; but it was not worse than what the warfare
of the age, by common consent, allowed of ; and nothing
occurred here to fill him with compunction in his latter days.
" No further harm was done to the town or castle, than that
of borrowing some necessaries," for which no payment was
intended. The town is described as consisting at that time
of somewhat more than 100 houses, rudely built, and com-
monly of one story ; the roofs with just sufficient sloping to
cast off the rain, " covered only with canes or straw laid upon

* Purchas, 1151, 1155, 1156. Glas., 219, 220.

t Glas., iv., ii, 12.

I In 1618, the Algerines carried off above 1600 persons, being nearly
the whole population of the island. They were ransomed by the King
of Spain, and sent back (Glas., 218, 219).



144 ENGLISH SEAMEN

a few rafters, and very dirt cast upon them, which, being
hardened by the sun, becometh shower-proof". There was
an old church, which was, indeed, the mother church of
those islands, a poor structure, having "no windows, nor
admitting light otherwise than by the door ; it had no
chancel, but was one undivided room, with stone seats along
the side, and at the one end an altar, with the appurtenants".
There was also an unfinished convent, which was a neat
quadrangular building, " with more commodities of fresh
water and garden than any other place in the town, even
the marquis's house". "Nothing, in a manner," says the
chaplain, "was left in the town, saving bulls, and pardons,
and divers houses, and good store of very excellent wine and
cheese." Of the quality of the wine, Dr. Layfield was
probably a more competent judge than the earl, who upon
that Good Friday kept an involuntary fast : his lordship says,
that "some little wine only was found, which little was too
much ; for it distempered so many, that if there had been a
strong enemy to have attempted, they should have found
drunken resistance ; the meaner sort being most overthrown
already ; and the commanders, some distempered with wine,
some with pride of themselves, or scorn of others ; so as
there were very few of them but that fell to most disorderly
outrage one with another. It was, in fact, a mutinous
disorder of drunkenness " ; * and Sir John Berkeley, " with
much grief, told the earl that if he took not some severe
course to remedy these things, it would be the ruin of their
voyage ". The earl, therefore, went out here the next day to
see the men trained, the greater part of whom he found
" both rude and raw " ; and calling all the commanders
before him, he rebuked them for their yesterday's conduct,
and gave articles both for their courses at land and sea,
reading to them his commission, that they might know he

* Monson, 192.



THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND 145

had full power to execute the punishment which he had set
down for every offence, and assuring them he would not be
slow in so doing if they offended.

One of the fleet, which had not been ready to sail with
them from England, joined company between Gran Canaria
and Teneriffe, and brought some English prisoners who had
escaped in a fishing-boat from Lisbon. These men reported
that the carracks, in consequence of his departure from the
coast, were to sail in a few days ; and some days accordingly
were spent in waiting for them, till it became certain either
that they had gone by, or (as was afterwards ascertained) had
given up the voyage for that year. The captains and masters
then having agreed that it was not fit to tarry any longer
upon that hope, counsel was held concerning their further
proceedings, and some were for an attempt upon Pernambuco,
which had been so far contemplated from the beginning,
that the earl had brought with him his old Portuguese pilots,
well acquainted with the Brazilian ports. These pilots thought
the season too far spent, for they had often at that season
been obliged to put back to Lisbon, and, "on their last
passage, had been six or seven weeks in getting one degree " :
some of the adventurers, however, replied, "that it might
fall out otherwise, and that though they might be long in