Upon receiving a commission from Her Majesty for an expedition to the West Indies, Sir Walter Raleigh wasted no time in fully preparing everything necessary. This was evident in his careful selection of good ships and sufficient men for the task. His fleet consisted of fourteen or fifteen ships, the most important being Her Majesty's ships, the Garland and the Foresight. The rest belonged either to him, his close friends, or London investors.
The gentlemen who served as his companions and officers were, to give them their due, remarkably qualified in courage, experience, and judgment. Even the greatest ruler would have considered themselves fortunate to have such men in their service. The honorable title of Lieutenant General was bestowed upon Sir John Burrough, a gentleman whose many fine and heroic qualities made him fully deserving of that command. After Sir Walter Raleigh returned, Sir Martin Frobisher, known for his exceptional skill and knowledge in naval matters and who had previously held similar or even higher positions, joined him in the commission. The remaining captains, soldiers, and sailors were men of notable determination, most of whom had already proven their valor in various similar engagements.
With these well-manned ships, Sir Walter Raleigh set sail towards the West Country to gather further necessities for his voyage. However, persistent westerly winds blowing against his course forced him to remain in harbor for so many weeks that the most favorable time for his expedition passed. The morale of his men declined, their provisions dwindled, and furthermore, Her Majesty, learning of these setbacks, began to question the progress of the preparations. Consequently, although Sir Walter was unable to put to sea until the sixth of May, the very next day Sir Martin Frobisher, in a pinnace belonging to the Lord Admiral called The Disdain, met him and delivered letters of revocation from Her Majesty. These letters commanded him to abandon his part in the intended venture and to leave the charge and command of everything to Sir John Burrough and Sir Martin Frobisher.
However, Sir Walter felt his honor so deeply invested in this voyage that he saw no way to salvage his reputation or satisfy his friends who had invested significant sums with him without proceeding. Interpreting the Queen's letters as offering him the discretion to either advance or retreat, he absolutely refused to abandon his fleet, which was already setting sail.
Therefore, continuing his course into the sea, he encountered within a day or two some ships that had recently arrived from Spain. Among them was a ship belonging to Monsieur Gourdon, the governor of Calais, and aboard it was an Englishman named M. Nevel Davies. This man had endured a long and miserable captivity of twelve years, partly in the Spanish Inquisition, but had fortunately escaped and was returning to his country. Among other things, he reported with certainty that there was little hope of any success in the West Indies that year. The King of Spain had sent explicit orders to all ports in both the islands and the mainland that no ship should sail that year, nor should any treasure be loaded for Spain.
But neither this discouraging news nor anything else could deter Sir Walter until a tempest of strange and unusual violence arose on Thursday, the eleventh of May, when he was off Cape Finister. This storm scattered the greater part of the fleet and sank his boats and pinnaces. As the remaining ships were driven apart in various directions, Sir Walter himself, aboard Her Majesty's ship the Garland, was in danger of being swallowed by the sea.
Consequently, Sir Walter Raleigh, realizing that the time of year was too advanced to proceed with his planned expedition to Panama, having been held on the English coast from February until May and thus consuming three months' worth of provisions, and considering that waiting on the Spanish coast or at the islands for the return of the East or West Indian fleets was more a matter of patience than anything else, gave instructions to Sir John Burrough and Sir Martin Frobisher to divide the fleet into two parts. Sir Martin, with the Garland, Captain George Gifford, Captain Henry Thin, Captain Grenville, and others, was to lie off the South Cape to confuse the Spanish fleet and keep them on their own coast. Meanwhile, Sir John Burrough, Captain Robert Crosse, Captain Tomson, and others were to wait at the islands for the carracks or any other Spanish ships coming from Mexico or other parts of the West Indies.
These instructions were carried out accordingly. The King of Spain's Admiral, receiving intelligence that the English fleet had arrived on the coast, focused on defending the southern parts of Spain and staying as close to Sir Martin Frobisher as possible to hinder any undertakings. As a result, he neglected the safe passage of the carracks, with consequences that will be seen later. Before the fleet separated, they encountered a large Biscayan ship on the Spanish coast called Santa Clara, a vessel of 600 tons.
Upon hearing the sound of artillery from both sides, they immediately approached their fleet. After a reasonably fierce fight, the ship was boarded and captured. They found it laden with all sorts of small ironwork, such as horseshoes, nails, plowshares, iron bars, spikes, bolts, locks, and hinges, valued by them at six or seven thousand pounds but worth triple that amount to the enemy. This Biscayan ship was sailing towards Sanlúcar to take on further provisions for the West Indies. After thoroughly searching this ship and then sending it to England, the English fleet sailed along the coast towards Cape St. Vincent. On the way, near the Rock of Lisbon, Sir John Burrough in the Roebuck, spotting a sail far off, immediately gave chase. The ship, being a fast flyboat, drew him far south before he could catch her, but eventually, she came under his lee and lowered her sails.
The master of the flyboat, coming aboard, confessed that the King had indeed prepared a large fleet in Sanlúcar and Cádiz, and (as was the common report in Spain) it was intended for the West Indies. However, the Spanish King had actually assembled this fleet based on the following intelligence: he had learned that Sir Walter Raleigh was preparing a strong expedition for the West Indies. To obstruct him and confront his forces, he appointed this fleet. Although he was also expecting the arrival of his East Indian carracks, he initially ordered these ships to escort them from the Azores. But persuading himself that if Sir Walter Raleigh's fleet went to the West Indies, the islands would only be troubled by small warships, which the carracks themselves would be well able to handle, his order to Don Alonso de Bazán, brother of the Marquis of Santa Cruz and General of his armada, was to pursue Sir Walter's fleet and confront him, whatever course he took.
Our men soon understood the truth of this. Not long after capturing the flyboat, as Sir John Burrough sailed back towards the rest of his company, he sighted the Spanish fleet to seaward. They, having also spotted him between themselves and the shore, fully intended to bring him safely into a Spanish harbor. Therefore, they spread out in such a way before him that his danger was indeed very great. The open sea was narrowed into a tight passage, and the hostile shore offered no hope of relief. So, trusting only in God's help and his ship's speed, he broke through their lines despite all their force and to the notable frustration of all their cunning maneuvers designed to capture him.
Having successfully escaped their clutches, Sir John Burrough, finding the coast guarded by this fleet and knowing it was futile to expect a meeting there with Sir Martin Frobisher (who, understanding the presence of this armada as well as he did, would certainly not come that way), began to steer his course towards the Azores according to Sir Walter Raleigh's instructions. He came within sight of São Miguel, sailing so close by Vila Franca do Campo that he could easily discern the ships lying at anchor there. He intercepted several small caravels both here and between São Jorge and Pico on his course towards Flores, but they provided no significant intelligence for his mission.
Arriving before Flores on Thursday, the twenty-first of June, towards evening, accompanied only by Captain Caufield and the master of his ship, the rest not having yet arrived, he approached the shore with his boat. He found all the people of Santa Cruz, a village on that island, armed and ready, fearing their landing and prepared to defend their town from plunder. Sir John, on the contrary, signaled his peaceful intentions by raising a white flag, a common symbol of peace, which they reciprocated. This led to friendly exchanges, and hostages were taken on both sides: the captain of the town for them, and Captain Caufield for the English. Consequently, whatever our men needed that the place could supply, whether fresh water, provisions, or the like, was readily granted by the inhabitants. They were also given full permission to refresh themselves ashore as much and as often as they wished without restriction.
At this Santa Cruz, Sir John Burrough was informed that there was indeed no expectation of any fleet coming from the West, but from the East. Just three days before his arrival, a carrack had passed by for Lisbon, and there were four more carracks following, belonging to the same group. Sir John, greatly pleased by this news, did not stay ashore any longer but immediately re-embarked, accompanied only by a small bark of sixty tons belonging to a M. Hopkins of Bristol.
Meanwhile, while these events were unfolding at Flores, part of the rest of the English fleet that Sir John Burrough had left on the coast of Spain also headed towards the Azores. While quickly at sea, he had spotted one of the carracks. That same evening, he could see two or three of the Earl of Cumberland's ships (one captained by M. Norton) which, having similarly sighted the carrack, pursued her along the course they saw her take towards the islands. However, no progress was made on either side due to a great calm that offered no breeze to fill a sail.
Therefore, to properly identify her – her type, size, strength, and appearance – Sir John Burrough took his boat and rowed the distance of three miles to examine her closely. Upon returning, he consulted with the senior members of the company present about boarding her in the morning. But a very powerful storm arose during the night, the severity of which forced them all to weigh anchor. Yet, their concern was such in battling the weather not to lose sight of the carrack that in the morning, when the storm had subsided and their ships were again approaching the shore, they could see the carrack very near the land. The Portuguese were frantically carrying ashore whatever they could manage to move out of her. Seeing the haste of the English to reach them, they abandoned her, but first, so that nothing useful would be left for the English, they set fire to what they could not carry, intending to completely destroy her so that neither the glory of victory nor the benefit of the ship would remain for their adversaries. And lest the approach and efforts of the English should provide a means to extinguish the flames and thus preserve the remainder of what the fire had not consumed, being four hundred in number and well-armed, they entrenched themselves on land so close to the carrack that, protected by their forces and keeping the English at bay, the fire could continue to consume the whole vessel.
Observing this, Sir John Burrough quickly devised a remedy for this mischief. Landing one hundred of his men, many of whom swam and waded ashore in water more than chest-high, and easily scattering those who attempted to guard the coast, he no sooner approached their new trenches than they immediately fled, leaving whatever the fire had spared as a reward for the English efforts. Among those captured here were Vincent Fonseca, a Portuguese purser of the carrack, and two others, one a German and the second a Dutchman, both gunners. Refusing to voluntarily provide the information requested of them, they were threatened with torture. The fear of this finally extracted from them the intelligence that within fifteen days, three other larger carracks than the one recently burned would arrive at the same island. They also revealed that being five carracks in the fleet upon their departure from Goa – namely, the Buen Jesus (admiral), the Madre de Dios, the São Bernardo, the São Cristóvão, and the Santa Cruz (whose fate you have already heard) – they had received specific orders from the King not to stop under any circumstances at the island of Saint Helena, where Portuguese carracks returning from the East Indies had always until now been accustomed to call for water and provisions. The King's reason was the presence of English warships, who (he had been informed) lay in wait there to intercept them. If their need for water should compel them to seek supplies elsewhere, he directed them to Angola on the mainland of Africa, with orders to stay only long enough to take on water to avoid the risk of infections to which that hot latitude is dangerously prone. The final rendezvous point for them all was the island of Flores, where the King assured them they would not fail to meet his armada sent there specifically to escort them to Lisbon.
Upon receiving this information, Sir John convened a council, meeting there with Captain Norton, Captain Dounton, Captain Abraham Cocke (captains of three ships belonging to the Earl of Cumberland), M. Tomson of Harwich (captain of the Dainty, belonging to Sir John Hawkins and part of Sir Walter Raleigh's fleet), and M. Christopher Newport (captain of the Golden Dragon, recently returned from the West Indies), among others. Having assembled them, he shared what he had learned from the aforementioned prisoners and the strong likelihood of the truth of their account. He expressed his wish that, since God and good fortune had brought them together at such an opportune time, they would exert their utmost efforts to bring these East Indiamen under English control. Consequently, a unanimous agreement followed immediately not to part company or leave those waters until the time presented an opportunity to put their plans into action.
The next day, Her Majesty's good ship the Foresight, commanded by Sir Robert Crosse, joined the rest. Having also been informed of the situation, he was quickly brought into the service. Thus, Sir John, with all these ships, departing six or seven leagues west of Flores, spread them out from north to south, each ship at least two leagues distant from another. By this arrangement, they were able to cover a span of two whole degrees at sea. They maintained this formation from the twenty-ninth of June to the third of August, at which time Captain Thomson in the Dainty first sighted the huge carrack called the Madre de Dios, one of the largest vessels belonging to the Portuguese crown.
The Dainty, being an excellent sailer, gained a lead on the rest of the English fleet and began the conflict somewhat to her cost, with the death and injury of several of her men. Shortly thereafter, Sir John Burrough in Sir Walter Raleigh's Roebuck was at hand to support her, saluting the carrack with shots from his heavy artillery and continuing the fight at musket range, assisted by Captain Tomson and Captain Newport, until Sir Robert Crosse, the vice-admiral of the fleet, came up from leeward. Upon his arrival, Sir John Burrough asked him what was best to be done. Sir Robert replied that if the carrack was not boarded, she would reach the shore and set herself on fire as the other had done. Thereupon, Sir John Burrough decided to entangle her, and Sir Robert Crosse also promised to lash himself alongside her at the same moment, which was done. However, after a while, Sir John Burrough's ship received a shot from a small cannon below the waterline and began to sink. He requested Sir Robert Crosse to pull away so that he could also free himself and save his ship from sinking, which he did with difficulty, for both the Roebuck and the Foresight were so entangled that they could only clear themselves with great effort.
That same evening, Sir Robert Crosse, finding the carrack secure and drawing near the island, persuaded his company to board her again, for otherwise, there was no hope of recovering her. After many excuses and expressions of fear, they were encouraged by him and so fell across her bow alone, hindering her sailing so that the rest had time to come to his aid and recapture the carrack before she reached land. And so, towards evening, after he had fought with her alone for three full hours, the Earl of Cumberland's two ships came up and, with very little loss, joined Sir Robert Crosse, who had by that time broken the enemy's courage and made the assault easy for the others.
The general, having disarmed the Portuguese and secured them on all sides for safety, was first presented with the true scale of the vast size of this carrack, which then and may still justly provoke the admiration of all men not previously acquainted with such a sight. But although this initial appearance of its immense size provided enough to occupy the eyes of our men, the pitiful sight of so many bodies slain and dismembered could not but draw every man's gaze to see, heart to lament, and hands to help those miserable people whose limbs were so torn by the force of the shot and whose pain was made grievous by the multitude of wounds. Almost no one could step without treading on a dead body or a bloody floor, but especially around the helm, where very many of them fell suddenly from steering to dying. For the sheer size of the steering mechanism required the labor of twelve or fourteen men at once, and some of our ships, battering her stern with their ordnance, often with a single shot killed four or five working on either side of the helm. Their places being continually filled with fresh supplies of men, and our artillery still playing upon them with constant volleys, it was inevitable that much blood should be shed in that place.
Whereupon our General, moved by singular compassion for their misery, sent them his own surgeons, denying them no possible help or relief that he or any of his company could afford them. Among the rest of those whose condition this misfortune had made very deplorable was Don Fernando de Mendoca, the Grand Captain and Commander of this carrack. He was indeed descended from the house of Mendoca in Spain, but having married into Portugal, he lived there as one of that nation. He was a gentleman well advanced in years, eloquent, of comely appearance, and good stature, but of ill fortune. In his various services against the Moors, he was twice taken prisoner and both times ransomed by the King. On a previous voyage returning from the East Indies, he was driven onto the Baxos, or sands of Juda, near the coast of Cephala. He was then also captain of a carrack that was lost there, and he himself, though escaping the danger of the sea, fell into the hands of infidels on land, who kept him in long and grievous servitude. Once more, the King, showing a loving regard for the man and desiring to improve his condition, was willing to let him try his fortune in this Eastern navigation and entrusted him with the command of this carrack, in which he sailed from Lisbon as General of the whole fleet. He would have returned in that rank if the Viceroy of Goa, embarking for Portugal in the Bon Jesus, had not been preferred due to his recent office.
Sir John, intending not to add too much affliction to the afflicted, moved by pity and compassion for human misery, finally resolved to freely dismiss this captain and the majority of his followers to their own country. For this purpose, he placed them in certain vessels supplied with all kinds of necessary provisions. This business being concluded, he had ample time to examine the goods as convenience allowed. And having very prudently (to cut off the unprofitable looting and pillaging to which he saw the minds of many inclined) seized upon the whole cargo for Her Majesty's use. After a brief and cursory rummaging and searching of the items that first came to hand, he realized that the wealth would be far from disappointing expectations. Indeed, the variety and grandeur of all the rich commodities would be more than sufficient to satisfy both the investors' desires and the soldiers' efforts.
And here, I cannot help but reflect upon and acknowledge God's great favor towards our nation. By placing this acquisition into our hands, He has clearly revealed those secret trades and Indian riches that have hitherto remained strangely hidden and cleverly concealed from us. We had only a small and imperfect glimpse of these before, which has now been transformed into the broad light of full and perfect knowledge. Whereby it would seem that God's will for our benefit (if our weakness could comprehend it) is for us to share in those East Indian treasures and, by establishing lawful trade, to improve our means to advance true religion and His holy service.
The carrack, estimated by wise and experienced men to be no less than 1600 tons in burden, had a full 900 tons of that space filled with the bulk of merchandise. The rest of the tonnage was allocated partly to the ordnance, which consisted of 32 brass pieces of all sorts, and partly to the passengers and the provisions, which could not have been a small quantity considering the number of people, between 600 and 700, and the length of the voyage. To give you a taste of the commodities, it shall suffice to provide a general list of them, according to the inventory taken at Leadenhall on the 15th of September 1592. Upon careful inspection, it was found that the principal wares, after the jewels (which were undoubtedly of great value, though they never came to light), consisted of spices, drugs, silks, calicoes, quilts, carpets, and dyes, etc. The spices included pepper, cloves, mace, nutmegs, cinnamon, and green ginger. The drugs were benzoin, frankincense, galingale, myrobalans, aloe socotrina, and camphor. The silks were damasks, taffetas, sarcenets, altobassos (that is, imitation cloth of gold), raw China silk, spun silk, white twisted silk, and curled cypress. The calicoes were book-calicoes, calico lawns, broad white calicoes, fine starched calicoes, coarse white calicoes, brown broad calicoes, and brown coarse calicoes. There were also canopies and coarse diaper towels, quilts of coarse sarcenet and of calico, carpets like those of Turkey, to which must be added pearls, musk, civet, and ambergris. The rest of the wares were numerous but of lesser value, such as elephants' tusks, porcelain vessels from China, coconuts, hides, ebony wood as black as jet, bedsteads made of the same, and cloth made from the bark of trees, very strange in its material and skillfully crafted. All these piles of commodities, reasonably valued by men of proven judgment, amounted to no less than 150,000 pounds sterling, which, being divided among the investors (of whom Her Majesty was the chief), was sufficient to bring satisfaction to all parties.
The cargo having been unloaded and the goods loaded into ten of our ships sent for London, so that the size, height, length, breadth, and other dimensions of such a huge vessel might be accurately recorded according to the precise rules of geometrical observation, both for present knowledge and for transmitting the same to posterity, a M. Robert Adams, a man of excellent skill in his field, omitted nothing in his description that either his art could demonstrate or any man's judgment would deem worthy of remembrance. After a thorough survey of the entire structure, he found the length from the beakhead to the stern (upon which a lantern was erected) to be 165 feet. The breadth in the second enclosed deck (of which she had three, this being the place of greatest width) was 46 feet and 10 inches. She drew 31 feet of water upon her departure from Cochin in India but no more than 26 feet upon her arrival in Dartmouth, having been lightened by various means during her voyage by some 5 feet. She carried seven separate levels: one main orlop, three enclosed decks, one forecastle, and a spar deck of two levels each. The length of the keel was 100 feet, of the mainmast 121 feet, and its circumference at the partners was 10 feet 7 inches; the main yard was 106 feet long. From this precise measurement of the parts, the immensity of the whole is apparent, far beyond the scale of the largest shipping used among us, either for war or cargo.
Don Alonso de Bazán, having a large fleet and allowing these two carracks, the Santa Cruz to be burned and the Madre de Dios to be captured, was disgraced by his prince for this negligence.
