Within twenty-four hours of the fight, the home-coming carracks fell in with the fleet of Don Alonso de Bazan, and by it were safely convoyed to Spain.
Lord Thomas Howard's squadron, after maintaining a distant fight until nightfall, got away. On its homeward passage it made several valuable prizes. A little force of victuallers, fitted out in London to carry supplies to it, had sailed on August 17th, but had been dispersed by bad weather, and obliged to put back. Some of the vessels, however, before they reached port, picked up three rich prizes in the Bay, and took one of them into Plymouth.
That year, 1591, saw some other very gallant actions, which, although not strictly naval, must be here recorded. Three English ships and a barque, belonging to Sir George Carey, who was afterwards second Lord Hunsdon, were in the West Indies, engaged apparently in trade, when, off Cape Corrientes, they fell in with six Spanish vessels, four of which were large. The English promptly attacked the three ships, two of which were named Hopewell and Swallow, engaging one, and the barque, named the Content, engaging the other of the two biggest Spaniards. After some fighting, the three English ships, for some reasons not fully explained, drew off, leaving the little Content to her fate. For three hours, after she had got away from her original opponent, she fought the two smallest Spanish vessels. She then maintained a running fight with two of the large and one of the small ships, endeavouring meanwhile to get into shallow water by using her sweeps. The Spaniards, when they could no longer follow her with their deeper craft, double-manned the small vessel, and towed and rowed her after the Content. The Englishman was being slowly forced between the big ships and the shore, and was in a most precarious position, when a lucky shot from her temporarily disabled one of the larger Spaniards. This accident freed her, and enabled her to make an offing; but no sooner had she done so than she fell in with two fresh Spanish galleys, one of which presently tried to board. But the Content drove off her enemies on two occasions, and at last, after a contest which lasted, with intermissions, from 7 A.M. until 11 P.M., made her escape with a loss, strange to say, of but two men wounded, though her hull and rigging were cut to pieces. She had no more than twenty-three officers and men on board, and of these only thirteen took part in the action, the rest being below.[1]
- ↑ Hakluyt, pt. iii. 565. The Content's master was Nicholas Liste.
