Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

THE ENGLISH ADMIRALS
an immortality for Greenville. Sir Richard Green-
ville was Vice- Admiral to Lord Thomas Howard,
and lay off the Azores with the English squadron
in 1591. He was a noted tyrant to his crew : a
dark, bullying fellow apparently ; and it is related of
him that he would chew and swallow wineglasses, by
way of convivial levity, till the blood ran out of his
mouth. When the Spanish fleet of fifty sail came
within sight of the English, his ship, the Revenge,
was the last to weigh anchor, and was so far circum-
vented by the Spaniards, that there were but two
courses open — either to turn her back upon the
enemy or sail through one of his squadrons. The
first alternative Greenville dismissed as dishonour-
able to himself, his country, and her Majesty's ship.
Accordingly, he chose the latter, and steered into
the Spanish armament. Several vessels he forced to
luff and fall under his lee ; until, about three o'clock
of the afternoon, a great ship of three decks of
ordnance took the wind out of his sails, and immedi-
ately boarded. Thenceforward, and all night long,
the Revenge held her own single-handed against the
Spaniards. As one ship was beaten ofl", another
took its place. She endured, according to Raleigh's
computation, ' eight hundred shot of great artillery,
besides many assaults and entries.' By morning the
powder was spent, the pikes all broken, not a stick
was standing, ' nothing left overhead either for flight
or defence'; six feet of water in the hold; almost
all the men hurt ; and Greenville himself in a dying
condition. To bring them to this pass, a fleet of
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