SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE.
Four months went by--four months of weary, monotonous waiting--and still
Lord Thomas Howard's fleet lay in its old anchorage in the roadstead off
the north of Flores Island. The long-expected homeward-bound treasure
_flota_ from the Spanish Main had not yet come in sight. The King of
Spain, who was now well aware of the presence of the English ships at
the Azores, and who knew their drift as surely as did Lord Thomas
himself, was sensible of how much the safety of his galleons concerned
his own interests and the interests of his country; and by secret means
he had communicated with his admirals at Nombre de Dios, causing them to
delay their starting; for he chose to hazard the perishing of ships,
men, and goods by bringing them over in a season of storms rather than
endanger their falling into our hands.
He had two distinct designs in bringing his fleet home so late. One was
that he thought that Lord Thomas would have consumed his victuals and
have been forced accordingly to abandon his quest and return to England;
and the other was that he might meanwhile gain time to furnish a great
fleet, which he was preparing to act as the guardian of his treasure
galleons. In the first design he found himself deceived, for Admiral
Howard had not been two months at the Western Isles ere he received
supplies of victuals from England; and in the second he was equally
prevented, for the Earl of Cumberland, who was then cruising off the
coast of Spain, was keeping a constant watch upon the port of Ferrol,
where the new armada was being hurriedly fitted out, and Cumberland was
prepared to send intelligence to Flores to warn Lord Thomas at the
moment of danger.
But despite the arrival of supplies from home, the provisions of the
English fleet at the Azores were meagre in quantity, and in quality
wretchedly poor, and it was found necessary to add to them by making
frequent raids upon the nearer islands and taking forcible possession
of food from the islanders' homesteads. The hot summer months of June
and July had brought additional discomforts to the crews, and early in
August a pestilent sickness spread from ship to ship. On the _Defiance_
a score of men had died before the middle of August, and an equal number
of the ship's company of the _Lion_ were carried off. Sir Robert Cross
of the _Bonaventure_ had buried in the sea no fewer than thirty-six of
his picked men, and the disease in a more or less virulent form had made
an entrance upon every one of the Queen's six ships, as well as the
victuallers, fly-boats, and small pinnaces that were of the expedition.
Jacob Whiddon's little ship, the _Pilgrim_, had escaped so far with but
one death.
On board the _Revenge_ Sir Richard Grenville had much ado to stem the
tide of the dread visitation. His ship was small, and her crowded crew
had but indifferent accommodation even when in good health, and when the
illness seized them there was little chance of a recovery. The matter
was made worse by the fact that, for want of a more convenient hospital,
her sick men were forced to lie upon the ballast, down below, where no
fresh air could reach them, where the light of the sun could not
penetrate, and where even the best and freshest food became speedily
rank and nasty. Her surgeons were ignorant men, of a low and
ill-educated class, to whom the payment of five shillings a week was
considered an ample return for the exercise of their profession. Of
medicine and the laws of health they scarcely knew anything. They could
saw off a shattered limb or patch a broken head passing well; but they
had no more than a child's skill in dealing with a sickness that came of
bad sanitation, putrid food, and insidious infection. The ship's lower
decks were so pestilential that a sound man might hardly hope to go
below without catching the disease.
At the first it was the men of the commoner sort, the working mariners
and the ill-fed soldiers, who were affected, but betimes the gentlemen
of the poop were struck down one by one by the fell complaint, and there
were few among them who did not suffer in some wise, if it were no more
than to experience a sickly headache. So general did the complaints
become, that many of the men, led by Red Bob, threatened more than once
to break out into open mutiny. They declared that they were being
poisoned by sour beer and rancid meat, and day after day, as the
expected treasure-ships failed to come into view, the discontent became
stronger and more noisy.
Sir Richard Grenville held a firm and determined authority over his
ship's company, however, for he was a most resolute man, and none dared
to openly offend him. He was a man very unquiet in his mind, always
eager and impatient, and greatly affected to war. It was perhaps from
this same resolute spirit that he had been able to perform the many
valiant acts that are recorded of him. At the age of sixteen he had
distinguished himself for bravery and fearlessness in the wars in
Hungary under the Emperor Maximilian against the Turks; he had fought in
the great sea-fight at Lepanto with the Christians against the Turks,
when thirty thousand of the Saracens fell or were taken prisoners, and
twelve thousand Christian slaves were liberated. Also he had taken
prominent part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Of his life in
Virginia, whither he went to found the first English colony, many heroic
acts are recorded. His rivals thought him harsh and overbearing, and
certify that he exercised a most tyrannical rule over his colonists and
shipmates from first to last; and Master Ralph Lane (who is remembered
as being the first to introduce the herb tobacco into England) wrote of
him in an ample discourse addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh, that
Grenville's pride was intolerable, his ambition insatiable, and that his
proceedings towards them all in Virginia, and to Lane in particular,
were unendurable. It seems certain that among the islanders of the
Azores he was greatly feared for his severity in leading his men to
plunder the homesteads for food for the ships. Some things that are
written of him show that at times he could be boastful and inclined to
bravado.
"He was of so hard a complexion," says Jan van Linschoten in a document
that is to be found in Hakluyt's _Voyages_, "that as he continued among
the Spanish captains while they were at dinner or supper with him, he
would carouse three or four glasses of wine, and in a bravery take the
glasses between his teeth and crash them in pieces and swallow them
down, so that oftentimes the blood ran out of his mouth, without any
harm at all unto him. And this was told me by divers credible persons
that many times stood and beheld him."
Yet he was a very excellent gentleman, a loyal subject of the Queen, and
a very proper Christian. In an age when cruelty in war was common he
fought with a truly British sense of fairness, and while the Spaniards
treated their prisoners with unnameable tortures Sir Richard Grenville
was ever just and humane with the enemies who fell into his hands. He
hated the Spaniards with a fierce envenomed hatred, and was never known
to shrink from an encounter with them, or to neglect a chance of
striking a blow which should help to lessen their vaunted power upon the
seas. No man in his time--not even Drake himself--was more bold or more
courageous in attacking them. His self-confidence and his trust in
English pluck were supreme. He considered an Englishman equal to any
dozen Spaniards.
On one occasion when he was returning from the Spanish Main in a ship
which had been sorely battered by storms and badly bored by the
teredo-worm, he sighted a richly-laden galleon. His ship could not be
brought to a close encounter, and he had no boats, yet he was bent upon
capturing that galleon. So he made a raft out of the boards of chests
and boxes, took a handful of men with him, and on this frail craft
adventured an attack. He brought the raft alongside the galleon and
clambered up upon her decks. As soon as his men were all off the raft it
fell asunder and sank at the galleon's side, thus cutting off the
adventurers' retreat. Yet they captured the galleon and brought her home
as a prize to England.
It was towards the end of the hot month of August that the sickness on
board the _Revenge_, as on board all the other ships of the fleet,
became more general and severe. Lord Thomas Howard, realizing at last
that it was the ships themselves that were unhealthy, and that if he
would preserve his little army from actual dissolution he had better
institute an hospital of some sort on shore, issued orders to his
various captains, instructing them to land their sick men upon the
beach, where huts and tents and other shelters were erected. This
proceeding was found to be of vast benefit. Each ship's company was kept
separate in their own shelters, with a goodly number of healthy men to
attend to their wants.
Gilbert Oglander and Roland Grenville were among those who were told off
to take charge of the _Revenge's_ invalids. Timothy Trollope and Robin
Redfern were with them, acting for the greater part of the time as
water-carriers. Red Bob was among the sick, so was Edward Webbe. Hartop
remained on board the ship.
It was weary work looking after men who, in the midst of their sickness,
were for ever grumbling at the bad food and the lack of good doctors.
But the purer air and an abundance of fresh water, together with such
ripe fruit as could be procured, gradually brought the sufferers round
to a better condition. The deaths were fewer and the pestilence ceased
to spread. Also on the thirtieth day of the month there arrived two
ships from England, sent out by the merchants of Plymouth with a supply
of victuals; and the news of home brought additional cheer to those who
had been lingering here in the Azores for over five months, waiting for
the treasure-ships that they were to waylay and capture, waiting until
the very clothes on their backs were worn to rags.