Note 37 — EXCURSION II.

Sir Richard Grenville, a celebrated military and naval commander in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He first distinguished himself in the wars under the Emperor Maximilian against the Turks, for which his name is recorded by several foreign writers. In the year 1591, being then Vice-Admiral of England, he was sent in the Revenge, with a squadron of seven ships, to intercept the Spanish galleons; when falling in with the enemy’s fleet, consisting of 52 sail, near the Tercera islands, be repulsed them 15 times in a continued fight, till his powder was all spent: his ship, which sunk before it could arrive in port, was reduced to a hulk, and himself covered with wounds, of which he died two days afterwards, on board the vessel of the Spanish commander.