He hoped God would help. He had wished no harm to
anybody. He had left his home and his family to please the King, and he
trusted the King would remember it. He wrote piteously for fresh stores,
if the King would not have them all perish. The admirals said they could
go no further without fresh water. All was dismay and confusion. The
wind at last fell round south, and they made Finisterre. It then came on
to blow, and they were scattered. The Duke with half the fleet crawled
into Corunna, the crews scarce able to man the yards and trying to
desert in shoals.
The missing ships dropped in one by one, but a week passed and a third
of them were still absent. Another despairing letter went off from the
Duke to his master. He said that he concluded from their misfortunes
that God disapproved of the expedition, and that it had better be
abandoned. Diego Florez was of the same opinion. The stores were
worthless, he said. The men were sick and out of heart. Nothing could be
done that season.
It was not by flinching at the first sight of difficulty that the
Spaniards had become masters of half the world. The old comrades of
Santa Cruz saw nothing in what had befallen them beyond a common
accident of sea life.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228