History of the United Netherlands, 1607a | Page 5

the other a helpless
wreck on shore.
Long Harry, while Alteras had been thus employed, had engaged
another great galleon, and set her on fire. She, too, was thoroughly
burned to her hulk; but Admiral Harry was killed.
By this time, although it was early of an April afternoon, and heavy

clouds of smoke, enveloping the combatants pent together in so small a
space, seemed to make an atmosphere of midnight, as the flames of the
burning galleons died away. There was a difficulty, too, in bringing all
the Netherland ships into action--several of the smaller ones having
been purposely stationed by Heemskerk on the edge of the bay to
prevent the possible escape of any of the Spaniards. While some of
these distant ships were crowding sail, in order to come to closer
quarters, now that the day seemed going against the Spaniards, a
tremendous explosion suddenly shook the air. One of the largest
galleons, engaged in combat with a couple of Dutch vessels, had
received a hot shot full in her powder magazine, and blew up with all
on board. The blazing fragments drifted about among the other ships,
and two more were soon on fire, their guns going off and their
magazines exploding. The rock of Gibraltar seemed to reel. To the
murky darkness succeeded the intolerable glare of a new and vast
conflagration. The scene in that narrow roadstead was now almost
infernal. It seemed, said an eye- witness, as if heaven and earth were
passing away. A hopeless panic seized the Spaniards. The battle was
over. The St. Augustine still lay in the deadly embrace of her
antagonists, but all the other galleons were sunk or burned. Several of
the lesser war-ships had also been destroyed. It was nearly sunset. The
St. Augustine at last ran up a white flag, but it was not observed in the
fierceness of the last moments of combat; the men from the bolus and
the Tiger making a simultaneous rush on board the vanquished foe.
The fight was done, but the massacre was at its beginning. The
trumpeter, of Captain Kleinsorg clambered like a monkey up the mast
of the St. Augustine, hauled down the admiral's flag, the last which was
still waving, and gained the hundred florins. The ship was full of dead
and dying; but a brutal, infamous butchery now took place. Some
Netherland prisoners were found in the hold, who related that two
messengers had been successively despatched to take their lives, as
they lay there in chains, and that each had been shot, as he made his
way towards the execution of the orders.
This information did not chill the ardour of their victorious countrymen.
No quarter was given. Such of the victims as succeeded in throwing
themselves overboard, out of the St. Augustine, or any of the burning
or sinking ships, were pursued by the Netherlanders, who rowed about

among them in boats, shooting, stabbing, and drowning their victims by
hundreds. It was a sickening spectacle. The bay, said those who were
there, seemed sown with corpses. Probably two or three thousand were
thus put to death, or had met their fate before. Had the chivalrous
Heemskerk lived, it is possible that he might have stopped the massacre.
But the thought of the grief which would fill the commonwealth when
the news should arrive of his death--thus turning the joy of the great
triumph into lamentations--increased the animosity of his comrades.
Moreover, in ransacking the Spanish admiral's ship, all his papers had
been found, among them many secret instructions from Government
signed "the King;" ordering most inhuman persecutions, not only of the
Netherlanders, but of all who should in any way assist them, at sea or
ashore. Recent examples of the thorough manner in which the royal
admirals could carry out these bloody instructions had been furnished
by the hangings, burnings, and drownings of Fazardo. But the
barbarous ferocity of the Dutch on this occasion might have taught a
lesson even to the comrades of Alva.
The fleet of Avila was entirely destroyed. The hulk of the St. Augustine
drifted ashore, having been abandoned by the victors, and was set on
fire by a few Spaniards who had concealed themselves on board, lest
she might fall again into the enemy's hands.
The battle had lasted from half-past three until sunset. The Dutch
vessels remained all the next day on the scene of their triumph. The
townspeople were discerned, packing up their goods, and speeding
panic- struck into the interior. Had Heemskerk survived he would
doubtless have taken Gibraltar--fortress and town--and perhaps Cadiz,
such was the consternation along the whole coast.
But his gallant spirit no longer directed the fleet. Bent rather upon
plunder than glory, the ships now dispersed in search of prizes towards
the Azores,