A SEA-FIGHT WITH THE PORTUGALS – PART 2

This week, we conclude the narrative of Edward Terry, in which he describes a naval encounter in the early seventeenth century between a small fleet of English ships and a Portuguese carrack—a sea-fight with the Portugals.

We pick up the story as the Charles (one of the English ships) is moving into position to attack the carrack.

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The Charles played her part first, and before she had been at defiance with our adversary half an hour, there came another shot from the enemy, which hitting against one of our iron pieces [i.e., one of the cannons] that lay on the half deck, broke into shivers, dangerously wounding our new Commander, the Master of our ship, and three other of the mariners who stood by.

Captain Pepwel’s left eye was beaten all to pieces; two other wounds he received in his head; a third in his leg, a ragged piece of this broken shot sticking out in the bone thereof, which seemed by his complaining to afflict him more than all the rest.

The Master had a great piece of the brawn of his arm struck off, which made him likewise unserviceable for a time. Thus was our new Commander welcomed to his authority. We all thought his wounds mortal, but he lived till about fourteen months after, when he died peaceably in his bed, after his return to England.

The Captain and Master being both thus disabled, they deputed their authority to the chief Masters Mate, who behaved resolutely and wisely. So we continued, alternis vicibus [alternately], shooting at our adversary as at a butt [an archery target]. By three o’clock in the afternoon, we had beat down the carrack’s her main mast, her mizen mast, her foretop mast, and, moreover, had made such wounds in her thick sides so that her case was so desperate, she must either yield or perish.

Her Captain (called Don Emanuel Meneses, a brave resolute man) thus distressed, stood in for the shore, being not far from the island of Gazidia.

We pursued as far as we dared without hazard of shipwreck. Then we sent in our barge with a flag of truce to speak with him. He waved us onboard. So Master Connocke (our chief Merchant), who was employed in that business, boldly entered his ship, and delivered these words to him and his company: that he had brought them life and peace if they would accept it, and telling Don Emanuel, he had deserved so well by his undaunted valor, that if he would put himself into our hands, he should be entertained with as much honor and respect as ever any Captive was.

But (Duris ut Ilex tonsa bipennibus—ducit opes ani-mumque ferro)[1] he, as an oak gathers strength from its injuries, condemned the miseries he could not prevent, and answered Master Connocke thus: that no infelicity could make him alter his first resolution, and that he would stand off to sea, if he possibly be could and encounter with us again, and then, if fire and sword forced him, he might unhappily be taken, but he would never yield. And if we took him alive, he hoped that he would find the respect due a gentleman.

And thus we had our answer, and our messenger was discharged.

Shortly afterwards, this distressed ship [the Portuguese carrack), wanting her wings [i.e., lacking sufficient sail due to the damage cause in the fighting] was forced by the wind and waves upon the nearby island of Gazidia, where she stuck fast between two rocks.

Those who were left alive in her gained the shore in the ship’s boats. Then, being willing (it would seem) to destroy what they could not keep, they set the carrack on fire to make her a blazing coal rather than permit us to take her as a prize.

The poor Portugals, after they had left their ship, were most inhumanely used by the barbarous islanders, who stole from them all they had brought ashore for their succor. Some of them were slain in the fighting, and doubtless the islanders would have killed all of them all had they not been saved by two small Arabian ships that were there to trade.

These ships, in hope (I suppose) of some great reward, took them in, and conveyed them safely co their own city of Goa.

In this combat, we lost out of our four ships but five men (too many by that number) three out of our Admiral [i.e., out of the lead ship of the fleet; the Charles], and two out of the James. We also had some twenty in our whole fleet hurt, all of whom afterward recovered.

But of seven hundred which sailed in the carrack, there came not above two hundred and fifty to Goa, as afterward we were credibly informed.

In this fearful battle, our Charles fired at her adversary three hundred and seventy-five great shot (as our gunners reported). We also had one hundred musketeers who played their part all the while.

Neither was our enemy idle, for our ship received at the least one hundred great shot from him, and many of them dangerous ones through the hull. Our foremast was pierced through the middle; our main mast was damaged, and our main stay and many of our main shrouds were cut in sunder.

But I have now dwelt too long upon such a sad discourse, and will move on to other matters.

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The story of the sea-fight with the Portugals was a “sad discourse’ for a couple of reasons.

Partly, of course, it was sad from Edward Terry’s perspective because of the English seamen who were killed or injured.

But it was also sad because the English failed to get their hands on the enormous amount of treasure that the Portuguese carrack carried.

Carracks, remember, were the seventeenth century equivalent of container ships. Portuguese carracks used to make annual voyages from the East Indies, crammed with every imaginable sort of treasure—pearls, silks, spices, jewels, and much, much more.

Terry portrays his little fleet of English ships as innocent merchants unfairly maligned and the victims of an unprovoked attack attacked by the Portuguese. English seamen of this time, however, were not innocent. Terry’s fleet may indeed have been merchants, but they were also privateers. That is, they also indulged in a little state-sponsored piracy when they had the opportunity.

The Portuguese carrack present just such an opportunity.

The Portuguese captain clearly harbored no illusions about the state of things, and he expected the English ships to try to take his ship and the treasure it carried. So he struck first in an attempt to drive them off, and he refused to capitulate at any point in the fighting—even going so far as to burn his own ship rather than let the treasure it carried fall into the hands of English pirates.

There’s another aspect of Terry’s narrative that’s worth noticing.

Thanks to the movies, most people imagine naval battles in the age of sail as vicious affairs lasting a matter of an hour or two. Such battles were certainly vicious—as testified to by Captain Joseph having a cannon ball “beat out of his body his heart and other of his vitals, which lay round about him scattered in his diffused blood” and by Captain Pepwel’s left eye being “beaten all to pieces” and him having a “ragged piece” of “broken shot sticking out of the bone” of his thigh.

But naval battles in the seventeenth century were not quick affairs. A cannon ball could do serious damage to a human body, but it couldn’t sink a ship. By Terry’s account, the Charles fired 375 cannon balls at the carrack, but by the end of the days-long battle, the carrack was still firmly afloat—crippled perhaps, but not in any danger of sinking.

Naval battles of this period were decided by armament, seamanship, and courage, but also buy simple endurance.

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For those who may be interested…

Edwars Terry’s “Sea-Fight with the Portugals” can be found in “A Relation of a Voyage to the Eastern India Observed by Edward Terry, Master of Arts and Student of Christ-Church at Oxford” in Samuel Purchas’ Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes, Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travels by Englishmen and Others, originally published in 1625, reprint published by the University of Glasgow Press in 1905-07, Volume 9, pp. 5-10.

As usual, I have lightly edited and abridged the original seventeenth century text to make it more readable.

[1] This snippet of Latin verse is taken from BkIV-IV (Book four, verse four) of Horace’s Odes. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was a Roman lyric poet who lived in the first century BC.

Here’s the original Latin verse in Horace’s Odes from which Edward Terry quotes (I have bolded the lines quoted in Terry’s narrative):

Gens quae cremato fortis ab Ilio
iactata Tuscis aequoribus sacra
natosque maturosque patres
pertulit Ausonias ad urbis,
duris ut ilex tunsa bipennibus
nigrae feraci frondis in Algido,
per damna, per caedis, ab ipso
ducit opes animumque ferro.

Here is a loose English translation (I have bolded the translated parts that correspond with the Latin lines quoted in Terry’s narrative):

Those people who, even after Troy’s conflagration and though tossed on Tuscan seas,
still valiantly carried their sacred icons, their children, and their elderly fathers to the cities of Ausonia,
are like an oak hew by a hard two-headed axe on Mount Algidus where dark leaves grow thick;
in spite of losses, in spite of bloody deaths, they draw strength and courage from the steel itself.