The maritime war with Spain, notwithstanding the cautious temper of the queen, was strenuously waged during the year 1591, and produced some striking indications of the rising spirit of the English navy.

A squadron under lord Thomas Howard, which had been waiting six months at the Azores to intercept the homeward bound ships from Spanish America, was there surprised by a vastly more numerous fleet of the enemy which had been sent out for their convoy. The English admiral got to sea in all haste and made good his retreat, followed by his whole squadron excepting the Revenge, which was entangled in a narrow channel between the port and an island. Sir Richard Grenville her commander, after a vain attempt to break through the Spanish line, determined, with a kind of heroic desperation, to sustain alone the conflict with a whole fleet of fifty-seven sail, and to confront all extremities rather than strike his colors. From three o'clock in the afternoon till day-break he resisted, by almost incredible efforts of valor, all the force which could be brought to bear against him, and fifteen times beat back the boarding parties from his deck. At length, when all his bravest had fallen, and he himself was disabled by many wounds; his powder also being exhausted, his small-arms lost or broken, and his ship a perfect wreck, he proposed to his gallant crew to sink her, that no trophy might remain to the enemy.