In this situation, Sir Richard proposed to the ship's company, to trust to the mercy of God, not to that of the Spaniards, and to destroy the ship with themselves, rather than yield to the enemy.
The master gunner, and many of the seamen, agreed to this desperate resolution; but others opposed it and obliged Greenville to surrender himself prisoner.

He died a few days after; and his last words were, "Here die I, Richard Greenville, with a joyful and quiet mind; for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honor; my soul willingly departing from this body, leaving behind the lasting fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do." The Spaniards lost in this sharp, though unequal action, four ships, and about a thousand men; and Greenville's vessel perished soon after, with two hundred Spaniards in her.

Hacklyt's Voyages, vol.iii.part 2, p.169.Camden, p.

565.] [Footnote 34: NOTE HH, p.294.It is usual for the speaker to disqualify himself for the office; but the reasons employed by this speaker are so singular that they may be worth transcribing.

"My estate," said he, "is nothing correspondent for the maintenance of this dignity, for my father dying left me a younger brother, and nothing to me but my bare annuity.
Then growing to man's estate, and some small practice of the law, I took a wife, by whom I have had many children; the keeping of us all being a great impoverishing to my estate, and the daily living of us all nothing but my daily industry.