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The Last Fight of the Revenge

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Having not grown up in the U.K. I was not aware that legions of British school kids had to memorize Tennyson's famous poem "The Revenge", which this book is all about. Coming at a time when Elizabethan England was flexing its military muscles through its large and powerful Navy, and just prior to Captain John Smith's successful establishment of the first American colony, the exploits of Sir Richard Grenville was important from both a political and business perspective as anxious investors paced nervously back in London while waiting for news of Grenville's journeys. Strange as it appears to our 21'st century sensibilities, with our great distaste for modern piracy, ALL of the major naval powers in those days spent 50% of their time plundering any booty they could steal and 50% escorting supply ships as a protector against the same plans of enemy nations. Speaking of Captain John Smith, his Captain on the trip to America was already a very well known and successful privateer, who had repaid his investors handsomely back in England.

Grenville's last battle has been critiqued by both modern and contemporary voices and they are of two divergent flavors. There are those who praised him up to the clouds where only the most heroic live on forever, with the likes of King Arthur and his mighty Knights. There are those who consider Grenville's fight to the death as nothing more than an overwrought and epic tantrum fed by vanity and an ego as large as his ship. Nothing good was won for England at the loss of one of the finest ships to sail for King or Queen and country. While it was true that many of the shipmates were inexperienced land lubbers who were serving in the navy out of desperation, debt or by force and could easily be replaced, the loss of so many sailors was a hard blow to the fleet and from the evidence, senseless and in vain.

Another portion of this drama is entirely dedicated to the sailor's worst enemy: the weather. It would seem that after the crucial battle that area of the Atlantic underwent hurricane like storms almost non-stop for 2 weeks. Many ships went down on both the Spanish and English sides. We learn as well that some of the English fleet of ships that had stayed for at least a year in the Caribbean awaiting either good weather or orders to return came back to the North Atlantic with ships, that unbeknownst to the Navy had begun to rot while staying in the very warm waters of the Caribbean. Enter the Atlantic gales and before you know it, these ships started to literally fall apart and fill with water as the seams burst. All in all, the book relates folly upon folly as two very large Navy's vied for control of the Islands of the Azores.

The Spanish were in awe of the size of the English ordnance, having never seen such magnificent and huge canon. The English learned that some of the Spanish ships dwarfed their best boats both in tallness and swiftness under sail. The book outlines the two differing battle styles. While the English had the more powerful guns and at close range they could easily sink the best the Spanish had, Grenville seems to have been oblivious to the fact that his one ship was surrounded on all sides by an entire armada and that no other British ship was going to come to his aid. That his ship was to be lost was a foregone conclusion although the battle raged for more than a day, with two ships smashed into it on both sides and unending canon and musket blasts ringing in the ears and choking their lungs.

It is hard to know whether the British Royal Navy learned much from the Grenville debacle. Poets and historians took up the cause and made Grenville's mad and irrational fight to the death a prototype of bravery under fire, when the facts really were one of utter madness. Earle has distilled hundreds of years of distorted historical accounts and largely from Spanish records has been able to recreate the essence of the last battle. One can only say "what a waste" such a battle was. A very interesting book and recommended for those who enjoy naval historical stories.