[1]
3. During the winter Blake continued to blockade Cadiz: in spring he learnt
that the Plate fleet from Peru had sought an asylum in the harbour of Santa
Cruz, in the Island of Teneriffe. There the merchantmen, ten in number,
were moored close to the shore, in the form of a crescent; while the six
galleons in their front formed a parallel line at anchor in deeper water.
The entrance of the bay was commanded by the guns of the castle; seven
batteries erected at intervals along the beach protected the rest of the
harbour; and these were connected with each other by covered ways lined
with musketry. So confident was the governor when he surveyed these
preparations, that, in the pride of his heart, he desired a Dutch
[Footnote 1: Clarendon Papers, iii. 322, 338, 357. Merc. Pol. 39. Thurloe,
vi. 33, 182, 315, 425, 560, 829. Clarendon assures us that Sexby was an
illiterate person, which is a sufficient proof that he was not the real
author of the tract, though he acknowledged it for his own in the Tower,
probably to deceive the protector. The writer, whoever he was, kept his
secret, at least at first; for Clarendon writes to Secretary Nicholas, that
he cannot imagine who could write it.--Clar. Papers, iii. 343. By most
historians it has been attributed to Captain Titus; nor shall we think this
improbable, if we recollect that Titus was, in Holland, constantly in the
company of Sexby, till the departure of the latter for England.
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