Whilst thus I lay at Xerez, the Captain of the fort [at Punthal], Don FRANCISCO BUSTAMENTE, was brought in prisoner for his life, because he delivered up the castle; but whether he died for it or not, I cannot tell.
Duke of MACADA,
Duke FERDINANDO GIRON,
Marquis DE ALQUENEZES,
&c.
At my first appearing before the Lords; my sword lying before them on a table, the Duke of MEDINA asked me, “if I knew that weapon.” It was reached to me. I took it and embraced it with mine arms; and, with tears in mine eyes, kissed the pummel of it. He then demanded, “how many men I had killed with that weapon?” I told him, ” If I had killed one, I had not been there now before that princely assembly: for when I had him at my foot, begging for mercy, I gave him life: yet he, then very poorly, did me a mischief.” Then they asked Don JOHN (my prisoner) “what wounds I gave him?” He said” None.” Upon this he was rebuked and told “That if upon our first encounter, he had run me through; it had been a fair and noble triumph: but so to wound me, being in the hands of others, they held it base.”
Then said the Duke of MEDINA to me, “Come on! Englishman! what ship came you in?” I told him “The Convertine.” “Who was your Captain?” “Captain PORTAR.” “What ordnance carried your ship?” I said” Forty pieces.” But the Lords looking all this while on a paper, which they held in their hands; the Duke of MEDINA said, “In their note, there were but thirty-eight.”
In that paper-as after I was informed by my two Irish interpreters-there was set down the number of our ships; their burden, men, munition, victuals, captains, &c., as perfect as we ourselves had them in England.
“Of what strength,†quoth another Duke, “is the fort at Plymouth? “I answered, “Very strong.” What ordnance in it? “Fifty,” said I. “That is not so,” said he, “there are but seventeen.” “How many soldiers are in the fort?” I answered, “Two hundred.” “That is not so,” quoth a Conde, “there are but twenty.”
The Marquis ALQUENEZES asked me “Of what strength the little island was before Plymouth?” I told him, “I knew not.” “Then,” quoth he, “we do.”
“Is Plymouth a walled town?” “Yes, my Lords.” “And a good wall?” “Yes,” said I, “a very good wall.” “True,” says a Duke, “to leap over with a staff!” “And hath the town,” said the Duke of MEDINA, “strong gates?” “Yes.” “But,” quoth he, “there was neither wood nor iron to those gates; but two days before your fleet came away.”
Now before I go any further, let me not forget to tell you, that my two Irish confessors had been here in England the last summer; and when our fleet came from England, they came for Spain: having seen our King at Plymouth when the soldiers there showed their arms, and did then diligently observe what the King did, and how he carried himself.
“How did it chance,” said the Duke GIRON, that “you did not in all this bravery of the fleet, take Cadiz as you took Punthal?” I replied, ” That the Lord General might easily have taken Cadiz, for he had near a thousand scaling ladders to set up, and a thousand men to lose; but he was loth to rob an almshouse, having a better market to go to.” “Cadiz,” I told them, “was held poor, unmanned and unmunitioned.” “What better market?” said MEDINA. I told him, “Genoa or Lisbon.” And as I heard there was instantly, upon this, an army of six thousand soldiers sent to Lisbon.
“Then,” quoth one of the Earls, “when thou meetest me in Plymouth, wilt thou bid me welcome?” I modestly told him, “I could wish they would not too hastily come to Plymouth; for they should find it another manner of place, than as now they slighted it.”
Many other questions were put to me by these great Dons; which so well as GOD did enable me I answered. They speaking in Spanish, and their words interpreted to me by those two Irishmen before spoken of; who also related my several answers to the Lords.
And by the common people, who encompassed me round, many jeerings, mockeries, scorns and bitter jests were to my face thrown upon our nation: which I durst not so much as bite my lip against, but with an enforced patient ear stood still, and let them run on in their revilings.
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