The Battle of Santa Cruz

20^th April 1657

	The English Fleet of General at Sea Robert Blake
	Ship's Name	Guns	Commander	Notes
	George	60		Flagship
	Speaker	60		Flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Stayner
	Bridgewater	44
	Bristol	48
	Centurion	34
	Colchester	24
	Convert	30
	Fairfax	52
	Foresight	50
	Hampshire	46
	Jersey	18
	Langport	62
	Lyme	52
	Maidstone	40
	Nantwich	40
	Newbury	52
	Newcastle	44
	Plymouth	42
	Providence	30
	Swiftsure	60
	Unicorn	56
	Winsby	54
	Worcester	60
	The Spanish Fleet
	Ship's Name	Guns	Commander	Notes
				Galleon
				Galleon
				Galleon
				Galleon
				Galleon
				Galleon

Description of the action (Taken from Clowes The Royal Navy vol II)

At the entrance to the bay stood a strong castle, while round it lay a fringe of smaller forts mounting four or six guns each, and connected with one another by a breastwork manned with musketeers. The Spaniards were aware of the threatened attack; they had strengthened the defences, landed the silver, and kept their men continually on board the ships which were held in readiness to sail. It was intended to make no further attempt to get to Spain that year, and the fleet was provisioned for its return to the Indies. And the dangers from the many heavy guns both in the ships and ashore were intensified by other circumstances.

As Nelson found in later days, the wind at Tenerife is nearly always foul for an attack on the harbour. Either it blows off shore, squally and patchy, involving ships in the risk of being becalmed within range; or there blows dead into the harbour a steady breeze with which it is very easy to get in, but impossible to get out. With such a wind there could be no such thing as partial failure: there could be no drawing back. Either Blake must win a complete victory, or he must be annihilated. Few men would have taken the risk; and the daring necessary to such an action raised Blake's name higher than it had ever stood before.

The Spaniards had ten ships drawn up in a semicircle at the bottom of the bay off the town, and the six greatest galleons were moored in line opposite to the entrance to the harbour. Doubtless Blake saw what the Spaniards did not, that the six masked the fire of the ten.

On the morning of April 20th, with a sea breeze and a flowing tide, Blake stood in to the bay. His plan was simplicity itself; to

destroy the ships and castles before the tide turned, and to trust to the ebb to take him out. Stayner led, with instructions that his division should attack the galleons while Blake dealt with the forts. Accordingly the Speaker, Bridgewater, Providence, Plymouth and the other vessels which were with the vice-admiral bore down on the galleons, and, as they closed with them, came up to the wind and anchored broadside to broadside. To have attempted to anchor by the stern between these ships for the purpose of raking them, would have exposed the attackers in their turn to a raking fire from the ships inshore. As Blake must have foreseen, the fight raged chiefly round the galleons. The whole six were taken; but, as soon as the forts realised that they had passed into English hands, they opened a heavy fire on the prizes. Blake gave orders to burn them. This was done, and the smaller vessels too were set in flames. Then with the ebb the English had already begun to draw out, when a steady land breeze at S.W., an occurrence of the utmost rarity among those islands, sprang up. The English loss was forty killed and one hundred and ten wounded, and the Speaker was rendered unfit for service. How many men the Spaniards lost it is impossible to say. Heaven itself fought for the English, as Blake might have said. The breeze took them all the way back to Cadiz, where they lay till the great seaman received permission to go home.

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