bles, 'my sword lying before them on the table. It was
reached to me; I tooke it and embraced it in mine arms, and with teares
in my eyes kist the Pommel of it. He [the Duke of Medina] then demanded
how many men I had kild with that Weapon? I told him, if I had kild one,
I had not bene there now before that Princely Assembly, for when I had
him at my foote, begging for mercy, I gave him Life, yet he then very
poorely did me a mischiefe. Then they asked Don John (my Prisoner) what
Woundes I gave him; He sayd, None: Upon this he was rebuked and told,
that if upon our first Encounter, he had run me through, it had been a
faire and Noble Triumph; but so to wound me, being in the hands of
others, they held it Base.' Peake was now questioned as to the name of
his ship, the Captain, and the number of cannon on board. 'I sayd, forty
Peices. But the Lords, looking all this while on a Paper which they held
in their hands, Duke Medyna sayd, In their note there was but
thirty-eight.' He afterwards found that in that paper they had every
detail about 'our Shippes, their Burden, Men ... as perfect as wee
ourselves had them in England. Of what strength (quoth another Duke) is
the Fort of Plymouth? I answered, very Strong. What Ordnance in it?
Fifty, sayd I. That is not so, sayd he, there is but seuenteene. How
many Soldiers are in the Fort? I answered, Two hundred: That is not so
(quoth a Conde), there is but twenty.

'Marquesse Alquenezes asked me, of what strength the little Island was
before Plymouth. I told him, I know not; Then (quoth he), wee doe.

'Is Plymouth a Walled Towne? Yes, my Lords. And a good Wall? Yes, say I,
a very good Wall: True, sayd a Duke, to leape ouer with a Staffe. And
hath the Towne, sayd the Duke of Medyna, strong Gates? Yes. But, quoth
he, there were neither Wood nor Iron to those Gates, but two dayes
before your Fleete came away.' Among many other questions, they asked
why 'in all this Brauery of the Fleete the English had not taken Cales
as well as Puntal?' To which Peeke, who must have often asked this
question of himself, replied boldly that 'the Lord Generall ... was
loath to rob an Almeshouse, hauing a better Market to goe to. Cales, I
told them, was held Poore, unmanned, unmunitioned. What better market?
sayd Medyna. I told him Genoa or Lisbon.'

All around stood the 'Common People,' who made the ordeal still harder
by 'many jeerings, mockings, scornes, and bitter jests' against the
English, 'whic