ge with their frigates, which often towed them clear one
of another. Thus they lay four or five hours pelting and beating one
another with their ordnance, while the Portuguese frigates plied the
English and Dutch with their small shot as fast as they could, the
_Royal James_ being forced to keep the barge ahead to pull the ship's
head to and fro. Thus they fought on till night, several men being
killed, the Dutch having also lost their chief commander. For several
days the fight lasted. On one occasion the _James_ singled out a
Portuguese lying by her side with foresail and fore-topsail aback, so
near that a man might quoit a biscuit into her, and fired not less than
five hundred shots before she got clear. Thus the small squadron kept
the enemy at bay, till scarcely enough powder and shot remained on board
the _Royal James_ for another day's fight. The English lost 29 officers
and men, and the Dutch about the same number. The Portuguese, whose
fleet carried 232 guns and 2100 men, had 481 killed.

Another fight in the same locality, in the year 1625, between three
English East India ships, the _Lion_, _Dolphin_, and _Palsgrave_, and
eighteen or twenty Portuguese frigates, under the command of Don Rufero,
ended more disastrously. The _Lion_, being boarded by both the admiral
and vice-admiral, was dreadfully shattered, and torn in pieces in the
stem, in consequence of the poop blowing up with fifty or sixty of the
enemy on it. The Portuguese then left her, expecting that she would
sink or burn down to the water's edge, and pursued the _Palsgrave_ and
_Dolphin_, which, however, effected their escape. The brave crew of the
_Lion_, having put out the fire, succeeded in patching her up
sufficiently to reach Ormuz, where they received every assistance they
required from the Sultan. They were in hopes of being relieved by other
English ships, when Rufero with his frigates came rowing towards them.
The _Lion_ lay in such a position that she could only bring her
chase-pieces to bear upon the enemy. So well were they served that they
sank two of the Portuguese frigates before they could board her, and two
more after they were by her side. So closely were the English then
pressed by Rufero that, unable to open a port in the ship, they were
forced to shoot away ports and all. In addition to this, the Portuguese
so completely surrounded her by fire-works, that all her masts and sails
caught fire, as well as her upper-dec