y Shovel had missed finding the treasure fleet at
sea, but a lucky chance favored another sterling English commander, Sir
George Rooke. He was homeward bound from a disastrous attempt to take
Cadiz, in which affair the Duke of Ormond had led the troops engaged.
One of his ships, the _Pembroke_, was detached from the fleet and while
calling at Lagos Bay for water, the chaplain became friendly with a
gentleman of the port who passed him word that the galleons and the
French fleet were safe at Vigo. This talkative informant proved to be
a messenger from Lisbon, sent by the German minister with dispatches
for the treasure fleet which he had first sought in vain at Cadiz.

The chaplain carried the rare tidings to Captain Hardy of the
_Pembroke_ who instantly made sail to find Sir George Rooke and the
English fleet, which was jogging along toward England. The admiral was
"extream glad," says an old account, and "imparted the same immediately
to the Dutch Admiral, declaring it his opinion that they should go
directly to Vigo." The Dutchman and his tars joyfully agreed, and
Dalrymple, in his memoirs, relates that "at the sound of treasure from
the South Seas, dejection and animosity ceased, and those who a few
days before would not speak when they met, now embraced and felicitated
each other, etc. All the difficulties that had appeared to be
mountainous at Cadiz, dwindled into mole-hills at Vigo.

"The gunners agreed that their bombs would reach the town and the
shipping; the engineers, that lodgments and works could easily be made;
the soldiers, that there was no danger in landing; the seamen that the
passage of the Narrows could easily be forced, notwithstanding all the
defenses and obstructions; and the pilots, that the depth of water was
everywhere sufficient, and the anchorage safe. Rooke's gout incommoded
him no longer; he went from ship to ship, even in the night time, and
became civil,--and the Duke of Ormond, with his father's generosity,
his brother's and his own, forgot all that was past."

These were the sentiments of men who had no more rations left aboard
ship than two biscuits per day, whose fleet was leaky, battered, and
unseaworthy after the hard fighting at Cadiz, and who were going to
attack a powerful array of French vessels, protected by numerous forts
and obstructions, and supported by the seventeen galleons which in
armament and crews were as formidable as men-of-war. At a council of
flag officer