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Chang Hi, on arrival, at once left his boats, and set to work intrenching on the island of Hirado. He also kept his war-ships at anchor at a cable's length from each other, so as to avoid the destructive action of wind and waves. When the great typhoon arose in the 8th moon, the galleons of Fan and Li were all smashed; only Chang Hi's escaped uninjured.

On her ramparts Columbus dreamed, and in her seas he fought with the Tunisian galleys before he set sail westward for El Dorado. And here Andrea Doria beat the Turks and blockaded his own city and set her free; and S. Catherine Adorni, weary of the ways of the world, watched the galleons come out of the west, and prayed to God, and saw the wind over the sea.

The strength, too, of the Emperor had been lessened by ill-timed detachments to Italy and the Netherlands; while Spain, weakened by the loss of the Manilla galleons, and engaged in a serious war in the Netherlands, could afford him little support.

It was here that the united flags of Holland and England triumphed over the pride of Spain and France; when the burning timbers of exploded war-ships soared above the tops of the Gallegan hills, and blazing galleons sank with their treasure chests whilst drifting in the direction of Sampayo.

Huddled together by the wind and the deadly English fire, their sails torn, their masts shot away, the crowded galleons had become mere slaughter-houses. Four thousand men had fallen, and bravely as the seamen fought, they were cowed by the terrible butchery. Medina himself was in despair. "We are lost, Señor Oquenda," he cried to his bravest captain; "what are we to do?"

She, too, was thoroughly burned to her hulk; but Admiral Harry was killed. By this time, although it was early of an April afternoon, and heavy clouds of smoke, enveloping the combatants pent together in so small a space, seemed to make an atmosphere of midnight, as the flames of the burning galleons died away.

He had always thought it strange that the great adventurer had left no trace or sign of his sojourn there; still stranger that he should have overlooked the presence of gold, known even to the Indians themselves, and have lost a discovery far beyond his wildest dreams and a treasure to which the cargoes of those Philippine galleons he had more or less successfully intercepted were trifles.

If the two fleets sailed together, they steered south-west from the Canaries to about the latitude of Deseada, 15' 30", and then catching the Trade winds continued due west, rarely changing a sail until Deseada or one of the other West Indian islands was sighted. From Deseada the galleons steered an easy course to Cape de la Vela, and thence to Cartagena.

During the course of this year the English merchants sustained no considerable losses by sea: the cruisers were judiciously stationed, and the trade was regularly supplied with convoys. In the West Indies, commodore Wager destroyed the admiral of the galleons, and took the rear-admiral on the coast of Carthagena.

Spain was an unwilling contributor to the prosperity of the Dutch colonists, by the large profits which the latter gained from the capture of Spanish galleons; but in 1629 the charter creating the order of Patroons laid the foundation for abuses and discontent which afflicted the settlers for full thirty years.