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Updated: May 18, 2025
It was in 1588 that there issued from the mouth of the Tagus River the most formidable fleet which up to that time Christendom had ever beheld 130 ships, 8000 seamen, 19,000 soldiers, the flower of the Spanish chivalry. In the Netherlands it was to be joined by Alexander Farnese with 33,000 veteran troops.
The French had gone to Brest, the Spanish first to Toulon, then to Carthagena, and was now proceeding to join the French at Brest. A reinforcement of six sail of the line now fortunately joined the fleet off the Tagus; but at the same time information was received that the Spanish fleet of twenty-seven sail of the line, with fourteen frigates, had passed Cadiz, and could not be far distant.
The noble blue Tagus accompanies you all along these three miles of busy pleasant street, whereof the chief charm, as I thought, was its look of genuine business that appearance of comfort which the cleverest Court-architect never knows how to give.
From the execution of this menace he refrained, however, on being assured that the deed would be avenged by the death of the Spanish prisoner of highest rank then in English hands, and thus the trumpeter escaped. Soon afterwards the fleet set sail from the Tagus, landed, and burned Vigo on their way homeward, and returned to Plymouth about the middle of July.
From thence, appearing off the mouth of the Tagus, he challenged the Spanish admiral, Santa Cruz, to come out and fight; but the Spaniard, obeying his master's orders, allowed Drake to burn and destroy every vessel he could find, rather than hazard an engagement.
The Telemachus came to her moorings in the Tagus, at which for the present we may leave her, on the morning of the day that was to close with Count Redondo's semi-official ball. Lady O'Moy had risen late, taking from one end of the day what she must relinquish to the other, that thus fully rested she might look her best that night. The greater part of the afternoon was devoted to preparation.
Before quitting that post, he had written to Marshal Soult, continually occupied in Andalusia: "I beseech you, Monsieur le Marechal, in the name of a sentiment sacred to all French hearts of the sentiment which inflames us all for the interests and glory of our august master to present at the soonest possible moment a corps of troops upon the left bank of the Tagus, opposite to the mouth of the Zezere.
Then spake he to the dancing waves Of Tagus' holy tide, "Oh, that thou hadst a tongue, to speak My story far and wide! That all might learn, who gaze on thee At evening, night, or morn, Westward to happy Portugal, The sufferings I have borne." Upon Sanlucar's spacious square The brave Gazul was seen, Bedecked in brilliant array Of purple, white, and green.
The curious part of it was that, having extracted the final splinter, they promptly invalided me home. From the day I limped on board the Cumberland transport in the Tagus, leaning on two crutches, I began to mend: and within twelve months as may hereafter be recounted I was back again, hale and hearty, marching with no perceptible limp, on the soil of Spain.
All these ballads have vivid descriptions of scenery. The towers of Baeza, the walls of Granada, the green vegas that spread outside every city, the valley of the Guadalquivir, and the rushing waters of the Tagus, the high cliffs of Cadiz, the Pillars of Hercules, and the blue waves of the Mediterranean make a life-like background to every incident.
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