Thursday following, at eight o’clock in the morning, the whole fleet came and anchored on the windward side of the small island where they had been sounding the day before, close to the port; and this was another new anchorage not known hitherto, and having six fathoms over shoals, where a vessel might be easily lost in any bad weather. There the fleet anchored, the weather being favourable, and beyond the reach of our artillery; and the same evening two boats were sent to sound the shore by the river Bayamon as far as the Carivelo stockade, and to examine these shoals in order to see if it were possible to land a force in that quarter; and in one of the boats, which was covered closely with an awning, was Francis Drake, as was subsequently learned.
When Don Pedro Tello, who had charge of the port, saw the pains the enemy was taking, and perceived that an attack was about to be made that very night on the stockade of the Carivelo, by forcing it with boats, so as to land a body of men, he sent to the general to acquaint him with what was going on, and to ask for a reinforcement to resist such an attempt; and the general ordered that in the evening Captain Augustin de Candecho should proceed thither with thirty soldiers, and that at night there should be fifty soldiers under the command of the supercargo, Martin Vomero de Caamaño, with orders that if the enemy’s force should prove superior, he should retreat with his men in boats to the frigates, in which their forces were to be concentrated.
The same Thursday, 23rd, St. Clement’s day, at ten o’clock at night, when it was quite dark, the enemy commenced an attack on the port with twenty-five boats, each carrying fifty or sixty men well armed, with the view of burning the frigates, as was afterwards seen, and they all entered close up to the platform of the Rock [battery], ranging themselves under the fire of the artillery; and from what was learned afterwards, it appears that Francis Drake came in one of them to the mouth of the port to place the rest. Dark as it was, the boats were seen, and instantly the guns from the Rock and from the fort of Sta. Helena began to play as briskly as possible. Most of the boats attacked the Capitana, the Texeda frigate, setting fire to her at the bow, and throwing into her a quantity of fire-pots and shells, while ours succeeded in extinguishing the flames before they had done any damage, the fight being carried on with cannon, musquetry, and stones.