The Probert Encyclopaedia of Warfare

RAID ON CADIZ

The Raid on Cadiz took place during the English-Spanish Naval War. Commissioned by queen Elizabeth I to reconnoitre Spanish ports, Francis Drake made straight for Cadiz, the head-quarters of the Spanish fleet. With characteristic boldness he left twenty of his twenty-four ships outside, and entered the harbour with only four vessels. But Drake's apparent rashness was grounded on confidence. He knew that the heavily armed ships which Henry VIII had laid down, and which had been improved since, gave the English an immense advantage over the Spanish galleys. These galleys depended on their power to ram and sink their opponent with their steel- shod beaks; they were no match against Drake's broadsides. As the galleys dashed towards him he opened fire. A dreadful execution was done; the naked galley-slaves were mown down in hundreds, and it was impossible for the survivors to row towards the English ships. The victors of Lepanto were beaten by a weapon against which they were powerless; the slaughter at Cadiz in 1587 closed the era of galley warfare for ever.
Research Raid on Cadiz