ABSTRACT
The scene was a depressingly familiar one: the survivors of a defeated expeditionary force limping home, ships leaking, short of food, clothes in rags, morale shattered, with no facilities to receive them. At Plymouth sailors stole soldiers’ weapons to pawn for food, and a great storm drove sixteen ships from their anchorage on to the shore, dismasting the Nonsuch. Of the 8,000 men Buckingham had taken to Re only 3,000 returned, and of the survivors, 1,600 had to be carried ashore too sick or wounded to walk. 1
