close opened fire, sending cannonballs in the direction of the Spanish galleon. Any one of the four Queen's vessels carried more firepower than all of Don Pedro's galleys combined, and the Spanish commander was forced to concentrate on delaying the English fleet to give the other Spanish vessels time to prepare. In time however, the resistance faded and Drake gained control of the bay. Over the next month, the fleet sailed up and down the Iberian coast between Lisbon and Cape St Vincent, destroying supplies being sent to Lisbon for the armada. Included in these supplies were a large quantity of barrel staves, according to Drake's personal estimate, enough for over 25,000 tons of provisions and water. Spanish Armada (1588) The following year, Bonaventure, commanded by George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, was part of the English fleet to battle the Spanish Armada. During this battle, she carried 51.5 tons of ordnance, totalling over 8% of her maximum tonnage. When surveyed on 25 September 1588, the only damage listed from the battle was to the sails, which were "shot full of holes". Later Voyages Bonaventure then set out on an early expedition that became a forerunner to the East India Company; according to Sir George C. V. Holmes, Bonaventure—operating under the auspices of the Levant Company—was the first English ship to make a successful voyage to India. Under the command of James Lancaster she left England in April 1591 with two other ships (Penelope and Marchant Royal) and then sailed around Cape Comorin and on to the Malay Peninsula. Having reached Table Bay (1 August 1591), and losing one ship off Cape Correntes on 12 September, the squadron rested and refitted at Zanzibar (February 1592), rounded Cape Comorin the following May, and reached the Malay Peninsula having arrived at Penang in June. Here they remained on the island until September of the same year and pillaged every vessel he encountered. Bonaventure survived the journey back and subsequently returned to England in 1594. In 1626 she was apparently still in service under royal navy captain John Chudleigh (MP for Lostwithiel) in an expedition under Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey who was also the son of John Chidley who was one of Walter Raleighs friends. In Literature This is this ship referred to in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem The Sailor's Bride, or The Bonaventure in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839.