Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1883 — Ships of the Spanish Armada. [ARTICLE]

Ships of the Spanish Armada.

Several ships'belonging to the Spanish Armada were driven by storm-on the west coast of Ireland and wrecked. It has been ascertained that two of these vessels are lying off the coast of Donegal wrecked, one of them at Mullaghderg, in # Rosas, and the other, some miles further north. About the end of th'e last century the country people raised some brass cannon belonging to these vessels, and they were broken np and sold. This happened at a very low tide, and when a strong northerly wind blew off the sand. Their operations were destroyed by a return of the tide and a change of wind. The cannon secured were marked with the royal arms of Spain. Mr. Heard of the Coast Guard, fn 1852 saw these ships on the occasion of a very low tide and the shifting of the sand in which they are imbedded. He distinctly saw the hulls of these vessels from the forecastle to the stem. The forecastle was high, as seen in the paintings of ships in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and he saw a number of cannon lying in and about the forecastle. He succeeded in raising the anchor, which he deposited in the British Museum. The gravel and sand about it appeared bound up with the iron in a solid mass. By means of the diving-bed, or helmet, the inside of these vessels might be got at and their contents secured, and the contents of cabin and hold would be of the greatest interest. —Bear Admiral O. H. Preble, in The United Service.