HAWKINS AND DRAKE.
BY THE REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D.,
_Massachusetts Historical Society._
THE English voyagers had no mind to content themselves with adventure
in those more rugged regions to which the Cabots had introduced them.
Whether in peace or war, their relations with Spain were growing closer
and closer all through the sixteenth century. Sebastian Cabot, in fact,
soon passed into the service of the Spanish Crown. Indeed, if we had no
other memorial of the intimacy between English and Spanish navigators,
we could still trace it in our language, which has derived many of its
maritime words from Spanish originals. The seamen of England found
their way everywhere, and soon acquainted themselves with the coasts
of the West India Islands and the Spanish main. There exists, indeed,
in the English archives a letter written as early as 1518 by the
Treasurer-General of the West Indies to Queen Katherine, the unhappy
wife of Henry VIII., in which he describes to her the peculiarities
of his island home. He sends to her a cloak of feathers such as were
worn by native princesses. From that time forward, allusions to the new
discoveries appear in English literature and in the history of English
trade.[135] Still, it would be fair to say, that, for thirty years
after the discovery of America, that continent attracted as little
attention in England as the discovery of the Antarctic continent, forty
years ago, has attracted in America up to this time.
It belongs to another chapter to trace the gradual steps by which
the English fisheries developed England’s knowledge of America. The
instincts of trade led men farther south, in a series of voyages which
will be briefly traced in this chapter. One of the earliest of them,
which may be taken as typical, is that of William Hawkins, of Plymouth.
Not content with the short voyages commonly made to the known coasts of
Europe, Hawkins “armed out a tall and goodly ship of his own,” in which
he made three voyages to Brazil, and skirted, after the fashion of the
time, the African coast. He carried thither negroes whom he had taken
on the coast of Guinea. He deserves the credit, therefore, such as it
is, of beginning that African slave-trade in which England was engaged
for nearly three centuries.
The second of these voyages seems to have been made as early as 1530.
He brought to England, from the coast of Brazil, a savage king, whose
ornaments, apparel, behavior, and gestures were very strange to the
English king and his nobility. These three voyages were so successful,
that a number of Southampton merchants followed them up, at least as
late as 1540.
It was, however, William Hawkins’s son John who was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth for his success in the slave-trade, and in acknowledgment of
the wealth which his voyages brought into England. Engaging several
of his friends, some of whom were noblemen, in the adventure, John
Hawkins sailed with a fleet of three ships and one hundred men for the
coast of Guinea, in October, 1562. He took—partly by the sword, and
partly by other means—three hundred or more negroes, whom he carried
to San Domingo, then called Hispaniola, and sold profitably. In his own
ships he brought home hides, ginger, sugar, and some pearls. He sent
two other ships with hides and other commodities to Spain. These were
seized by the Spanish Government, and it is curious that Hawkins should
not have known that they would be. His ignorance seems to show that his
adventure was substantially a novelty in that time. He himself arrived
in England again in September, 1563. Notwithstanding the loss of half
his profits in Spain, the voyage brought much gain to himself and the
other adventurers.
Thus encouraged, Hawkins sailed again, the next year, with four ships,
of which the largest was the “Jesus,” of Lubec, of seven hundred tons;
the smallest was the “Swallow,” of only thirty tons. He had a hundred
and seventy men; and, as in all such voyages, the ships were armed.
Passing down the coast of Guinea, they spent December and January in
picking up their wretched freight, and lost by sickness and in fights
with the negroes many of their men. On the 29th of January, 1565, they
had taken in their living cargo, and then they crossed to the West
Indies. On the voyage they were becalmed for twenty-one days. But they
arrived at the Island of Dominica, then in possession of savages, on
the 9th of March. From that period till the 31st of May, they were
trading on the Spanish coasts, and then returned to England, touching
at various points in the West Indies. They passed along the whole coast
of Florida, and they are the first Englishmen who give us in detail any
account of Florida.[136]
It was Hawkins’s great good fortune to come to the relief of the
struggling colony of Laudonnière, then in the second year of its
wretched history. From his narrative we learn that the settlers had
made twenty hogsheads of wine in a single summer from the native
grapes, which is perhaps more than has been done there since in the
same period of time.[137] The wretched colonists owed everything to
the kindness of Hawkins. He left them a vessel in which to return to
France; and they had made all their preparations so to do, when they
were relieved—for their ultimate destruction, as it proved—by the
arrival of a squadron under Ribault.[138] Hawkins returned to England
after a voyage sufficiently prosperous, which had lasted eleven months.
He had lost twenty persons in all; but he had brought home gold,
silver, pearls, and other jewels in great store.
[Illustration: John Hawkins
[This cut follows a photograph of the bas-relief which is given in the
Hakluyt Society’s edition of the _Hawkins Voyages_. Another engraving
of it is given in _Harper’s Magazine_, January, 1883, p. 221.—ED.]]
His account of Florida is much more careful than what he gives of any
of the West India Islands. From his own words it is clear that he
thought it might be of use to England, and that he wanted to draw
attention to it as a place open to colonization. Like so many other
explorers, from Ponce de Leon down to our own times, he was surprised
that a country, which is so attractive to the eye, should be left so
nearly without inhabitants. It seems to have been more densely peopled
when Ponce de Leon landed there in 1513 than it was at the beginning of
this century. To such interest or enthusiasm of Hawkins do we owe an
account of Florida, in its native condition, more full than we have of
any other of our States, excepting New Mexico, at a period so early in
our history.
Besides tobacco, he specifies the abundance of sorrel,—which grew as
abundantly as grass,—of maize, of mill, and of grapes, which “taste
much like our English grapes.” He describes the community building
of the southern tribes, as made “like a great barne, in strength not
inferiour to ours,” with stanchions and rafters of whole trees, and
covered with palmetto leaves. There was one small room for the king and
queen, but no other subdivisions. In the midst of the great hall a fire
was kept all night. The houses, indeed, were only used at night.
In a country of such a climate and soil, with “marvellous store of
deer and divers other beasts, and fowl and fish sufficient,” Hawkins
naturally thought that “a man might live,” as he says quaintly. Maize,
he says, “maketh good savory bread, and cakes as fine as flower.”
The first account to be found in English literature of the “hasty
pudding” of the American larder, the “mush” of the Pennsylvanians,[139]
is in Hawkins’s narrative. “It maketh good meal, beaten, and sodden
with water, and eateth like pap wherewith we feed children.” The
Frenchmen, fond by nature of soup, had made another use of it, not
wholly forgotten at this day. “It maketh also good beverage, sodden
in water and nourishable; which the Frenchmen did use to drink of in
the morning, and it assuaged their thirst so that they had no need to
drink all the day after.” It was, he says, because the French had been
too lazy to plant maize for themselves that their colony came to such
wretched destitution. To obtain maize, they had made war against the
so-called savages who had raised it, and this aggression had naturally
reacted against them.
It is interesting to observe that in all these early narratives of
the slave-trade there is no intimation that it involved cruelty or
any form of wrong. Hawkins sailed in the ship “Jesus,” with faith as
sincere as if he had sailed on a crusade. His sailing orders to his
four ships close with words which remind one of Cromwell: “Serve God
daily; love one another; preserve your victuals; beware of fire; and
keep good company.” By “serve God,” it is meant that the ship’s company
shall join in religious services morning and evening; and this these
slave-traders regularly did. In one of their incursions on the Guinea
coast they were almost destroyed by the native negroes, as they well
deserved to be. Hawkins narrates the adventure with this comment: “God,
who worketh all things for the best, would not have it so, and by him
we escaped without danger. His name be praised for it!” And again, when
they were nearly starved, becalmed in mid-ocean: “Almighty God, who
never suffereth his elect to perish, sent us the ordinary breeze.”[140]
The success of the second voyage was such that a coat-of-arms was
granted to Hawkins. Translated from the jargon of heraldry, the grant
means that he might bear on his black shield a golden lion walking over
the waves. Above the lion were three golden coins. For a crest he was
to have a figure of half a Moor, “bound, and a captive,” with golden
amulets on his arms and ears. No disgrace attached to the capturing of
Africans and selling them for money. That the Heralds’ Office might
give to the transaction the sanctions of Christianity, it directed
Hawkins, five years after, to add in one corner of the shield the
pilgrim’s scallop-shell in gold, between two palmer’s staves, as if to
intimate that the African slave-trade was the true crusade of the reign
of Elizabeth.
So successful was this expedition, that Hawkins started on a third,
with five ships, in October, 1567. He commanded his old ship, the
“Jesus,” and Francis Drake, afterward so celebrated, commanded the
“Judith,” a little vessel of fifty tons. They took four or five hundred
negroes, and crossed to Dominica again, but were more than seven
weeks on the passage. As before, they passed along the Spanish main,
where they found the Spaniards had been cautioned against them. They
absolutely stormed the town of Rio de la Hacha before they could obtain
permission to trade. In all cases, although the Spanish officers had
been instructed to oppose their trade, they found that negroes were
so much in demand that the planters dealt with them eagerly. After a
repulse at Cartagena, they crossed the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida,
but were finally compelled, by two severe tempests, to run to San
Juan d’ Ulua, the port of Mexico, for repairs and supplies. Here they
claimed the privileges of allies of King Philip, and were at first
well enough received. Hawkins takes to himself credit that he did not
seize twelve ships which he found there, with, £200,000 of silver on
board. The local officers sent to the City of Mexico, about two hundred
miles inland, for instructions. The next day a fleet from Spain, of
twelve ships, arrived in the offing. Hawkins, fearing the anger of his
Queen, he says, let them come into harbor, having made a compact with
the Government that neither side should make war against the other.
The fleet entered, and for three days all was amity and courtesy. But
on the fourth day, from the shore and from the ships, the five English
vessels were attacked furiously, and in that little harbor a naval
action ensued, of which the result was the flight of the “Minion” and
the “Judith” alone, and the capture or destruction of the other English
vessels. So crowded was the “Minion,” that a hundred of the fugitives
preferred to land, rather than to tempt the perils of the sea in her.
They fell into the hands of the Inquisition, and their sufferings were
horrible. The others, after a long and stormy passage, arrived in
England on the 25th of January, 1568/69.
It is a real misfortune for our early history that no reliance can be
placed on the fragmentary stories of the few survivors who were left
by Hawkins on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. One or two there were
who, after years of captivity, told their wretched story at home. But
it is so disfigured by every form of lie, that the most ingenious
reconstructer of history fails to distil from it even a drop of the
truth. The routes which they pursued cannot be traced, the etymology
of geography gains nothing from their nomenclature, and, in a word,
the whole story has to be consigned to the realm of fable.[141] Such a
narrative as these men might have told would be our best guide for what
has been well called by Mr. Haven “the mythical century” of American
history.
In this voyage of Hawkins the Earls of Pembroke and of Leicester were
among the adventurers.
If Hawkins’s account of the perfidy of the Spaniards at San Juan d’Ulua
be true,—and it has never been contradicted,—the Spanish Crown that
day brought down a storm of misery and rapine from which it never
fairly recovered. The accursed doctrine of the Inquisition, that no
faith was to be kept with heretics, proved a dangerous doctrine for
Spain when the heretics were such men as Hawkins, Cavendish, and Drake.
On that day Francis Drake learned his lesson of Spanish treachery; and
he learned it so well that he determined on his revenge. That revenge
he took so thoroughly, that for more than a hundred years he is spoken
of in all Spanish annals as “The Dragon.”[142]
Hawkins gives no account of Drake’s special service in the
“Judith,”—the smallest vessel in the unfortunate squadron, and one of
the two which returned to England; nor has Drake himself left any which
has been discovered; nor have his biographers. Clearly his ill-fortune
did not check his eagerness for attack; and from that time forward
Spain had at least one determined enemy in England.
[Illustration]
He had made two voyages to the West Indies in 1570 and in 1571, of
which little is known. For a fifth voyage, which he calls the third of
importance, he fitted out a little squadron of only two vessels, the
“Pasha” and the “Swan,” and sailed in 1572, with no pretence of trade,
simply to attack and ravage the Spanish main. He specially assigns
as his motive for this enterprise his desire to inflict vengeance
for injuries done him at Rio de Hacha in 1565 and in 1566, and, in
particular, that he might retaliate on Henriques, Viceroy of Mexico,
for his treachery at San Juan d’ Ulua. It seems that he had vainly
sought amends at the Court of Spain, and that the Queen’s diplomacy
had been equally ineffective. The little squadron, enlarged by a third
vessel which joined them after sailing, attacked Nombre de Dios, then
the granary of the West Indies, but with small success. They then
insulted the port of Cartagena, and afterward, having made an alliance
with the Cimaronnes, since and now known as Maroons,—a tribe of
savages and self-freed Africans,—they marched across the isthmus,
and Drake obtained his first sight of that Pacific Ocean which he was
afterward to explore. “Vehemently transported with desire to navigate
that sea, he fell upon his knees and implored the divine assistance
that he might at some time sail thither and make a perfect discovery of
the same.” The place from which Drake saw it was probably near the spot
where Balboa “thanked God for that great discovery,” and that he had
been first of Christian men to behold that sea. His discovery was made
in 1513, sixty years before Drake renewed it.[143]
The narrative which we cite is in the words of the historian Camden.
Camden tells us also that Drake had “gotten together a pretty sum of
money” in this expedition, and, satisfied for the moment, he remained
in England. He engaged himself in assisting, at sea, in the reduction
of Ireland. But he had by no means done with the Spaniards, and at the
end of 1577, sailing on the 15th of November, he left Plymouth on the
celebrated voyage in which he was to sail round the world. The squadron
consisted of the “Pelican,” of one hundred tons, the “Elizabeth,” of
eighty, the “Swan,” of fifty, and the “Marigold” and “Christopher,”
of thirty and of fifteen tons. Of these vessels the “Pelican” was the
only one which completed the great adventure. Her armament was twenty
guns of brass and iron. She had others in her hold. So well had Drake
profited by earlier expeditions, that his equipment was complete, and
even luxurious. He carried pinnaces in parts, to be put together when
needed. He had “expert musicians, rich furniture, all the vessels for
the table, yea, many even of the cook-room, being of pure silver.”
In every detail he was prepared to show the magnificence and the
civilization of his own country.
The crew were shipped and the expedition sailed, with the pretence
of a voyage to Egypt. This was to blind the Spanish envoys, in
concealment of the real object of the expedition, as similar
expeditions since have been veiled. But it is clear enough that the
partners in the enterprise and the men they shipped knew very well
whither they were faring.
After one rebuff, the fleet finally left England on the 13th of
December, 1577, and, with occasional pauses to refit at the Cape de
Verde and at different points not frequented by the Portuguese or
Spaniards on the Brazilian coast and the coast south of Brazil, they
arrived at Port St. Julian on the 19th of June, in the beginning of the
southern winter. Here they spent two months, not sailing again until
the 17th of August, when they essayed the passage of the Straits of
Magellan. While at Port St. Julian Drake found, or professed to find,
evidences of the treachery of Doughty, one of the gentlemen in whom at
first he had most confided. Doughty was tried before a jury of twelve,
found guilty, and beheaded. They all remembered that Magellan had had a
similar experience in the same harbor fifty-seven years before. Indeed
they found the gibbet on which, as they supposed, John of Cartagena had
been hanged by Magellan, with his mouldering bones below. The Spaniards
said that Drake himself acted as Doughty’s executioner. Fletcher says,
“he who acted in the room of provost marshal.” It is hard to see how
the Spaniards should know.
After a series of stormy adventures, they found themselves safe in the
Pacific on the 28th of October. After really passing the straits, they
had been driven far south by tempests, and on the extreme point of
Tierra del Fuego Drake had landed. On a grassy point he fell upon the
ground at length, and extended his arms as widely as possible, as if
to grasp the southern end of the hemisphere,—in memory, perhaps, of
Cæsar’s taking possession of England. The “Pelican” was the only vessel
now under his command. The others had either been lost or had deserted
him; and though he sought for his consorts all the way on his voyage
northward, he sought in vain.
From Drake’s own pen we have no narrative of this remarkable voyage.
His chaplain, Fletcher,[144] gives a good account of Patagonia and
of the natives, from the observations made in Port St. Julian and in
their after experiences as they passed the straits. The Englishmen
corrected at once the Spanish fable regarding the marvellous height
of these men. They corrected errors which they supposed the Spaniards
had intentionally published in the charts. It is supposed that Drake
sighted the Falkland Islands, which had been discovered by Davis a
few years before. Drake gave the name of Elizabeth Islands, or the
Elizabethides, to the whole group of Tierra del Fuego and its neighbors.
In their voyage north they touched for supplies at a great island,
which the Spaniards called Mucho; and afterward at Valparaiso, where
they plundered a great ship called the “Captain of the South,” which
they found at anchor there. Fletcher describes all such plunder with a
clumsy raillery, as if a Spaniard’s plunder were always fair game. To
Drake it was indeed repayment for San Juan d’ Ulua. Farther north, they
entered the bay of “Cyppo;” and in another bay, still farther north,
they set up the pinnace which they had in parts on board their vessel.
In this pinnace Drake sailed south a day to look for his consorts; but
he was driven back by adverse winds. After a stay of a month here,
which added nothing to our knowledge of the geography of the country,
they sailed again. “Cyppo” is probably the Copiapo of to-day.
[Illustration: ZALTIERI’S MAP, 1566.
This sketch follows a drawing by Kohl in his manuscript in the American
Antiquarian Society’s Library. This is the key:—
1. Mare Septentrionale.
2. Terra incognita.
3. Quivira prov.
4. C. Nevada.
5. Tigna fl.
6. R. Tontonteac.
7. Y. delle Perle.
8. Y. di Cedri.
9. Giapan.
10. Mare di Mangi.
11. Chinan Golfo.
12. Parte di Asia.]
Pausing for plunder, or for water, or fresh provisions, from time
to time, they ran in, on the 7th of February, to the port of Arica,
where they spoiled the vessels they found, generally confining their
plunder to silver, gold, and jewels, and such stores as they needed
for immediate use. At Callao they found no news of their comrades; but
they did find news from Europe,—the death of the kings of Portugal,
of France, of Morocco, and of Fez, and of the Pope of Rome. From one
vessel they took fifteen hundred bars of silver, and learning that a
treasure-ship had sailed a fortnight before, went rapidly in pursuit of
her.
They overtook her on the 1st of March, and captured her. As part of
her cargo, she had on board “a certain quantity of jewels and precious
stones,” thirteen chests of silver reals, eighty pounds weight of
gold, twenty-six tons of uncoined silver, two very fair gilt silver
drinking-bowls, “and the like trifles,—valued in all about three
hundred and sixty thousand pezoes,”—as Fletcher says in his clumsy
pleasantry. The ships lay together six days, then Drake “gave the
master a little linen and the like for his commodities,” and let him
and his ship go. Her name, long remembered, was the “Cacafuego.” The
Spanish Government estimated the loss at a million and a half of
ducats. A ducat was about two dollars.
Drake now determined to give up the risk of returning by the way he
came, and to go home by the north or by crossing the Pacific. He
abandoned the hope of joining his consorts, who had, though he did not
know it, no thought of joining him. On the 16th of March he touched
at the Island of Caines, where he experienced a terrible earthquake;
on the 15th of March at Guatulco, in Mexico, where he took some fresh
provisions; and sailing the next day, struck northward on the voyage in
which he discovered the coast of Oregon and of that part of California
which now belongs to the United States.
[Illustration: MAP OF PAULO DE FURLANO, 1574.
Furlano is said to have received this map from a Spaniard, Don Diego
Hermano de Toledo, in 1574. The sketch is made from the drawing in
Kohl’s manuscript in the American Antiquarian Society’s Library. The
key is as follows:—
1. Mare incognito.
2. Stretto di Anian.
3. Quivir.
4. Golfo di Anian.
5. Anian regnum.
6. Quisau.
7. Mangi Prov.
8. Mare de Mangi.
9. Isola di Giapan.
10. Y. di Cedri.]
A certain doubt hangs over the original discovery of the eastern
coast of this nation. There is no doubt that the coast of Oregon was
discovered to Europe by the greatest seaman of Queen Elizabeth’s
reign.[145]
Taking as plunder a potful of silver reals,—the pot, says Fletcher,
“as big as a bushel,”—and some other booty, Drake sailed west, then
northwest and north, “fourteen hundred leagues in all.” This, according
to the account of Fletcher, his chaplain, brought them to the 3d of
June,[146] when they were in north latitude 42°. On the night of that
day, the weather (which had been very hot) became bitterly cold; the
ropes of the ship were stiff with ice, and sleet fell instead of rain.
This cold weather continued for days. On the fifth they ran in to a
shore which they then first descried, and anchored in a bad bay, which
was the best roadstead they could find. But the moment the gale lulled,
“thick stinking fogs” settled down on them; they could not abide there;
and from this place[147] they turned south, and ran along the coast.
They found it “low and reasonable plain.” Every hill was covered with
snow, though it was in June.
In the latitude of 38° 30′, they came to a “convenient and fit
harbour.” Another narrator says, “It pleased God to send us into a
fair and good bay, with a good wind to enter the same.” They entered,
and remained in it till the 23d of July. During all this time they
were visited with the “like nipping colds.” They would have been glad
to keep their beds, and if they were not at work, would have worn
their winter clothes. For a fortnight together they could take no
observations of sun or star. When they met the natives, they found them
shivering even under their furs; and the “ground was without greenness”
and the trees without leaves in June and July.
The day after they entered this harbor an Indian came out to them in a
canoe. He made tokens of respect and submission. He threw into the ship
a little basket made of rushes containing an herb called _tobàh_.[148]
Drake wished to recompense him, but he would take nothing but a hat,
which was thrown into the water. The company of the “Pelican” supposed
then and always that the natives considered and reverenced them as
gods. In preparation for repairing the ship, Drake landed his stores.
A large company of Indians approached as he landed, and friendly
relations were maintained between them and the Englishmen during the
whole of their stay. Drake received them cautiously but kindly. He set
up tents, and built a fort for his defence. The natives, watching the
English with amazement, still regarded them as gods. One is tempted to
connect this superstition with the direct claim which Alarcon had made
of a divine origin, in presence of these tribes, a generation before,
though at a point five hundred miles away. Fletcher’s description of
their houses is precisely like the Spaniard’s account of the winter
houses of the tribes he met. “Those houses are digged round within the
earth, and have from the uppermost brimmes of the circle clefts of wood
set up, and joined close together at the top like our spires on the
steeple of a church; which, being covered with earth, suffer no water
to enter, and are very warm; the door in the most part of them performs
the office also of a chimney to let out the smoke; it’s made in bigness
and fashion like to an ordinary scuttle in a ship, and standing
slopewise.”[149]
At the end of two days an immense assembly, called together from all
parts of the country, gathered to see the strangers. They brought with
them feathers and bags of _tobàh_ for presents or for sacrifices.
Arrived at the top of the hill, their chief made a long address,
wearying his English hearers and himself. When he had concluded, the
rest, bowing their bodies in a dreamy manner “and long producing of the
same,” cried “Oh!” giving their consent to all that had been spoken.
This reminds one of the “hu” of the Indians of the Tizon. The women,
meanwhile, tore their cheeks with their nails, and flung themselves
on the ground, as if for a personal bloody sacrifice. Drake met this
worship, not as Alarcon had done, but by calling his company to prayer.
The men lifted their eyes and hands to heaven to signify that God was
above, and besought God “to open their blinded eyes to the knowledge of
him and of Jesus Christ the salvation of the Gentiles.” Through these
prayers, the singing of psalms, and reading certain chapters of the
Bible, Fletcher, who was the chaplain, says they sat very attentively.
They observed every pause, and cried “Oh!” with one voice, greatly
enjoying our exercises. They thus showed a more catholic spirit than
the whites had shown, who were wearied by the length of the address of
the savages. Drake made them presents, which at the departure of the
English they returned, saying that they were sufficiently rewarded by
their visit.
The fame of this visit extended so far, that at the end of three days
more, on the 26th of June, a larger company assembled. This time the
king himself, with a body-guard of one hundred warriors, was with them.
They called him their _Hióh_. He approached the English, preceded by a
mace-bearer, who carried two feather crowns, with three chains of bone
of marvellous length, often doubled. Such chains were of the highest
estimation, and only a few persons were permitted to wear them. The
number of chains, indeed, marked the rank of the highest nobility, some
of whom wore as many as twenty. Next to the mace-bearer came the king
himself. On his head was a knit crown somewhat like those which were
borne before him. He wore a coat of the skins of conies coming to his
waist. His guards wore similar coats, and some of them wore cauls upon
their heads, covered with a certain vegetable down, almost sacred, and
used only by the highest ranks. The common people followed, naked, but
with feathers,[150] every one pleasing himself with his own device. The
last part of the company were women and children. Each woman brought a
well-made basket of rushes. Some of these were so tight that they would
hold water. They were adorned with pearl shells and with bits of the
bone chains. In the baskets they had bags of _tobàh_ and roots called
_petáh_, which they ate cooked or raw. Drake meanwhile held his men in
military array.
The mace-bearer then pronounced aloud a long speech, which was dictated
to him in a low voice by another. All parties, except the children,
approached the fort, and the mace-bearer began a song, with a dance
to the time, in which all the men joined. The women danced without
singing. Drake saw that they were peaceable, and permitted them to
enter his palisade. The women showed signs of the wounds which they had
made before coming, by way of preparing for the solemnity.
At the request of the chief, Drake then sat down. The king and others
made to him several orations, or, “indeed, supplications, that he would
take province and kingdom into his hand, and become their king and
patron.” With one consent they sang a song, placed one of the crowns
upon his head, hung their chains upon his neck, and honored him as
their _Hióh_.
Drake did not think he should refuse this gift. “In the name and to
the use of Queen Elizabeth, he took the sceptre, crown, and dignity of
the country into his hand.” He only wished, says the historian, that
he could as easily transport the riches and treasures wherewith in the
upland it abounds, to the enriching of her kingdom at home. Had Drake
had any real knowledge of the golden gravel over which the streams of
the upland flowed, it may well be that the history of California would
have been changed.
From this time, through several weeks while Drake remained there, the
multitude also remained. At first they brought offerings every three
days as sacrifices, until they learned that this displeased their
English king. Like other sovereigns who have had much to do with this
race, he found that he had to feed his red retainers. But he had
mussels, seals, “and such like,” in quantity sufficient for their
rations.
Drake made a journey into the country. He saw “infinite company” of fat
deer, in a herd of thousands. He found a multitude of strange “conies”
in large numbers, with long tails, and with a bag under the chin in
which to carry food either for future supply or for their children.
Drake erected on the shore a post, on which he placed a plate of brass.
Here he engraved the Queen’s name, the date of his landing, the gift of
the country by the people, and left her Majesty’s portrait and arms.
The last were not designed by his artists, as some historians have
carelessly supposed, but were on a silver piece, of sixpence, “showing
through a hole made of purpose in the plate.”
When the people saw that Drake could not remain, they could not
conceal their grief. At last they stole on the English unawares with
a sacrifice which “they set on fire,” thus burning a chain and bunch
of feathers. The English could not dissuade them till they fell to
prayers and singing of psalms, when the sad natives let their fire go
out, and left the sacrifice unconsumed. On the 23d of July the friends
parted, the English for the shores of Asia, the savages to the hills,
where they built fires as long as the “Pelican” was in sight. Thus did
England take possession of the region which, after near three hundred
years, proved to be the richest gold-bearing country in the world.
Drake gave to the country the name of New Albion, and it bore that name
on the maps for centuries. He called it so “for two causes: in respect
of the white banks and cliffs which lie towards the sea; and the
other because it might have some affinity with our country in name.”
Curiously enough, the original narrative says, “There is no part of
earth here to be taken up wherein there is not some speciall likelihood
of gold or silver.”[151]
From the time when the Government’s ships crept along the coast to Cape
Mendocino, and then turned, unwilling, to their long voyage to Asia,
observations on that coast were doubtless repeated by navigators. The
line of coast took different courses and different names accordingly.
But it is well-nigh certain that from the time of Drake until 1770 the
California now a part of the United States had no European inhabitants.
The part of California which is in Mexico was first settled by Jesuit
missions, whose first successes date from the year 1697.
Drake returned to England by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived
at Plymouth in triumph on the 26th of September, 1580. He had given the
name NOVA ALBION to the western coast of North America thus discovered;
he had taken possession for his sovereign, Elizabeth, with better color
of right than most discoverers could urge. But under this title the
Queen never claimed, nor her successors indeed, until, after three
centuries, Drake’s voyage may have been sometimes cited as a vague or
shadowy introduction to any rights by which England claimed the mouth
of the Columbia River and the region northward.[152]
The name NOVA ALBION was generally applied on the maps to the more
northerly region, the Oregon of our geography. But the name CALIFORNIA
held its place for the whole region known to us as the State of
California, as well as for the peninsula and the gulf. The distinction
between Upper and Lower California is still observed.
Drake’s reception at home was an enthusiastic one, by a populace always
anxious for a hero. It was tempered somewhat by the cautious feelings
of some, who regarded with no favorable eye the policy of private
reprisals upon another nation in time of peace. The Queen had no such
compunctions. She received him with undisguised favor, dined with him
on board his ship, and made him a knight. She directed that the vessel
which had borne her authority about the world should be carefully
preserved; and when the ship was finally broken up, John Davis, the
Arctic navigator, caused a chair to be made of the timbers, which is
now one of the relics of interest in the Bodleian Library, and within
whose seat Abraham Cowley wrote one of his well-known poems.
At length, in 1585, Queen Elizabeth determined on open hostility, and
giving Drake his first royal commission, and an ample fleet and land
force, he started on his successful expedition to the Spanish main,
when town after town fell into his hands, and the Spanish settlements
experienced most poignantly ravages similar to those which they had so
abundantly for nearly a century inflicted upon the natives of those
regions. Of his subsequent exploits in European waters this is no place
for the recital; but in 1595 he prevailed upon Elizabeth to put him,
in connection with his old patron and companion, Sir John Hawkins,
once more in command of another expedition to Spanish America. They
sailed from Plymouth in August, with the purpose of seizing Nombre de
Dios, and then of marching his twenty-five hundred troops to Panama
to capture the treasure which took that route from Peru on its way to
Spain. The expedition was a melancholy failure. The Spaniards were
forewarned. Porto Rico successfully resisted the English in the first
place, and the attack on Panama was abortive.
Hawkins died, overcome by the reverses; and Drake, struck with a fever
of mortification, sank beneath the fatal influences of the climate,
and died on board his ship early in the following year. His remains
were placed in a leaden casket and sunk off Puerto Cabello, and there
was no failure of suspicions that he had been the victim of foul play.
There are those in the English nation who indulge the hope that the
casket may yet be recovered, and that the remains of the great English
“Dragon” may yet rest beneath the pavement of Westminster Abbey.
CRITICAL ESSAY ON DRAKE’S BAY.
THE question where was the “convenient and fit harbor,” the “fair and
good bay,” which Drake entered on the Pacific coast, and where he
careened and repaired the “Pelican,” is still undecided, after much
discussion by the Californian geographers, who have now their capital
in the city of San Francisco,—on that matchless land-locked harbor
which is entered by the narrow passage known as the “Golden Gate.” The
authorities are not many, and are not quite in accord.
The narrative of Fletcher, which has been followed in the text, gives
the latitude of this bay as 38° 30′ north. But the briefer narrative
in Hakluyt[153] says: “We came within thirty-eight degrees towardes
the line; in which height it pleased God to send us into a faire and
good bay, with a good wind to enter the same.” Here is a difference of
half a degree. But the text in Hakluyt is supported by a manuscript
marginal note on what seems to be the original drawing of Dudley’s
map, and which is preserved in Munich, where the language (Italian)
is: “This map begins with the port of New Albion, in longitude 237°
and latitude 38°, discovered by the Englishman Drake in 1579 or
thereabout, as above,—a convenient place to water and to collect
other refreshment.” The manuscript has a note, which the engraving has
not, “Porto bonissimo.” But on the coast farther north, where the same
author speaks of the cold, he says: “Drake returned to 38½ degrees, and
the weather was temperate, and he called it New Albion.” The _Arcano
del Mare_, in which these maps are printed, was not published till
1646. But Dudley, the author, was active in maritime affairs in England
in all the last ten years of the sixteenth century. He was the son of
Elizabeth’s Earl of Leicester; he was brother-in-law of Cavendish,
administered on his estate, and must have seen his chart.[154] Hakluyt
had wished to publish his narrative of Drake in his edition of 1589;
but this account by Pretty was not regularly embodied by Hakluyt in
his great work till 1600.[155] The _World Encompassed_ was not printed
until 1628, but is from Fletcher’s contemporary notes. Dudley himself
prepared an expedition to the South Seas. He may be spoken of as a
valuable contemporary authority. The English Government did not publish
such discoveries. But Cavendish would have had Drake’s charts.
[Illustration: MODERN MAP.
This sketch will indicate the relative positions of the several bays.]
Now the opening of the Golden Gate is in latitude 37° 46′: it exactly
corresponds with “within 38° N.” of one account, but it lacks 44′ of
the 38° 30′ of the other two. The discrepancy is not so important
when we find that in 38° 30′ there is no harbor and no bay, good or
bad. The voyager must come down the coast as far as 38° 15′ to find
Bodega Bay, which has, accordingly, been assigned by some conjectures
as Sir Francis’ resting-place. Just south of this, near the line of
38°, is an open roadstead which has some advocates in this discussion.
Between this bay and the Golden Gate, the point of Los Reyes runs out
southwest. East of this, and northwest of the Golden Gate, is another
open roadstead, facing the south, which for many years, long before the
discovery of Californian gold, had been known as Jack’s Bay, or Sir
Francis Drake’s Bay. One of these four bays is chosen by one or another
geographer as the fair and good harbor into which a special providence
drove Drake by a favorable wind.
[Illustration: VISCAINO’S MAP.
Sketch from _Carta de los reconocimentos hechos en 1602 por el Capitan
Sebastian Vizcaino formada por los Planos que hizo el misno durante su
comision_, in an atlas in the State Department at Washington.]
In this discussion, the map of Dudley, whose information was nearly
at first-hand, plays an important part. His representation of Drake’s
bay—a sort of bottle-shaped harbor—so far resembles the double bay of
San Francisco, that it would probably decide the question, but that,
unfortunately, he gives two such bays. His two maps, also, do not very
closely resemble each other. It becomes necessary to suppose that one
of his bays was that which we know as Bodega Bay, or that both are
drawn from the imagination. The map of Hondius gives a chart of Drake’s
bay,[156] which has, unfortunately, no representation to any bay on the
coast, and is purely imaginary.
The discussion is complicated from the fact, that, if Drake entered
San Francisco Bay, the English Government kept its secret so well that
they forgot it themselves. What is curious is, that for two centuries
the Spaniards were seeking at intervals for “Port St. Francisco,” and
did not find it. In 1603, Viscaino put into a bay which he called Port
St. Francisco; but it is urged[157] that Viscaino really entered the
Bay of Monterey. The Spaniards by this time were eagerly seeking a bay
of refuge for their Asiatic squadrons.[158] They knew that Drake had
repaired a vessel somewhere. Viscaino passed “Port St. Francisco” in
a gale, and returned into it, according to the narrative. It was not
until 1769 that a land party of Franciscan monks finally discovered to
Spain the magnificent Bay of San Francisco. One theory is that no one
ever discovered it before; but a contemporary manuscript account of the
discovery, preserved in the British Museum, says distinctly that this
famous port, according to the signs given by history, is called San
Francisco. It is distant from St. Diego two hundred leagues, and is to
be found in 38½°. “They say it is the best bay they have discovered;
and while it might shelter all the navies in Europe, it is entered by a
straight of three leagues, and surrounded with mountains which make the
waters tranquil.”
[Illustration: COAST OF NOVA ALBION, FROM DUDLEY’S ARCANO DEL MARE.]
The reader must understand that all the maps had a port of Sir Francis,
or a Puerto San Francisco, or some similar name. One English map
bravely says,[159] “Port Sr. Francis Drake, _not_ St. Francisco,” for
the bay discovered in 1770.
[Illustration: JEFFERYS’ SKETCH.]
So soon as this discovery was known in England, Captain Burney claimed
it as Drake’s bay; in America, Davidson, in the _Coast Pilot_, and Mr.
Greenhow give the same decision.
Probably the early maps must be taken as the best and decisive
authorities.
The reader has before him Dudley’s two maps. Of these, Dudley says
that California was drawn by an English pilot. In his text describing
the shore, he goes no further than Cape St. Lucas, and then crosses
to California, which suggests that he is following Cavendish, who
took this course, and who was Dudley’s near kinsman. On the margin in
the manuscript of Dudley’s map at Munich, he calls Drake’s bay “Porto
bonissimo,” “the best of harbors,”—an expression which certainly does
not belong to Jack’s Bay. In both maps, also, it is represented as
the southern of the two deep bays, of which the northern appears to
correspond to Bodega Bay, and the southern to San Francisco Bay. On the
larger of the two maps Drake’s bay is placed in the same relation to
Monterey as is held by San Francisco.
[Illustration: DUDLEY’S CARTA PRIMA.
[This is a section from a marginal map on the “Carta Prima” of Dudley’s
_Arcano del Mare_, vol. i. lib. 2, p.19. Key:—
1. C. Arboledo.
2. Ensa Larga.
3. P^o. di Don Gasper.
4. R. Salado.
5. P^o. dell Nuovo Albion scoperto dal Drago C^{no}. Inglese.
6. Enseada
7. P^o. di Anonaebo.
8. P^o. di Moneerei.
9. C. S. Barbera.
10. C. S. Agostino.
11. Quivira R^o.
12. Nuova Albione.—ED.
]]
In the curious “new map” mentioned by Shakespeare in “Twelfth
Night,”[160] the spot where Drake landed is indicated. The names, as
one reads southward from the parallel of 40°, are C. Roxo, Sierra de
los Pescadores,—Tierra de Paxaros R. GRANDE, which seems to be Drake’s
harbor,—Rio Hermoso, C. Frio, Sierra Nevada, C. Blanco, Cicuic, Playa,
Tiguer. Cicuic and Tiguer are evidently borrowed from Ciceyé and Tiguex
of Coronado’s narrative. The same position is given to Tiguex in
Hondius’s map. Of this the scale is so small that Drake’s Bay could
not be determined from it, were it not for the issuing of the dotted
line showing his homeward track.
The Spanish geographers are at work on this subject, with full
understanding of the points involved in the problem. It will not be
long, probably, before the question is decided. This writer does not
hesitate to say that he believes it will prove that Drake repaired
his ship in San Francisco Bay, and that this bay took its name not
indirectly from Francis of Assisi, but from the bold English explorer
who had struck terror to all the western coast of New Spain.[161]
[Illustration: Autograph Edward E Hale]
EDITORIAL NOTES
ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.
FOR the authoritative accounts of William Hawkins’s Brazilian voyages,
we must go to Hakluyt’s third volume, as published in 1600. In it
likewise we shall find the account of the West Indian voyages of
Sir John Hawkins in 1562, 1564, and 1567-68. We may also read them
in the usual compilations drawn from Hakluyt, among the latest of
which is _The Elizabethan Seamen_ of Payne, who remarks that “nothing
which Englishmen had done in connection with America previous to
those voyages had any result worth recording.” Lowndes, in his
_Bibliographer’s Manual_, gives an edition, in 1569 (London), of John
Hawkins’s _True Declaration of the Troublesome Voyages to the Partes of
Guynea and the West Indies_; but Sabin (_Dictionary_, viii. 157) thinks
it was only printed in Hakluyt.
[Illustration: A SKETCH OF HONDIUS’S MAP.
A sketch of a part of Hondius’s map of the world, on which Drake’s
route is marked; it is taken from a fac-simile in the Hakluyt Society’s
edition of The World Encompassed.
Key:—
1. Nova Albion, sic a Francisco Draco, 1579, dicta qui bis ab incolis
eodem die diademate redimitus, eandem Reginæ Angliæ consecravit.
2. Hic præ ingenti frigore in Austrum reverti coactus est lat. 42 die
5 Junii.
3. Cozones.
4. [Drake’s Bay].
5. Tigues.
6. I. de passao.
7. California.
8. San Miguel.
9. Damantes.
10. Mare Vermeo.
11. S. Thomas.]
Fox Browne, in his _English Merchants_, chap. viii., shows the
relations which Hawkins in his day established with British commerce.
_The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knight, in his Vojage jnto
the South Sea, Anno Domini 1593_, was printed in London in 1622,[162]
and was reprinted in 1847 by the Hakluyt Society, under the editing of
Captain C. R. D. Bethune. The book gives us some useful notes upon the
aborigines of Florida and the regions farther south.
The most convenient embodiment, however, of the ancient records and
of modern criticisms upon all the exploits of the Hawkinses is in the
volume of the Hakluyt Society for 1878,—_The Hawkins’ Voyages during
the Reigns of Henry VIII., Queen Elizabeth, and James I._, edited, with
an Introduction, by the careful hand of Clements R. Markham. Here we
have not only what Hakluyt has preserved for us, but the _Observations_
of 1622, and other journals and narratives.
[Illustration: PORTUS NOVÆ ALBIONIS.
This is an outline sketch of the map of Drake’s Bay given in the margin
of Hondius’s map, but which is omitted in the reproduction of that map
in the Hakluyt Society’s edition of _The World Encompassed_. The map is
rare, and our sketch follows another belonging to Mr. Charles Deane.
Key:—1. A group of Indian houses.
2. Place of the ship.
3. Portus Novæ Albionis.
4. A group of the English conferring with the natives.
A fac-simile of the original engraving is given in Gay’s _Popular
History of the United States_, ii. 577. It has a Latin legend beneath
it, which reads: “The inhabitants of Nova Albion lament the departure
of Drake, now twice crowned, and by frequent sacrifices lacerate
themselves.” A curious picture representing the crowning of Drake is in
the 1671 edition of Montanus, p. 213.
A writer in the _San Francisco Evening Bulletin_, Oct. 5, 1878, says
that the island in the sketch is misplaced, if Bodega Bay is intended,
being below the peninsula; but that, viewed from the position assigned
to Drake’s ship, it seems to be outside, as drawn. He maintains that
this bay answers all the other conditions of Fletcher’s description,
and that Hondius’s sketch is confirmed by Dudley’s map.]
For Drake the material is more abundant. Regarding his famous voyage
round the world in 1577-80, the earliest statement in print is one
said to be by Francis Pretty, and called _The famous Voyage of Sir
Francis Drake into the South Sea ... begun in the yeare of our Lord
1577_.[163] Hakluyt had this, and says in effect, in the Introduction
of his 1589 edition, that the friends of Drake who did not wish their
publications forestalled, had wished him to omit it. Hakluyt, however,
seems to have privately printed it, in six pages, and these, without
pagination, are found in some, if not all, copies of the 1589 volume,
inserted after page 643.[164] It finally publicly appeared in his third
volume of the 1598-1600 edition. A more authoritative publication,
however, was _The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, carefully
Collected out of the notes of Master Francis Fletcher, Preacher in this
imployment, and divers others his followers_, London, 1628.[165] It was
reprinted in 1635,[166] and made part of _Sir Francis Drake revived_ in
1653.[167] It was again reprinted by the Hakluyt Society in 1855, with
an Introduction by W. S. W. Vaux. This and other accounts of the voyage
have also found a place in the general collections of Hakluyt, Harris,
and the Oxford Voyages.[168]
The report of Da Silva mentions that Drake captured some sea-charts
from the Spaniards during this voyage; and Kohl (_Catalogue of Maps in
Hakluyt_, p. 82) supposes that Drake had with him the maps of Mercator
and Ortelius. After Drake’s return, Hondius made a map of the world, in
which he tracked both the routes of Drake and Cavendish; and of that
portion showing New Albion, as well as of his little plan of Drake’s
Bay, sketches are given herewith. Kohl thinks (page 84) that Hondius
may have used Drake’s own charts in this little marginal sketch, while
the main map has “little to do with Drake’s own charts.” Hondius,
however, is thought to have been living in England at this time.
Molineaux is known to have used Drake’s reports and perhaps his map, in
making his mappemonde of 1600, of which an outline sketch of a part of
the Pacific coast is annexed. This is the map mentioned by Mr. Hale as
supposed to be referred to by Shakespeare.
[Illustration: FROM MOLINEAUX’S MAP, 1600.
The Key:—
1. Nova Albion.
2. Cabo Mendocino. “It appeareth by the discoverie of Francis Gaulle,
a Spaniard, in the year 1584, that the sea betweene the west part
of America and the east of Asia (which hath bene ordinarily set out
as a straight, and named in most maps the Streight of Anian) is
above 1,200 leagues wide at the latitude of 38°, and that the
distance betweene Cape Mendocino and Cape California, which many
maps and sea-charts make to be 1,200 or 1,300 leagues, is scarce so
much as 600.” [This legend is in the right-hand upper corner of the
map. Gali (or Gaulle), in returning from China in 1583, had struck
the California coast at 37° 30´. His account appeared in
Linschoten, and so was rendered in the English translation of
Linschoten, 1598, and is given in Hakluyt, vol. iii. (1600) p. 442.]
3. R. Grande.
4. C. San Francisco.
5. Rio Grande.
6. C. Blanco.
7. C. Blanco.
8. B. Hermosa.
9. B. San Lorenzo.
10. California.
11. R. Grande.
12. S. Francisco.
13. New Mexico.
14. Cibola.]
For Drake’s expedition of 1585-86, we have the original account in
Latin, printed at Leyden in 1588,—_Expeditio Francisci Draki_,—which
should be accompanied by four large folding maps; namely, of Cartagena,
St. Augustine, San Domingo, and S. Jacques (Guinea).[169] An English
translation by Thomas Cates appeared in London the next year (1589)
as _A Summarie and true Discourse of Sir Francis Drake’s West Indian
Voyage, wherein were taken the towns of St. Jago, Sancto Domingo,
Cartagena, and Saint Augustine._[170] This first edition seems to have
been without maps; but a second edition of the same year is sometimes
found with copies of the Leyden maps, besides a fifth, a mappemonde,
showing “The famous West Indian Voyadge,” which did not appear in the
Leyden edition.[171] The _Huth Catalogue_, ii. 442, notes a third
edition for the same year.[172]
In 1855, Louis Lacour edited at Paris a French manuscript upon this
1585-86 expedition, which is preserved in the National Library at
Paris.[173]
The expedition in 1587, by Drake and Norris, against the Spaniards in
Europe, does not fall within our present scheme.[174]
Of Drake’s last voyage in 1595-96 we have his log-book, printed for the
first time in Kunstmann’s _Entdeckung Amerikas_ in 1859. A manuscript
account, by Thomas Maynarde, is preserved in the British Museum, which,
with a Spanish account, “Francis Draque y Juan Acquines,”[175] was
printed by the Hakluyt Society in 1849, under the editing of W. D.
Cooley.
Henry Savile’s _Libell of Spanish Lies_, giving the earliest English
account in print, was issued in London in 1596 (_Carter-Brown
Catalogue_, vol. i. no. 508), and was also included in Hakluyt’s third
volume in 1600.[176]
Tiele—_Mémoire bibliographique_ (1867), p. 300—says that Hakluyt
lent his account, two years before he published it, to the Dutch
historian Van Meteren, who printed a Dutch version of it at Amsterdam
in 1598.[177]
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.
A fac-simile of a copperplate engraving in H. Holland’s _Heroologia_,
Arnheim, 1620, p. 105,—a book now rare. There is a copy in Harvard
College Library. Cf. also _Magazine of American History_, March, 1883.
There is another head by Houbraken in his series of heads, London,
1813, p. 47.
A library, which is said to have been begun by Drake and kept up by
his descendants at Nutwell Court, Lympstone, Devon, was recently sold
in London. Cf. _London Times_, March 16, 1883. There were books in
the sale pertaining to America, which were published early enough to
have been collected by Drake himself; but the rarest of the Americana,
of interest to the students of this period, must rather have been
the accumulation of the younger Francis Drake, the chronicler of his
uncle’s exploits. Some of the rare books mentioned in other chapters of
this history are noted as bringing the following prices: Rich’s _Newes
from Virginia_, £93; Whitaker’s _Good Newes from Virginia_, £90, later
priced by Quaritch at £105; Hariot’s _New found land of Virginia_,
£300, later advertised by Quaritch for £335; Rosier’s _True Relation_,
£301, later marked by Ouaritch at £335; _Declaration of the State of
the Colonie and Affairs in Virginia_, £46; De la Warre’s _Relation_,
£26 11_s._; _Good Speed to Virginia_, £30; Hamor’s _True Discourse_,
£69; _New Life of Virginia_, £18 5_s._, later priced by Ouaritch at
£25; _True Declaration of the Estat of the Colonie of Virginia_, £80,
later priced by Quaritch at £96.]
A kinsman of Drake published at London, in 1626, _Sir Francis Drake
revived: calling upon this dull or effeminate age to follow his noble
steps for gold and silver, by this memorable relation of the rare
occurrences (never yet declared to the world) in a third Voyage made
by him to the West Indies in the yeares ‘72 and ‘73, faithfully taken
out of the reporte of Christofer Ceely, Ellis Hixon, and others;
reviewed by Sir Fr. Drake himself, and set forth by Sir Fr. Drake,
his nephew_.[178] This edition was reissued in 1628, with the errata
corrected.[179] It was again reissued in 1653, in the first collected
edition of Drake’s voyages, under the title, _Sir Francis Drake
revived: four several voyages ... collected out of the notes of the
said Sir Francis Drake, Master Philip Nichols, Master Francis Fletcher,
... carefully compared together_.[180]
[Illustration: CAVENDISH.
Follows a copperplate engraving in H. Holland’s _Heroologia_, Arnheim,
1620, p. 89.]
In 1595 a _Life of Drake_ by C. FitzGeffrey was published in
London.[181] Fuller, in his _Holy and Prophane State_ (1642), gives a
characteristic seventeenth-century estimate of Drake, and he knew some
of Drake’s kin.
Samuel Clarke’s _Life and Death of Drake_ was published in London
in 1671.[182] Robert Burton’s _English Hero_, long a popular book,
and passing through many editions, was first published in 1687 and
1695, and was translated into German and other foreign tongues.
Dr. Johnson’s _Life of Drake_ has his peculiar flavor. Of the later
biographies, Barrow’s seems to unite best the various details of
Drake’s career.[183]
The voyages of Candish, or Cavendish, can be followed in the Latin and
German of De Bry’s eighth part of his _Great Voyages_ (1599), and in an
abridged form in Hulsius’ part vi. There is no separate English edition
of the account of the 1586-88 voyage, written by Francis Pretty, who
took part in it; but besides the text in Hakluyt’s third volume (it had
been briefly given in the 1589 edition), it can be found in the later
collections of Callender (1766), Harris (vol. i.), and Kerr (vol. x.);
cf. S. Colliber’s _Columna Rostrata, or a Critical History of English
Sea Affairs_, London, 1727. It was later reprinted in Dutch, Amsterdam,
1598, and in 1617.[184]
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.
This portrait, said to follow the three-quarters likeness in Vaughan’s
print (of which there is a copy in the Lenox Library), is a fac-simile
of a cut in the title of _Sir Francis Drake revived_, issued in London
in 1626, by his nephew, Sir Francis Drake, Baronet; cf. _Carter-Brown
Catalogue_, ii. 133. Another likeness of a little later date will
be observed in the fac-simile of the Virginia Farrar map, given in
connection with Professor Keen’s paper on “Plowden’s Grant,” in the
present volume. There are other portraits on the title of De Bry, parts
viii. (1599) and xi. (1619), and in Hulsius, part vi. (1603), and on
the folding map in part xvi. (1619); cf. also _Le Voyage Curieux_,
Paris, 1641.
Some new light has been thrown upon Drake by a namesake, Dr. Drake,
in the _Archæological Journal_, 1873; and Mr. Walter Herries Pollock
says the latest word in the _National Review_, May, 1883. Two other
testimonies to the alleged change of the name of San Francisco Bay
(see p. 77) may be found among the contributions of the middle of the
last century to the history of the Pacific coast geography. The map
published by the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg in 1754 and 1773
says, “Port de Francois Drake, fausement appellé de St. Francois.”
J. Green, in his _Remarks in support of the new Chart of North and
South America_, London, 1753, says, “The French geographers within
this century have converted Port Sir Francois Drake into Port San
Francisco.”]