Voyage of Francisco de Ulloa, in 1539.—Cabrillo, in 1542.—Drake, in 1577-80.—The Famous Voyage.—The World Encompassed.—Nuño da Silva.—Edward Cliffe.—Francis Pretty, not the Author of the Famous Voyage.—Fleurieu.—Pretty the Author of the Voyage of Cavendish.—Purchas’ Pilgrims.—Notes of Fletcher.—World Encompassed, published in 1628.—Mr. Greenhow’s Mistake in respect to the World Encompassed and the Famous Voyage.—Agreement between the World Encompassed and the Narrative of Da Silva.—Fletcher’s Manuscript in the Sloane Collection of the British Museum.—Furthest Limit southward of Drake’s Voyage.—Northern Limit 43° and upwards by the Famous Voyage, 48° by the World Encompassed.—The latter confirmed by Stow, the Annalist, in 1592, and by John Davis, the Navigator, in 1595, and by Sir W. Monson in his Naval Tracts.—Camden’s Life of Elizabeth.—Dr. Johnson’s Life of Sir F. Drake.—Fleurieu’s Introduction to Marchand’s Voyage.—Introduction to the Voyage of Galiano and Valdés.—Alexander von Humboldt’s New Spain.
Voyage of Francisco de Ulloa, in 1539.—Cabrillo, in 1542.—Drake, in 1577-80.—The Famous Voyage.—The World Encompassed.—Nuño da Silva.—Edward Cliffe.—Francis Pretty, not the Author of the Famous Voyage.—Fleurieu.—Pretty the Author of the Voyage of Cavendish.—Purchas’ Pilgrims.—Notes of Fletcher.—World Encompassed, published in 1628.—Mr. Greenhow’s Mistake in respect to the World Encompassed and the Famous Voyage.—Agreement between the World Encompassed and the Narrative of Da Silva.—Fletcher’s Manuscript in the Sloane Collection of the British Museum.—Furthest Limit southward of Drake’s Voyage.—Northern Limit 43° and upwards by the Famous Voyage, 48° by the World Encompassed.—The latter confirmed by Stow, the Annalist, in 1592, and by John Davis, the Navigator, in 1595, and by Sir W. Monson in his Naval Tracts.—Camden’s Life of Elizabeth.—Dr. Johnson’s Life of Sir F. Drake.—Fleurieu’s Introduction to Marchand’s Voyage.—Introduction to the Voyage of Galiano and Valdés.—Alexander von Humboldt’s New Spain.
The Spaniards justly lay claim to the discovery of a considerable portion of the north-west coast of America. An expedition from Acapulco under Francisco de Ulloa, in 1539, first determined California to be a peninsula, by exploring the Gulf of California from La Paz to its northern extremity. The chart, which Domingo del Castillo, the pilot of Ulloa, drew up as the result of this voyage, differs very slightly, according to Alexander von Humboldt, from those of the present day. Ulloa subsequently explored the western coast of California. Of the extent of his discoveries on this occasion there are contradictory accounts, but the extreme limit assigned to them does not reach further north than Cape Engaño, in 30° north latitude.
In the spring of the following year, 1542, two vessels were despatched under Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo from the port of Navidad. He examined the coast of California, as far north as 37° 10′, when he was driven back by a storm to the island of San Bernardo, in 34°, where he died. His pilot,Bartolemé Ferrelo, continued his course northwards after the death of his commander. The most northern point of land mentioned in the accounts of the expedition which have been preserved, was Cabo de Fortunas, placed by Ferrelo in 41°, which is supposed by Mr. Greenhow to have been the headland in 40° 20′, to which the name of C. Mendocino was given, in honor of the viceroy, Mendoza. Other authors, however, whose opinion is entitled to consideration, maintain that Ferrelo discovered Cape Blanco in 43°, to which Vancouver subsequently gave the name of Cape Orford. (Humboldt, Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, l. iii., c. viii. Introduccion al Relacion del Viage hecho por las Goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el año de 1792.)
The Bull of Pope Alexander VI., as is well known, gave to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain all the New World to the westward of a meridian line drawn a hundred leagues west of the Azores. When England, however, shook off the yoke of the Papacy, she refused to admit the validity of Spanish titles when based only on such concessions. Elizabeth, for instance, expressly refused to acknowledge “any title in the Spaniards by donation of the Bishop of Rome, to places of which they were not in actual possession, and she did not understand why, therefore, either her subjects, or those of any other European prince, should be debarred from traffic in the Indies.” In accordance with such a policy, Sir Francis Drake obtained, through the interest of Sir Christopher Hatton, the vice-chamberlain of the Queen, her approval of an expedition projected by him into the South Sea. He set sail from Plymouth in 1577, passed through the Straits of Magellan in the autumn of 1578, and ravaged the coast of Mexico in the spring of 1579. Being justly apprehensive that the Spaniards would intercept him if he should attempt to re-pass Magellan’s Straits with his rich booty, and being likewise reluctant to encounter again the dangers of that channel, he determined to attempt the discovery of a north-east passage from the South Sea into the Atlantic, by the reported Straits of Anian.
There are two accounts, professedly complete, of Drake’s Voyage. The earliest of these first occurs in Hakluyt’s Collection of Voyages, published in 1589, and is entitled “The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the South Sea, and there-hence about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the yeere of our Lord, 1577.” It was re-published, by Hakluyt,with some alterations, in his subsequent edition of 1598-1600, and may be most readily referred to in the fourth volume of the reprint of this latter edition, published in 1811. The other account is intitled “The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, collected out of the notes of Mr. Francis Fletcher, Preacher in this employment, and compared with divers others’ notes that went in the same Voyage.” This work was first published in 1628, by Nicholas Bourne, and “sold at his shop at the Royal Exchange.” It appears to have been compiled by Francis Drake, the nephew of the circumnavigator, as a dedication “to the truly noble Robert Earl of Warwick” is prefixed, with his name attached to it. It will be found most readily in the second volume of the Harleian collection of voyages. There are also to be found in Hakluyt’s fourth volume, two independent, but unfortunately imperfect, narratives, one by Nuño da Silva, the Portuguese pilot, who was pressed by Sir F. Drake into his service at St. Jago, one of the Cape Verde islands, and discharged at Guatulco, where his account terminates; the other by Edward Cliffe, a mariner on board the ship Elizabeth, commanded by Mr. John Winter, one of Drake’s squadron, which parted company from him on the west coast of South America, immediately after passing through the Straits of Magellan. The Elizabeth succeeded in re-passing the straits, and arrived safe at Ilfracombe on June 2d, 1579; and Mr. Cliffe’s narrative, being confined to the voyage of his own ship, is consequently the least complete of all, in respect to Drake’s adventures.
It is a disputed point, whether Drake, in his attempt to find a passage to the Atlantic, by the north of California, reached the latitude of 48° or 43°. The Famous Voyage, is the account, on which the advocates for the lower latitude of 43° rely. The World Encompassed, supported by Stow the annalist, and two independent naval authorities, cotemporaries of Sir F. Drake, is quoted in favour of the higher latitude of 48°. Before examining the interval evidence of the two accounts, it may be as well to consider the authority which is due to them from external circumstances, as Mr. Greenhow’s account of the two works is calculated to mislead the judgment of the reader in this respect.
Mr. Greenhow, (p. 73,) in referring to the Famous Voyage, says that it was “written by Francis Pretty, one of the crew of Drake’s vessel, at the request of Hakluyt, and published by him in 1589. It is a plain and succinct account of what thewriter saw, or believed to have occurred during the voyage, and bears all the marks of truth and authenticity.”
This statement could not but excite some surprise, as the Famous Voyage has no author’s name attached to it, either in the first edition of 1589, or in any of the later editions of Hakluyt, the more so because Hakluyt himself, in his Address to the favorable reader, prefixed to the edition of 1589, leads us to suppose that he was himself the author of the work. “For the conclusion of all, the memorable voyage of Master Thomas Candish into the South Sea, and from thence about the Globe of the Earth doth satisfie me, and I doubt not but will fully content thee, which as in time it is later than that of Sir F. Drake, so in relation of the Philippines, Japan, China, and the isle of St. Helena, it is more particular and exact; and therefore the want of the first made by Sir Francis Drake will be the lesse;wherein I must confess to have taken more than ordinary paines, meaning to have inserted it in this worke; but being of late (contrary to my expectation,) seriously dealt withall, not to anticipate or prevent another man’s paines and charge in drawing all the services of that worthie knight into one volume, I have yielded unto those my friends which pressed me in the matter, referring the further knowledge of his proceedings to those intended discourses.”
Hakluyt, however, appears to have had the narrative privately printed, and, contrary to the intention which he entertained at the time when he wrote his preface, and compiled his table of contents, and the index of his first edition, in neither of which is there any reference to the Famous Voyage, he has inserted the Famous Voyage between pages 643 and 644, evidently as an interpolation. It is nowhere stated that any copy of this edition exists, in which this interpolation does not occur. It is alluded to by Lowndes in his Bibliographical Manual, vol. ii., p. 853, art. “Hakluyt.” It is printed apparently on the same kind of paper, with the same kind of ink, and in the same kind of type with the rest of the work, but the signatures at the bottom of the pages, by which term are meant the numbers which are placed on the sheets for the printer’s guidance, do not correspond with the general order of the signatures of the work. This fact, combined with the circumstance that the pages are not numbered, furnishes a strong presumption that it was printed subsequently to the rest of the work. On the other hand there is evidence that it was printed to bind up with the rest, from the circumstancethat at the bottom of the last page the word “Instructions” is printed to correspond with the first word at the top of p. 644, being the title of the next treatise—“Instructions given by the Honorable the Lords of the Counsell to Edward Fenton, Esq. for the order to be observed in the voyage recommended to him for the East Indies, and Cathay, April 9, 1582.”
It can hardly be doubted that this account is the narrative about which Hakluyt himself “had taken more than ordinary paines.” Hakluyt, as is well known, was a student of Christ Church, Oxford, who like his imitator Purchas, was imbued with a strong natural bias towards geographical studies, and himself compiled many of the narratives which his collection contained.
This inference as to the authorship of the Famous Voyage, drawn from the allusion in Hakluyt’s preface to the work, will probably appear to many minds more justifiable, if the claim set up in behalf of Francis Pretty can be shown to be utterly without foundation. It may be as well, therefore, to dispose of this at once. What may have been Mr. Greenhow’s authority it would be difficult to say, though it may be conjectured, from another circumstance which will be stated below, that he has been misled by an incorrect article on Sir Francis Drake in the Biographie Universelle. M. Eyriés, the writer of this article, refers to Fleurieu as his authority. Fleurieu, however, who was a distinguished French hydrographer, and edited, in Paris, in the year VIII. (1800) a work intitled “Voyage autour du Monde, par Etienne Marchand,” with which he published some observations of his own, intitled “Recherches sur les terres de Drake,” enumerates briefly in the latter work the different accounts of Drake’s voyage, but he no where mentions the name of the author of the Famous Voyage. Fleurieu’s information, indeed, was not in every respect accurate, as he states that the edition of Hakluyt which contained the Famous Voyage “ne parut à Londres qu’en 1600.” What he says, however, of the author, is comprised in a short note to this effect:—“Le gentilhomme Picard, (employé sur l’escadre de Drake,) auteur de cette relation, en ayant remis une copie au Baron de St. Simon, Seigneur de Courtomer, celui-ci engagea François de Louvencourt, Seigneur de Vauchelles, à en faire un extrait en Français sous le titre de ‘le Voyage Curieux faict autour du Monde par François Drach, Amiral d’Angleterre,’ qui fut imprimé chez Gesselin, Paris, 1627, en 8vo.”
It might be supposed from this statement, that the work of M. de Louvencourt would disclose the name of the gentleman of Picardy, who had been the companion of Drake; but on referring to the edition just cited of the French translation, the only allusion to Drake’s companion which is to be found in the work, occurs in a few words forming part of the dedication to M. de St. Simon:—“Or, Monsieur, je le vous dédie, parceque c’est vous que m’aviez donné, m’ayant fait entendre, que vous l’aviez eu d’un de vos sujets de Courtomer, qui a fait le même voyage avec ce seigneur.” Nothing further can safely he inferred from this, than that M. de St. Simon received the English copy, which M. de Louvencourt made use of, from one of his vassals who had accompanied Drake in his expedition; but whether this Picard subject of the lord of Courtomer was the author of the narrative, does not appear from the meagre dedication, which seems to have been the basis upon which Fleurieu’s statement was founded.
Fleurieu refers to the Famous Voyage as printed in duodecimo, in London, in the year 1600. This edition, however, cannot be traced in the catalogue of the British Museum or the Bodleian Library, nor does Watt refer to it in his Bibliotheca Britannica: but Fleurieu may have had authority for his statement, though the size of the edition is at least suspicious. Even the French translation of 1627, of which there was an earlier edition in 1613, apparently unknown to Fleurieu, is in 8vo, and an English edition of the Famous Voyage, slightly modified, which was published in London in 1752, and may be found in the British Museum, is a very mean pamphlet, though in 8vo. The separate editions likewise of Drake’s other voyages which are to be met with in public libraries are in small quarto, so that there would be no argument from analogy in favor of an edition in 12mo. The fact, however, of its having disappeared, might perhaps be urged as a sign of the insignificance of the edition.
It is very immaterial, even if Fleurieu has hazarded a hasty statement in respect to there having been a separate edition of the Famous Voyage as early as 1600. Thus much, at least, is certain, that Fleurieu is incorrect in stating that the edition of Hakluyt, in which it was inserted, did not appear before 1600; for a careful comparison between the French translation, and the respective English editions of 1589 and 1600, furnishes conclusive evidence that M. de Louvencourt’s translation was made from the narrative in the edition of 1589.Two examples will suffice. The edition of 1589 gives 55⅓ degrees of southern latitude, and 42 degrees of northern latitude, as the extreme limits of Drake’s voyage towards the two poles, which the French translation follows; whilst the edition of 1600 gives 57⅓ degrees of southern latitude, and 43 degrees of northern latitude, as the southern and northern extremes. There can therefore be little doubt that the work, which M. de Louvencourt translated, was the narrative about which Hakluyt himself had taken no ordinary pains: and which he printed separately from his general collection of voyages, so that it might be circulated privately, though he incorporated it into the work after it was completed.
So far, indeed, are we from finding any good authority for attributing the authorship of the Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake to Francis Pretty, one of his crew, as unhesitatingly advanced by Mr. Greenhow, that, on the contrary there is the strongest negative evidence that it was not written by a person of that name, unless we are prepared to admit that there were two individuals of that name, the one a native of Picardy, and vassal of the Sieur de Courtomer, the other an English gentleman, “of Ey in Suffolke;” the one a companion of Drake, in his voyage round the world in 1577-80, the other a companion of Cavendish, in his voyage round the world in 1586-88; the one the author of the Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, the other the writer of the Admirable and Prosperous Voyage of the Worshipful Master Thomas Candish.
Hakluyt, in his edition of 1589, gave merely “The Worthy and Famous Voyage of Master Thomas Candishe, made round about the Globe of the Earth in the space of two yeeres, and lesse than two months, begon in the yeere 1586,” which is subscribed at the end, “written by N. H.;” but in his edition of 1600, he published a fuller and more complete narrative, entitled, “The Admirable and Prosperous Voyage of the Worshipfull Master Thomas Candish, of Frimley, in the Countie of Suffolke, Esquire, into the South Sea, and from thence round about the circumference of the whole earth; begun in the yeere of our Lord 1586, and finished 1588. Written by Master Francis Pretty, lately of Ey, in Suffolke, a gentleman employed in the same action.” The author, in the course of the narrative, styles himself Francis Pretie, and says that he was one of the crew of the “Hugh Gallant, a barke of 40 tunnes,” which, with the Desire, of 120, and the Content, of 60 tons, made up Cavendish’s small fleet. This Suffolkgentleman, for several reasons, could not be the same individual as the Picard vassal of the lord of Courtomer, nor is it probable that he ever formed part of the crew of Drake’s vessel in the Famous Voyage, as he no where alludes to the circumstance, when he speaks of places which Drake visited, nor even when he describes the hull of a small bark, pointed out to them by a Spaniard, whom they had lately taken on board, in the narrowest part of the Straits of Magellan, “which we judged to be a bark called the John Thomas.” Now it is contrary to all probability that the writer of this passage should have been one of Drake’s crew, for the vessel, whose hull was seen on this occasion, was the Marigold, a bark of 50 tons, which had formed one of Drake’s fleet of five vessels, and had been commanded by Captain John Thomas, which fact would have been known to one of Drake’s companions, who could never have committed so gross a blunder as to confound the name of the ship with the name of the captain. That the circumstances of the loss of the Marigold made no slight impression upon the minds of Drake’s companions, is shown from its being alluded to in all the narratives of Nuño da Silva, Cliffe, and Fletcher, without exception.
Drake had succeeded in passing the Straits of Magellan with three of his vessels: the Golden Hind, his own ship; the Elizabeth, commanded by Captain Winter; and the Marigold, by Captain Thomas. On the 30th of September, 1578, the Marigold parted from them in a gale of wind, and was wrecked in the Straits. On the 7th of October the Elizabeth likewise parted company from the Admiral; she, however, succeeded in making her way back through the Straits, and arrived safe at Ilfracombe on the 7th of June, 1579. It is singular that, in all the three accounts, which are known to be written by companions of Drake, the separation of the Marigold, as well as of the Elizabeth, is alluded to; whereas, in the Famous Voyage, there is no allusion to the loss of the Marigold, but only to the separation of the Elizabeth, whose safe arrival in England made the fact notorious. If Hakluyt wrote the Famous Voyage, the general notoriety of the separate return of the Elizabeth would account for his not overlooking that circumstance, whilst he omitted all allusion to the Marigold, about which his information would be comparatively imperfect. If one of Drake’s own crew was the author, it is difficult to suppose that he would have carefully alluded to “their losing sight of their consort, in which Mr. Winterwas,” who did not perish, and should omit all mention of the loss of the Marigold, which is spoken of in the World Encompassed “as the sorrowful separation of the Marigold from us, in which was Captain John Thomas, with many others of our dear friends.”
The course of this inquiry seems to justify the following conclusions: that the “Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake” is, strictly speaking, an anonymous work; that it is very improbable that it was compiled by one of Drake’s crew; on the contrary, Hakluyt’s own preface to his edition of 1589, seems to warrant us in supposing that he had himself been employed in preparing the narrative, which he printed separately from the rest of his work, but subsequently inserted into it. Hakluyt had most probably procured information from original sources, but he had certainly not access, in 1589, to what he subsequently considered to be more trustworthy sources, for he made various alterations in his narrative, in his edition of 1600. There is assuredly not the slightest ground for attributing it to Francis Pretty; and if M. Eyriés was the originator of this mistake, he must undoubtedly have confounded the Famous Voyage of Drake with the Famous Voyage of Candish. All that can be inferred from M. de Louvencourt’s dedication of his French translation to M. de St. Simon is, that the Lord of Courtomer had received the English original from one of his vassals, who had sailed with Drake; but the most ingenious interpretation of his words will not warrant us in inferring that the donor was likewise the author of the work.
It may be not unworthy of remark, that Purchas, in the fifth volume of his Pilgrims, (p. 1181,) gives a list of persons known to the world as the companions of Drake, in which the name of Francis Pretty is not found. “Men noted to have compassed the world with Drake, which have come to my hands, are Thomas Drake, brother to Sir Francis, Thomas Hood, Thomas Blaccoler, John Grippe, George, a musician, Crane, Fletcher, Cary, Moore, John Drake, John Thomas, Robert Winterly, Oliver, the gunner, &c.” It would be a reflection upon the well-known pains-taking research of Purchas, to suppose that he would have omitted from his list the name of the author of the Famous Voyage, had he been really one of Drake’s crew.
The other narrative, which is far more full and complete than the Famous Voyage, is entitled the “WorldEncompassed.” It was published under the superintendence of Francis Drake, a nephew of the Admiral, if not compiled by him; the foundation of it, as stated in the title, seems to have been the notes of Francis Fletcher, the chaplain of Drake’s vessel, “compared with divers others’ notes that went in the same voyage.” Fleurieu, in speaking of this work, says: “Celleci est le récit d’un témoin oculaire: et la fonction qu’il remplissait à bord du vaisseau amiral pourrait faire présumer que, s’il n’était pas l’homme de la flotte le plus expérimenté dans l’art de la navigation, du moins il devait être celui que les études exigées de sa profession avaient mis le plus à portée d’acquérir quelques connaissances, et qui pouvait le mieux exprimer ce qu’il avait vu.” (Recherches sur les terres australes de Drake, p. 227.)
Fleurieu, in further illustration of the probable fitness of Fletcher for his task, refers to the excellent account of Anson’s Voyages, written by his chaplain, R. Walter, and to the valuable treatise on naval evolutions, compiled by the Jesuit Paul Hoste, the chaplain of Tourville.
The earliest edition of “The World Encompassed” appeared in 1628, and a copy of this date is to be found in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford. It was printed for Nicholas Bourne, as “the next voyage to that to Nombre de Dios, in 1572, formerly imprinted.” A second edition was printed in 1635, and is in the King’s Library at the British Museum. A third edition was published in 1652, and may be found in the Library of the British Museum. It was therefore impossible not to feel surprise at Mr. Greenhow’s deliberately stating, that this work was not published before 1652, the more so as Watt, in his Bibliotheca Britannica, refers to the first edition of 1628. It is the coincidence of this second error, which warrants the supposition that Mr. Greenhow has placed too implicit a faith in the writer of the article upon Drake, in the Biographie Universelle. M. Eyriés, the author of that article, there writes, “Un autre ouvrage original est celui qui fut composé sur les mémoires de Francis Fletcher, chapelain sur le vaisseau de Drake. Ces mémoires furent comparés et fondus avec ceux de plusieurs autres personnes qui avaient été employées dans la même expédition; le résultat de ce travail parut sous ce titre: The World Encompassed, by Sir F. Drake, collected out of the notes of Master F. F., preacher in this employment, and others. Londres, 1652, 8vo.” Thereis another slight error in this statement, as the work is a small 4to, not an 8vo.
It has been deemed the more necessary to point out carefully the errors of Mr. Greenhow, in regard to these two narratives, because he contrasts them expressly (p. 74) as “the one proceeding entirely from a person who had accompanied Drake in his expedition, and published in 1589, during the life of the hero; the other compiled from various accounts, and not given to the world until the middle of the following century.”
In respect to the narrative of the World Encompassed, Mr. Greenhow thus expresses himself:—“It is a long and diffuse account, filled with dull and generally absurd speculations, and containing moreover a number of statements, which are positive and evidently wilful falsehoods; yet it contains scarcely a single fact not related in the Famous Voyage, from which many sentences and paragraphs are taken verbatim, while others convey the same meaning in different terms. The journal, or supposed journal of Fletcher’s, remains in manuscript in the British Museum: and from it were derived the false statements above mentioned, according to Barrow, who consulted it.”
Mr. Greenhow’s opinion of the length and diffuseness of the narrative, and of the dulness and general absurdity of the speculations, will probably be acquiesced in by those who have read the World Encompassed, but the rest of his observations have been made at random. The World Encompassed does not profess to be an original work, but to be a compilation from the notes of several who went the voyage. It is therefore highly probable that the compiler had before him “The Famous Voyage” amongst other narratives, and we should be prepared to find many statements alike in the two accounts. But it seems hard to suppose with Mr. Greenhow, that, where the World Encompassed differs from the Famous Voyage, the statements are “positive and evidently wilful falsehoods.” There are several statements, for instance, where the two narratives differ, and where the World Encompassed agrees with Nuño da Silva’s account, or with Cliffe’s narrative.
For instance, on the second day after clearing the Straits of Magellan, on Sept. 7th, a violent gale came on from the northeast, which drove Drake’s three vessels, the Golden Hind, the Elizabeth, and the Marigold to the height of 57° southaccording to Cliffe, and about 200 leagues in longitude west of the strait, according to the Famous Voyage. They could make no head against the gale for three weeks, and during that interval there was an eclipse of the moon, which is alluded to in all the narratives. According to Nuño da Silva, they lay driving about, without venturing to hoist a sail till the last day of September, and about this time lost sight of the Marigold. The Elizabeth still kept company with the Golden Hind, but on or before October 7th, Drake’s vessel parted from her consort. We now come to a very important event in Drake’s voyage, which would seem to be one of the supposed “positive and evidently wilful falsehoods,” to which Mr. Greenhow alludes.
The Famous Voyage conducts Sir F. Drake in a continuous course north-westward, after losing sight of the Elizabeth, to the island of Mocha, in 38° 30′ south, whereas the World Encompassed says, that “Drake, being driven from the Bay of the Parting of Friends out into the open sea, was carried back again to the southward into 55° south, on which height they found shelter for two days amongst the islands, but were again driven further to the southward, and at length fell in with the uttermost part of land towards the South Pole,” in about 56° south. Here Fletcher himself landed, and travelled to the southernmost part of the island, beyond which there was neither continent nor island, but one wide ocean. We altered the name, says Fletcher in his MS. journal, from Terra Incognita, to Terra nunc bene Cognita. Now this account in the World Encompassed, varying so totally from that in the Famous Voyage, is fully borne out by the positive evidence of Nuño da Silva, who says, that after losing sight of another ship of their company, the Admiral’s ship being now left alone, with this foul weather they ran till they were under 57°, where they entered into the haven of an island, and stayed there three or four days. The Famous Voyage would lead the reader to suppose, that after leaving the Bay of Severing of Friends, the Elizabeth and Golden Hind were driven in company to 57° 20′ south; but it is altogether contrary to probability that Cliffe should have omitted the fact of the Elizabeth having been in company with Drake when he discovered the southernmost point of land, had such been the case. The author of the Famous Voyage has evidently mixed up the events of the gale in the month of September with those of the storm after the 8th of October. This is a very strikinginstance of the truth of Captain W. Burney’s remark, “that the author of the Famous Voyage seems purposely, on some occasions, to introduce confusion as a cloak for ignorance.”
Again, the World Encompassed mentions that Drake was badly wounded in the face with an arrow by the natives in the island of Mocha, about which the Famous Voyage is altogether silent, but Nuño da Silva confirms this statement. Other instances might be cited to the like purport.
Mr. Greenhow, at the end of his note already cited, says, “The journal, or supposed journal of Fletcher, remains in MS. in the British Museum, and from it were derived the false statements above mentioned, according to Barrow, who consulted it.” Mr. Greenhow has nowhere particularised what these false statements are, unless he means that the statements are false which are at variance with the Famous Voyage. It is evident, however, that such a view assumes the whole point at issue between the two narratives to be decided upon internal evidence in favour of the Famous Voyage, which a careful examination of the two accounts will not justify.
But it is incorrect to refer to Fletcher’s journal, as the source of the assumed false statements in the World Encompassed. The manuscript to which Captain James Burney refers, in his Voyage of Sir Francis Drake round the world, as “the manuscript relation of Francis Fletcher, minister, in the British Museum,” forms a part of the Sloane Collection, in which there is likewise a manuscript of Drake’s previous expedition to Nombre de Dios. It is not, however, properly speaking, a MS. of Fletcher’s, but a MS. copy of Fletcher’s MS. It bears upon the fly-leaf the words, “e libris Joh. Conyers, Pharmacopolist,—Memorandum, Hakluyt’s Voyages of Fletcher.” Its title runs thus: “The First Part of the Second Voyage about the World, attempted, contrived, and happily accomplished, to wit, in the time of three years, by Mr. Francis Drake, at her Highness’s command, and his company: written and faithfully laid down by Ffrancis Ffletcher, Minister of Christ, and Presbyter of the Gospel, adventurer and traveller in the same voyage.” On the second page is a map of England, and above it these words: “This is a map of England, an exact copy of the original to a hair; that done by Mr. Ffrancis Ffletcher, in Queen Elizabeth’s time; it is copied by Jo. Conyers, citizen and apothecary of London, together with the rest, and by the same hand, as follows.”
The work appears to have been very carefully executed by Conyers, and is illustrated with rude maps and drawings of plants, boats, instruments of music and warfare, strange animals, such as the Vitulus marinus and others, which are referred to in the text of the MS., opposite to which they are generally depicted, and each is specially vouched to be a faithful copy of Fletcher’s MS.
There is no date assigned to Fletcher’s own MS., but we might fairly be warranted in referring it to a period almost immediately subsequent to the happy accomplishment of the voyage, from the leader of the company being spoken of as “Mr. Francis Drake.” The Golden Hind reached England in November, 1580, and Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in April, 1581; there was then an interval of four months, during which the circumstances of his voyage and his conduct were under the consideration of the Queen’s Council, and Fletcher may have completed his journal before their favourable decision led to Drake’s receiving the honour of knighthood. On comparing the World Encompassed with this MS., it will be found that most of the speculations, discussions, and fine writing in the World Encompassed have emanated from the nephew of the hero, or whoever may have been the compiler of the work, and have not been derived from this MS., which is written in rather a sober style, and is much less diffuse than might reasonably be expected. Fletcher’s imagination seems certainly to have been much affected by the giant stature of the Patagonians, and by the terrible tempest which dispersed the fleet after it had cleared the Straits of Magellan. In respect to the Patagonians, Cliffe, it must be allowed, says, they were “of a mean stature, well limbed, and of a duskish tawnie or browne colour.” On the other hand, Nuño da Silva says, they were “a subtle, great, and well-formed people, and strong and high of stature.” Whichever of the two accounts be the more correct, this circumstance is certain, that four of the natives beat back six of Drake’s sailors, and slew with their arrows two of them, the one an Englishman, and the other a Netherlander, so that they could be no mean antagonists. In respect to the tempest, the events of it must have with reason fixed themselves deep into Fletcher’s memory, for he writes in his journal, “About which time the storm being so outrageous and furious, the barke Marigold, wherein Edward Bright, one of the accusers of Thomas Doughty, was captain, with 28 souls, wasswallowed up, which chanced in the second watch of the night, wherein myself and John Brewer, our trumpeter, being watch, did hear their fearful cries continued without hope, &c.”
There is a greater discrepancy between the Famous Voyage and the World Encompassed, as to the furthest limit of Drake’s expedition to the north of the equator, than, as already shown, in regard to the southern limit. We have here, unfortunately, no independent narrative to appeal to in support of either statement, as the Portuguese pilot was dismissed by Drake at Guatulco, and did not accompany him further. Hakluyt himself does not follow the same version of the story in the two editions of his narrative. In the Famous Voyage, as interpolated in the edition of 1589, he gives 55⅓° south, as the furthest limit southward; but in the edition of 1600, he gives 57⅓°; in a similar manner we find 42° north, as the highest northern limit mentioned in the edition of 1589, whilst in that of 1600 it is extended to 43°. Hakluyt thus seems to have found that his earlier information was not to be implicitly relied upon, but we have no clew to the fresh sources to which he had at a later period found access. The World Encompassed, on the other hand, continues Drake’s course up to the 48th parallel of north latitude. The two narratives, however, do not appear to be altogether irreconcileable. In the Famous Voyage, as amended in the edition of 1600, we have this statement:—“We therefore set sail, and sayled (in longitude) 600 leagues at least for a good winde, and thus much we sayled from the 16 of April till the 3 of June. The 5 day of June, being in 43 degrees towards the pole arcticke, we found the ayre so colde that our men, being greevously pinched with the same, complained of the extremitie thereof, andthe further we went, the more the cold increased upon us. Whereupon we thought it best for that time to seek the land, and did so, finding it not mountainous, but low plaine land, till we came within 38 degrees towards the line. In which height it pleased God to send us into a faire and good baye, with a good winde to enter the same.”
It will be seen from this account, that it was in the 43d, or, as in the earlier edition of 1589, the 42d parallel of north lat., that the cold was first felt so intensely by Drake’s crew, and that the further they went, the more the cold increased upon them; so that from the latter passage it may be inferred that they did not discontinue their course at once as soon as they reached the 43d parallel.
It appears, likewise, that Drake, from the nature of the wind, was obliged to gain a considerable offing, before he could stand towards the northward: 600 leaguesin longitude, according to the first edition (the second edition omitting the words ‘in longitude,’) which does not differ much from the World Encompassed. The latter states—“From Guatulco, or Aquatulco, we departed the day following, viz., April 16, setting our course directly into the sea, whereupon we sailed 500 leagues in longitude to get a wind: and between that and June 3, 1400 leagues in all, till we came into 42 degrees of latitude, where the night following we found such an alternation of heat into extreme and nipping cold, that our men in general did grievously complain thereof.”
The cold seems to have increased to that extremity that, in sailing two degrees further north, the ropes and tackling of the ship were quite stiffened. The crew became much disheartened, but Drake encouraged them, so that they resolved to endure the uttermost. On the 5th of June they were forced by contrary winds to run into an ill-sheltered bay, where they were enveloped in thick fogs, and the cold becoming still more severe, “commanded them to the southward whether they would or no.” “From the height of 48 degrees, in which now we were, to 38, we found the land by coasting along it to be but low and reasonable plain: every hill, (whereof we saw many, but none very high,) though it were in June, and the sun in his nearest approach to them, being covered with snow. In 38° 30′ we fell in with a convenient and fit harbour, and June 17th came to anchor therein, where we continued until the 23d day of July following.”
The writer of this account, in another paragraph, confirms the above statement by saying, “add to this, that though we searched the coast diligently, even unto 48°, yet we found not the land to trend so much as one point in any place towards the East, but rather running on continually north-west, as if it went directly into Asia.”
Mr. Greenhow is disposed to reject the statement of the World Encompassed, for two reasons: first, because it is improbable that a vessel like Drake’s could have sailed through six degrees of latitude from the 3d to the 5th of June; secondly, because it is impossible that such intense cold could be experienced in that part of the Pacific in the month of June, as is implied by the circumstances narrated, and therefore they must be “direct falsehoods.”
The first objection has certainly some reason in it; but in rejecting the World Encompassed, Mr. Greenhow adopts the Famous Voyage as the true narrative, so that it becomes necessary to see whether Hakluyt’s account is not exposed to objections equally grave.
Hakluyt agrees with the author of the World Encompassed, in dating Drake’s arrival at a convenient harbour on June 17,—(Hakluyt gives this date in vol. iii., p. 524,)—so that Drake would have consumed twelve days in running back three and a half degrees, according to one version of the Famous Voyage, and four and a half degrees according to the other, before a wind which was so violent that he could not continue to beat against it. There is no doubt about the situation of the port where Drake took shelter, at least within half a degree, that it was either the Port de la Bodega, in 38° 28′, as some have with good reason supposed, (Maurelle’s Journal, p. 526, in Barrington’s Miscellanies,) or the Port de los Reyes, situated between La Bodega and Port San Francisco, in about 38°, as the Spaniards assert; and there is no difference in the two stories in respect to the interval which elapsed after Drake turned back, until he reached the port. There is, therefore, the improbability of Drake’s vessel, according to Hakluyt, making so little way in so long a timebeforea wind, to be set off against the improbability of its making, according to the World Encompassed, so much way in so short a time on a wind, the wind blowing undoubtedly all this time very violently from the north-west. Many persons may be disposed to think that the two improbabilities balance each other.
In respect to the intense cold, it must be remembered that the Famous Voyage, equally with the World Encompassed, refers to the great extremity of the cold as the cause of Drake’s drawing back again till he reached 38°. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Drake did turn back on account of his men being unable to bear up against the cold, after having so lately come out of the extreme heat of the tropics. Is it more probable that this intense cold should have been experienced in the higher or the lower latitude? for the intense cold must be admitted to be a fact. Drake seems to have been exposed to one of those severe winds termedNorthers, which in the early part of the summer, bring down the atmosphere, even at New Orleans and Mexico, to the temperature of winter; but without seeking to account for the cold, as thatwould be foreign to the present inquiry, the fact, to whatever extent it be admitted, would rather support the statement that Drake reached the 48th parallel, than that he was constrained to turn back at the lower latitude of 43°.
It may likewise be observed that the description of the coast, “as trending continually north-westward, as if it went directly into Asia,” would correspond with the 48th parallel, but be altogether at variance with the 43d; and it is admitted by all, that Drake’s object was to discover a passage from the western to the eastern coast of North America. His therefore finding the land not to trend so much as one point to the east, but, on the contrary, to the westward, whilst it fully accounts for his changing his course, determines also where he decided to return. It should not be forgotten that the statement in the World Encompassed, that the coast trended to the westward in 48°, was in contradiction of the popular opinion regarding the supposed Straits of Anian, and if it were not the fact, the author hazarded, without an adequate object, the rejection of this part of his narrative, and unavoidably detracted from his own character for veracity.
We have, however, two cotemporaries of Sir Francis Drake, who confirm the statement of the World Encompassed. One of these has been strangely overlooked by Mr. Greenhow; namely, Stow the annalist, who, under the year 1580, gives an account of the return of Master Francis Drake to England, from his voyage round the world. “He passed,” he says, “forth northward, till he came to the latitude of forty-seven, thinking to have come that way home, but being constrained by fogs and cold winds to forsake his purpose, came backward to the line ward the tenth of June, 1579, and stayed in the latitude of thirty-eight, to grave and trim his ship, until the five-and-twenty of July.” This is evidently an account derived from sources quite distinct from those of either of the other two narratives. It occurs as early as 1592, in an edition of the Annals which is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, so that it was circulated two years at least before Drake’s death.
The other authority is that of one of the most celebrated navigators of Drake’s age, John Davis, of Sandrug by Dartmouth, who was the author of a work entitled “The World’s Hydrographical Discovery.” It was “imprinted at London, by Thomas Dawson, dwelling at the Three Cranes in the Vine-tree, in 1595,” and may be found most readily in the 4th volume of the last edition of Hakluyt’s Voyages. Aftergiving some account of the dangers which Drake had surmounted in passing through the Straits of Magellan, which Davis had himself sailed through three times, he proceeds to say, that “after Sir Francis Drake was entered into the South Seas, he coasted all the western shores of America, until he came into the septentrional latitude of forty-eight degrees, being on the back side of Newfoundland.” Now Davis is certainly entitled to respectful attention, from his high character as a navigator. He had made three voyages in search of a north-west passage, and had given his name to Davis’ Straits, as the discoverer of them; he had likewise been the companion of Cavendish in his last voyage into the South Seas, in 1591-93, when, having separated from Cavendish, he discovered the Falkland islands. He was therefore highly competent to form a correct judgment of the value of the accounts which he had received respecting Drake’s voyage, nor was he likely, as a rival in the career of maritime discovery, to exaggerate the extent of it. We find him, on this occasion, deliberately adopting the account that Drake reached that portion of the north-west coast of America, which corresponded to Newfoundland on the north-east coast, or, as he distinctly says, the septentrional latitude of 48 degrees.
Davis, however, is not the only naval authority of that period who adopted this view, for Sir William Monson, who was admiral in the reign of Elizabeth and James I., and served in expeditions against the Spaniards under Drake, in his introduction to Sir Francis Drake’s voyage round the world, praises him because “lastly and principally that after so many miseries and extremities he endured, and almost two years spent in unpractised seas, when reason would have bid him sought home for his rest, he left his known course, and ventured upon an unknown sea in forty-eight degrees, which sea or passage we know had been often attempted by our seas, but never discovered.” And in his brief review of Sir F. Drake’s voyage round the world, he says: “From the 16th of April to the 5th of June he sailed without seeing land, and arrived in forty-eight degrees, thinking to find a passage into our seas, which land he named Albion.” (Sir W. Monson’s Naval Tracts, in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, vol. iii., pp. 367, 368.)
Mr. Greenhow (p. 75) says, that Davis’s assertion carries with it its own refutation, “as it is nowhere else pretended that Drake saw any part of the west coast of America betweenthe 17th degree of latitude and the 38th.” But surely Davis might use the expression, “coasted all the western shores of America,” without being supposed to pretend that Drake kept in sight of the coast all the way. The objection seems to be rather verbal than substantial. Again, Sir W. Monson is charged by the same author with inconsistency, because he speaks of C. Mendocino as the “furthest land discovered,” and the “furthermost known land.” But Sir W. Monson is on this occasion discussing the probable advantages of a north-west passage as a saving of distance, and he is speaking of C. Mendocino, as the “furthermost known part of America,” i. e., the furthermost headland from which a course might be measured to the Moluccas, and he is likewise referring especially to the voyage of Francisco Gali, so that this objection is more specious than solid. It should likewise not be forgotten, that in the most approved maps of that day, in the last edition of Ortelius, for example, and in that of Hondius, which is given in Purchas’s Pilgrims, C. Mendocino is the northernmost point of land of North America. It may also not be amiss to remark, that in the map which Mr. Hallam (in his Literature of Europe, vol. ii., c. viii., § v.) justly pronounces to be the best map of the sixteenth century, and which is one of uncommon rarity, Cabo Mendocino is the last headland marked upon the north-west coast of America, in about 43° north latitude. This map is found with a few copies of the edition of Hakluyt of 1589: in other copies, indeed, there is the usual inferior map, in which C. Mendocino is placed between 50° and 60°. The work, however, in which it has been examined for the present purpose, is Hakluyt’s edition of 1600, in which it is sometimes found with Sir F. Drake’s voyage traced out upon it: but in the copy in the Bodleian Library, no such voyage is observed; whilst the line of coast is continued above C. Mendocino and marked, in large letters, “Nova Albion.” Thus Hakluyt himself, in adopting this map as “a true hydrographical description of so much of the world as hath been hitherto discovered and is common to our knowledge,” has so far admitted that Nova Albion extended beyond the furthest land discovered by the Spaniards. On the other hand, Camden, in his life of Elizabeth, first published in 1615, adopts the version of the story which Hakluyt had put forth in his earliest edition of the Famous Voyage, making the southern limit 55° south, and the northern 42° north, which Hakluyt has himself rejected in his later edition.There can be little doubt that Camden’s account bears internal evidence of having been copied in the main from Hakluyt. Purchas, as we may gather from his work, merely followed Hakluyt.
In addition to these, Mr. Greenhow enumerates several comparatively recent authors as adopting Hakluyt’s opinion. Of these, perhaps Dr. Johnson has the greatest renown. He published a life of Drake in parts, in five numbers of the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1740-41. It was, however, amongst his earliest contributions, when he was little more than thirty years of age, and therefore is not entitled to all the weight which the opinion of Dr. Johnson at a later period of life might carry with it. But as it is, the passage, as it stands at present, seems to involve a clerical error. “From Guatulco, which lies in 15° 40′, they stood out to sea, and without approaching any land, sailed forward till on the night following the 3d of June, being then in the latitude of 38°, they were suddenly benumbed with such cold blasts that they were scarcely able to handle the ropes. This cold increased upon them, as they proceeded, to such a degree that the sailors were discouraged from mounting upon deck; nor were the effects of the climate to be imputed to the warmth of the regions to which they had been lately accustomed, for the ropes were stiff with frost, and the meat could scarcely be conveyed warm to the table. On June 17th they came to anchor in 38° 30′.”
In the original paper, as published in the Gentleman’s Magazine for January, 1741, Dr. Johnson writes 38° in numbers as the parallel of latitude where the cold was felt so acutely. This would be in a far lower latitude than what any of the accounts of Drake’s own time gives; so that it may for that reason alone be suspected to be an error of the press, more particularly as Drake is made ultimately to anchor in 38° 30′, a higher latitude than that in which his crew were benumbed with the cold. We must either suppose that Dr. Johnson entirely misunderstood the narrative, and intentionally represented Drake as continuing his voyage northward in spite of the cold, and anchoring in a higher latitude than where his men were so much discouraged by its severity, or that there is a typographical error in the figures. The latter seems to be the more probable alternative; and if, in order to correct this error, we may reasonably have recourse to the authority from which he derived his information as to thelatitude of the port where Drake cast anchor, it is to the World Encompassed, and not to the Famous Voyage, that we must refer; for it is the World Encompassed which gives us 38° 30′ as the latitude of the convenient and fit harbour, whereas the Famous Voyage sends Drake into a fair and good bay in 38°.
The dispute between Spain and Great Britain respecting the fur trade on the north-west coast of America having awakened the attention of the European powers to the value of discoveries in that quarter, a French expedition was in consequence despatched in 1790, under Captain Etienne Marchand, who, after examining some parts of the north-west coast of America, concluded the circumnavigation of the globe in 1792. Fleurieu, the French hydrographer, published a full account of Marchand’s Voyage, to which he prefaced an introduction, read before the French Institute in July, 1797. In this introduction he reviews briefly the course of maritime discovery in these parts, and states his opinion, without any qualification, that Sir Francis Drake made the land on the north-west coast of America in the latitude of 48 degrees, which no Spanish navigator had yet reached. Mr. Greenhow (p. 223) speaks highly of Fleurieu’s work, though he considers him to have been careless in the examination of his authorities. He observes, that “his devotion to his own country, and his contempt for the Spaniards and their government, led him frequently to make assertions and observations at variance with truth and justice.” It may be added, that at the time when he composed his introduction, the relations of France and Great Britain were not of a kind to dispose him to favour unduly the claims of British navigators.
The same train of events which terminated in the Nootka Convention, led to a Spanish expedition under Galiano and Valdés, of which an account was published, by order of the king of Spain, at Madrid, in 1802. The introduction to it comprises a review of all the Spanish voyages of discovery along the north-west coast, in the course of which it is observed, that, from want of sufficient information in Spanish history, certain foreign writers had undervalued the merit of Cabrillo, by assigning to Drake the discovery of the coast between 38° and 48°; whereas, thirty-six years before Drake’s appearance on that coast, Cabrillo had discovered it between 38° and 43°. A note appended to this passage states:—“The true glory which the English navigator mayclaim for himself is the having discovered the portion of coast comprehended between the parallels of 43° and 48°; to which, consequently, the denomination of New Albion ought to be limited, without interfering with the discoveries of preceding navigators.” (Relacion del Viage hecho por las Goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el año de 1792. Introduccion, pp. xxxv. xxxvi.)
To the same purport, Alexander von Humboldt, in his Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, says:—“D’après des données historiques certaines, la dénomination de Nouvelle Albion devrait être restreinte à la partie de la côte qui s’étend depuis les 43° aux 48°, ou du Cap de Martin de Aguilar, à l’entrée de Juan de Fuca,” (l. iii., c. viii.) And in another passage: “On trouve que Francisco Gali côtoya une partie de l’Archipel du Prince de Galles ou celui du Roi George (en 1582.) Sir Francis Drake, en 1578, n’était parvenu que jusqu’aux 48° de latitude au nord du cap Grenville, dans la Nouvelle Georgie.”
The question of the northern limits of Drake’s expedition has been rather fully entered into on this occasion, because it is apprehended that Drake’s visit constituted adiscoveryof that portion of the coast which was to the north of the furthest headland which Ferrelo reached in 1543, whether that headland were Cape Mendocino, or Cape Blanco; and because Mr. Greenhow, in the preface to the second edition of his History of Oregon and California, observes, that in the accounts and views there presented of Drake’s visit to the north-west coast, all who had criticised his work were silent, or carefully omitted to notice the principal arguments adduced by the author. We may conclude with observing, that on reviewing the evidence it will be seen, that in favour of the higher latitude of 48° we have a well authenticated account drawn up by the nephew of Sir Francis Drake himself, from the notes of several persons who went the voyage, confirmed by independent statements in two contemporary writers, Stow the annalist, and Davis the navigator, and supported by the authority of Sir W. Monson, who served with Drake in the Spanish wars after his return; and on this side we find ranked the influential judgment of the ablest modern writers who have given their attention to the subject, such as the distinguished French hydrographer Fleurieu, the able author of the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana, published by the authority of the king of Spain, and the learnedand laborious Alexander von Humboldt. On the opposite side stands Hakluyt, and Hakluyt alone; for Camden and Purchas both followed Hakluyt implicitly, and though they may be considered to approve, they do not in any way confirm his account; while Hakluyt himself has nowhere disclosed his sources of information, and by the variation of the two editions of his work in the two most important facts of the whole voyage, namely, the extreme limits southward and northward respectively of Drake’s expedition, he has indirectly made evident the doubtful character of the information on which he relied, and has himself abandoned the version of the story, which Camden and the author of the Vie de Drach, have adopted upon his authority.
ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST OF AMERICA.