Voyages of the Elizabethan seamen to America : select narratives from the 'Principal navigations' of Hakluyt
i^a^tt^m ^Ui^mtn m m-'^' m 'V»V.-.,i<-:i.' m-rr:'^^h!^ '^i-^- ¥'/■&''■''- ''W: m mm. WtJ'jj. •■[Vfia Y ^ ^ IDo^aoes of Eli3abetban Seamen EDITED BY EDWARD JOHN PAYNE, M.A. FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD FIRST SERIES HAWKINS FROBISHER DRAKE £onbott HENRY FROWDE Oxford University Press Warehouse Amen Corner, E.C. Qlw ?)orR MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE Voyages of the EUzahethan Seamen to America Select Narratives from the 'Principal Navigatio7ts' of HAKL UYT EDITED BY EDWARD JOHN PAYNE, M.A. FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD Ibawftins jfrobtsber Drake SECOND EDITION Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS: 1893 TO JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE. UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD E ft3P32. C" 2. CONTENTS Introduction .... Life and Works of Hakluyt Directions for Taking a Prize / Hawkins ...... First Voyage (1562- 1563) [Hakluyt] Second Voyage (1564 -1565) [Sparke] Third Voyage (1567-1568) [Hawkins] Frobisher . . .'. First Voyage (1576) [Best] Second Voyage (1577) [Best] Third Voyage (1578) [Best] Drake Famous Voyage (1577-1580) [Pretty] Great Armada (1585-1586) [Biggs] I'AGE vii xlviii liii I 6 9 69 83 88 96 133 193 196 230 0;tfor6 PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BV HORACE HAKT. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY INTRODUCTION Mr. Froude has happily characterized the ' Principal Navigations' of Hakluyt as ' the prose epic of the modern English nation.' This liberal estimate of Hakluyt's labours contrasts amusingly with an opinion once put forth by an eminent Professor of Modern History in the sister University. Professor Smyth accounted the ' Principal Navigation^ ' nothing but ' an unwieldy and unsightly mass,' only likely to be burrowed into by a few speculative persons, bent upon tracing out ' the steps which lead to permanent alterations and improve- ments in the concerns of mankind.' Only the mere lover of old books will deny that Hakluyt's blackletter folios are both unwieldy and unsightly. But no one who knows them will consent to dismiss them as containing nothing but raw material for the use of the philosopher. They contain episodes which are integral parts of our national history— episodes to which the English reader cannot but recur again and again, with an emotion akin to that which a Greek may be supposed to have felt while listening to the exploits of the Homeric heroes. And no one who has experienced this viii Introduction. feeling will be disposed to quarrel with Mr. Froude for denominating Hakluyt our national prose epic. Among the heroes of this epic one group unde- niably stands forth with commanding prominence. Hakluyt's work is mainly the monument of the great JEnglish navigators and maritime adventurers of his own time, who overthrew the Spanish colossus that bestrode the ocean, established that naval supremacy on which after-ages reared the fabric of the British Empire, and prepared the way for the founders of the great Anglo-American nation'Ty' If the interest which men command with posterity depends on the importance of the services which they render to their country, on the breadth, the variety and the originality of their designs, as well as on the measure of success which attends them-Aon their patriotism and force of character, and on the wealth of dramatic incident embodied in their careers,, few more interesting groups can be found in English history, or in any other. Conspicuous in its fore- front stand the three famous navigators whose voyages are commemorated in the present volume. Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake are always remembered among us as the three lieutenants of the admiral who repulsed the Spanish Armada. \It is sometimes forgotten that they were the very men who by their assaults on the Spanish possessions in America had done most to provoke the Spanish invasion of England. The bril- liancy of their exploits in the New World induced men like Gilbert, Raleigh, and Cavendish, scholars and gentlemen-adventurers, and soldiers rather than sailors, to take up the movement which the three seamen had started. The principal figure in the group, in the eyes The Elizabethan heroes. ix of contemporaries, was undoubtedly Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh's fame rested rather on the magnificence of his projects than on the extent of his achievements. The dream of his life was to oust Spain from America, and thereby to make England the greatest power in the Christian world. History judges by results. Had Raleigh permanently colonized 'Virginia,' subjugated the caciques of Florida, made himself master of the riches of La Grand Copal, ransacked the Apalachian mountains of their fabled wealth in gold, crystal, rubies, and diamonds, and thence marched southwards to Mexico — had he then discovered the imaginary kingdom of El Dorado in Guiana and annexed it to the dominions of his sovereign, invaded New Granada from the Orinoco, marched to Quito and Cuzco, and permanently secured for England what Drake called the 'Treasure of the World,' he would have done something more than keep the place assigned to him among his contemporaries by contemporary opinion. He would have ranked as the greatest Englishman of his own or any other time. But his projects, one and all, ended in failure, and his fame stands eclipsed by that of the less imaginative adventurers whose successes inspired him. Yet though Gilbert, Raleigh, and Cavendish are only secondary figures among the great Elizabethan maritime adventurers, history will always rank them with Hawkins, Frobisher, and Drake as a single group, because they all toiled in the same field and with the same object. To break the maritime power of the most formidable prince in Europe, and to throw open to the English people that New World which he arrogantl} claimed as his own, was the end to which they devoted ;/ X Introduction. their thoughts, their energies, and their fortunes. Amidst perils of every description, among the ice of the Arctic seas and the tornadoes and pestilences of the tropics, through battle and treachery worse than battle, one and all carried their lives in their hands, year after year, in pursuit of it. One and all laid their lives down for it. Gilbert, the first to drop off, perished with his Lilliputian bark while returning from the first English colonizing expedition. Cavendish, heart-broken at a failure which contrasted so painfully with his previous brilliant success, sickened and died between Brazil and England. The corpses of Hawkins and Drake sank in the West Indian seas amidst the thunder of funeral guns. Two only among them ended their lives on land. Frobisher crossed the Channel to die of a wound received in active service. Raleigh, the last survivor, was sacrificed to pamper the offended pride of Spain, and finished his career on the scaffold. This general movement towards America on the part of the Elizabethan maritime adventurers was only indi- rectly connected with that general extension of maritime enterprise which accompanied the Renaissance, and of which the discovery of America was the principal fruit. When Elizabeth came to the throne, the great period of maritime discoveries, a period extending from the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, was already well advanced, and the main problems of geography had been solved. The map of the world, as we have it at this day, had been constructed by adventurers of other nations. The chief seat of the arts and sciences, in the Middle Ages, was Italy; and the improved geography which The Age of Discovery. xi appears as the Middle Ages close was mainly due to Italian energy and sagacity. In the palmiest days of the Papacy and of the Italian maritime republics, Italian monks and merchants penetrated the heart of Asia. Italian seamen passed the Pillars of Hercules, braved the unknown dangers of the stormy Atlantic, explored the desolate shores of Barbary, rediscovered the Fortunate Isles of the Ancients, and increased the Ptolemaic map of the world by the addition of the Madeiras and the Azores. The remote regions to which they had penetrated were beyond the scope of Italian political or mercantile interests. They thus fell under the sway of the maritime powers of the Spanish peninsula ; and the exploration of the Atlantic was continued under the direction and at the expense of Portuguese and Castilian adventurers. It must not be supposed that the gradual exploration of the coast of Africa, which ultimately led to the passing of the Cape of Good Hope and the establishment of a connexion by sea between Lisbon and India, was exclusively the work of Portuguese seamen. The expeditions of the Spanish and Portuguese were to a very great extent made under Italian captains, with Italian crews, and in vessels built by Italian shipwrights. Italian mathematicians constructed the charts and instruments by which they sailed, and Italian bankers furnished funds for equipping them. A similar influence was at work in England : the Italian merchants of London and the Italian seamen of Bristol were the links between the great movement of maritime exploration and an insular people which at the eleventh hour began to profit by it. The Genoese were best known in Bristol, xii Introduction. though it was a Venetian who first conducted Enghsh sailors to the shores of America. The skill and science of Italy penetrated everywhere, allied themselves with the spirit of territorial conquest and commercial enter- prise in other lands, and wrought out the exploration of the coasts of Africa, the crossing of the Atlantic before the trade wind, and the discovery of the New World. Columbus did but add the finishing stroke to a work on which his countrymen had been incessantly employed for two centuries. When this stroke had been made, the part of Italy was completed. Thirtyyears afterwards, the powers on the Atlantic seaboard began their long struggle for the substantial results of these discoveries. It is at a subsequent period in this stage of the history of oceanic enterprise, forty years after the struggle commenced, and seventy years after the Discovery itself, that England steps in. It needs no deep research to account for this back- wardness of England in the exploration and occupation of the New World. It is sufficient to observe that for half a century after the discovery of America there was little or nothing to induce Englishmen to attempt it. It required many years for the Spaniards themselves to discover the wealth of the New World : and it was not until the extent of this wealth had become known to other nations that the latter thought the New World to be seriously worth their notice. England was by no means a feeble power, nor were Englishmen backward to perceive the immense possibilities which the dis- covery involved. While the voyages of Columbus were as yet confined to the islands, and before the continental coast had been reached, English patentees, roused to Backwardness of England. xiii activity by these voyages, had been empowered by Henry the Seventh to occupy any lands in the Atlantic not hitherto known to Christian nations. These English patentees reached the continent of America before Columbus ever beheld it : and patents expressed in similar terms were freely granted to other adventurers. No regard was practically paid, either in England or in France, to the Pope's partition of the globe between Spain and Portugal. Had Frenchmen or Englishmen desired to settle in the New World, nothing could have prevented it. How then, it may be asked, happened it that French and English adventurers were backward in availing themselves of an opportunity ap- parently so magnificent ? The answer is that it was not considered to be worth while. America, it is true, was known to produce the precious metals. But it was not until the discovery of Mexico and Peru that it was supposed to be particularly rich in them. This is significantly illustrated by the important document of early American history contained in the play or interlude of the 'Four Elements,' written shortly before the dis- covery of Mexico. In the speech of ' Experience ' to ' Studious Desire ' regret is expressed that Englishmen had not occupied America, converted its natives to Christianity, and availed themselves of its ' commo- dities.' This speech has a remarkable omission. The commodities include only fish, copper, and timber : there is no mention whatever of the precious metals. The slight value likely to be set by Englishmen on the gold and silver mines of America during the earlier decades after the Discovery may be further illustrated Irom the contemporary Spanish historian Las Casas. xiv Introduction. For thirty years the most esteemed possession of the Spaniards in America was the island of Espanola. In describing this island Las Casas takes great pains to demonstrate that it is not inferior in natural resources and general value to the most celebrated islands of the Old World; and he accordingly compares it in suc- cession with England, Sicily, and Crete. We shall only cite that part of his argument which refers to England. He begins by showing to his own satisfac- tion that Espanola is larger than England, or at any rate not smaller : an opinion generally accepted among the Spaniards, and adopted in substance by the writers of two narratives in the present volume (pp. 39, 252), although that island in fact contains less than one-third of the area of Great Britain, and not half the area of England and Wales. No doubt, he says, England is fertile, for it possesses corn, and great forests and pastures ; arid it abounds in sheep, for the simple reason that there are no wolves. It also yields abundance of gold, silver, iron, and lead ; it has pearls, and salt mines, and great rivers, and a climate more temperate than that of France. He then proceeds to show that in most of these respects Espanola is at least equal to it. He sets little store by the gold mines of Espanola; these, he thinks, only have the effect of diverting industry from more profitable channels. He admits that Espanola has neither silver, pearls, nor tin. ' But to set against the silver and pearls of England,' proceeds Las Casas, ' Espanola possesses forty or fifty sugar-mills, and there is ample room for two hundred.' 'These,' he triumphantly concludes, 'are more valuable, and more useful to the human race, than all the gold, and silver, and pearls of England ! * Wars between France and Spain. xv The discovery of Mexico revealed the fact that America was unusually rich in silver and gold. This discovery approximately coincided with the opening of that period of war between Spain and France which lasted with some intermissions from 1521 to 1556, In the first of those years Cortes entered the pueblo of Mexico. The two vessels which he despatched to Spain, laden with treasure, at the end of the year 1522, were captured shortly after leaving the Azores by the Florentine captain Giovanni da Verrazzano, who held a French commission. About the same time Verrazzano took a large Spanish vessel homeward-bound from St. Domingo, laden with treasure, pearls, sugar, and hides. These prizes made him a wealthy man. Out of his gains he was able to give splendid presents to the French King and High- Admiral : and general amaze- ment was felt at the wealth which was pouring into Spain from its American possessions. 'The Emperor,' Francis exclaimed, ' can carry on the war with me by means of the riches he draws from the West Indies alone ! ' This expression, it will be remembered, in- cluded at this time only the four greater Antilles, and the parts of the continent between Guatemala and the Northern Sierra Madre of Mexico. Determined to have his share in the wealth of America, Francis was reported to have sent to Charles a message to the following effect :—' Your Majesty and the King of Portugal have divided the world between you, offering no part of it to me. on the famous voyage in which the shores of North America were for the first time explored from Florida to Newfoundland. His design was masked under the pretext of seeking the North -West Passage. The real object of the expedition was to lay the foundation for a claim to that tract of the New World which stretched northward from Mexico, in the belief that this tract, like Mexico itself, would be found to yield gold. Having accomplished this voyage, Verrazzano was again commissioned to plunder the homeward-bound Spanish shipping, and took some prizes between Spain and the Canaries. On his return he encountered a squadron of Spanish vessels of war. After a severe engagement, Verrazzano surrendered, and was hanged as a pirate at Colmenar de Arenas in November 1527. The voyage of Verrazzano was considered by the French to confer upon them an absolute title to all North America, and to justify them in making settlements on its soil even in time of peace. They gave it the name of New France. So long as the wars lasted, piracy was pursued as the most profitable form of enterprise ; in the intervals of peace preparations were made for coloniza- tion. Thus, between the peace of Cambray in 1529 and the renewal of the war in 1536 the coasts of Labrador and the gulf of St. Lawrence were explored by the celebrated corsair Jacques Cartier of St. Malo (1534, 1535)- During the third war (1536-1538) these opera- tions were suspended ; but they were revived in the interval of peace which followed (1538- 1542), and in 1540 Cartier made a third voyage, in which he sailed up the St. Lawrence, and chose a site for the subsequent colony under Roberval (1542). Roberval's colony The French Rovers. xvii proved a failure ; colonization was for the time abandoned, and maritime activity resumed the form of piracy. Meanwhile an event had happened which gave piracy a fresh impulse. This was the conquest of Peru, the richest district of the New World. A few years later another "element began to exercise an im- portant influence on the course of events. In France, England, and Holland the cause of Protestantism was steadily advancing. Though it does not appear to have been particularly rife in the maritime provinces of France, it is certain that when it was attempted to suppress it by persecution large numbers of Protestants joined the roving captains. Spain was notoriously the main support of the Catholic party throughout Europe : it was Charles the Fifth who had crushed the Protestants of Germany. Even in time of peace the French Protestant cruisers continued to harass the Spanish vessels; and they were imitated, later on, by those of Holland and England. Out of French piracy there grew a continuous maritime war, waged by the Protestants of Western Europe against the Spanish King as the champion of the Papacy, and the patron of the Inquisition : and the movement of other nations towards America, whether for the purpose of plunder or of settlement, came to be identified by the Spaniards, and not without reason, with the cause of heresy. It was in the interval between the second and third Franco-Spanish wars that Peru was discovered. The treasure furnished by America to Spain was now trebled. One of the Spanish prizes taken by a French cruiser was so richly laden that the shares of the very b xviii Introduction. cabin boys amounted to 800 gold ducats! From plundering the Spanish vessels the French seamen now advanced to capturing the seaports and holding them to ransom. The capture of Havana in 1536 was a memorable example. A single French vessel had seized the town, exacted a ransom, and sailed home- ward. Three Spanish ships arriving the next day, the governor of Havana despatched them in pursuit of the French cruiser. The Spanish flag-ship overtook the Frenchman, but hesitated to attack until the arrival of her consorts. The French pirates turned on their pursuers, captured all three ships, returned to Havana, and levied a double ransom. Incidents such as this naturally suggest, as the fact was, that the Spaniards were no match for the French rovers in seamanship. Probably there was a corre- sponding inequality in the arts of shipbuilding and gunnery : and an inferiority on the part of the Spanish vessels for the purposes of attack and defence necessarily resulted from the situation. While these were selected or built with an eye to their capacity for carrying bulky cargoes, the French cruisers were light and easily handled, manoeuvring quickly round the unwieldy hulls of the enemy, and inflicting damage which it was impossible to retaliate. Contemporary opinion assigned other reasons for the continued successes of the French corsairs. The principal one was the niggardliness of the Spanish shipowners in taking precautions for the protection of their vessels. The Royal Council of the Indies, a board established at Seville for the purpose of regulating the trade between Spain and its American possessions, had ordered that all vessels employed in Negligence of Spanish Shipowners. xix that trade should be provided with proper appHances of defence, and had prescribed a minimum of equipment for the purpose. Every ship was to carry at least two large pieces of brass ordnance, six iron guns, and a certain quantity of small arms. It is certain, none the less, that most of the Spanish vessels put to sea very imperfectly furnished. The haste with which the preparations for sailing often had to be completed was sometimes assigned as a reason. A more obvious one was unwillingness to encumber the vessels with an unprofitable tonnage of heavy guns, balls, and powder- cask, and to provide the costly complement of gunners and soldiers. For this reason especially, the regulation was so unpopular, that the Council found it necessary to appoint Commissaries charged with the duty of inspecting each vessel before it left the mouth of the Guadalquivir at San Lucar, and making sure that the requirements of the board had been obeyed. These officials were required to attend aftenvards at Seville, and to swear their corporal oath in the presence of the Council, that no vessel had received their sailing permit without carrying its full equipment. But the Commis- saries, it was said, could be readily induced to forswear themselves by the timely present of a few ducats. Hence it sometimes happened that three or four large vessels sailed for America having among them nothing better for the purposes of defence than a couple of rusty iron guns, a dozen or two of shot in the locker, and a single cask of half-spoiled powder. Could it be wondered at, in such circumstances, that the harbours of Normandy and Brittany were full of captured Spanish barks, the captains and crews of b2 XX Introduction. which, stripped of all but their ragged clothes, were forced to beg their way home to Spain, and that the plundering not merely of such petty towns as Puerto de Plata, Azua, Yaguana, and Maguana, in Espanola, but of Santa Martha, Cabo de Vela, Santiago de Cuba, Havana, and Carthagena themselves, were the staple topics of the garrulous French sailors? In connexion with the capture of the last-named places, strange stories were current of the malice and perfidy of the Spaniards. It was not difficult to induce Spanish sailors to act as pilots to the Frenchmen : and in this way the chart of the West Indian seas quickly became as familiar to the French as to the Spaniards themselves. Sometimes treachery assumed a more malign form. A Spanish sailor, guilty of some trivial offence, had been flogged at Carthagena. He shipped on board a French vessel, came back with a squadron of others, showed the Frenchmen where to land and make their assault, and revelled at length in the spectacle of Carthagena in flames. In 1554 a French cruiser plundered Santiago de Cuba, and entered the port of Havana. The Spaniards, profiting by the experience gained in previous raids, had removed and concealed most of their effects. Negotiations for the ransom were still pending when the Spaniards treacherously attacked the French by night, and killed four of them. The French commander avenged them by leaving Havana a heap of smoking ruins. Some stories which have come down to us from these times suggest that the Spaniards were as inferior to the French in personal courage as they undoubtedly were in seamanship ; certainly they falsify the braggard The French superior at sea. xxi proverb which asserted one Spaniard to be a match for four Germans, three Frenchmen, or two ItaHans. Two French rovers, after taking a carvel bound for Cabo de Vela, had boldly cast anchor off the island of Mona, half-way between Espanola and Puerto Rico, and a well- known Spanish depot. The authorities of St. Domingo despatched a fleet of five ships to capture them. One French captain deemed it prudent to run, and succeeded in making good his escape. The other vessel was taken, carried to St. Domingo, and condemned to be towed out to sea and burnt. The French sailors, loudly cursing the cowardice of their commander, were sent prisoners to Spain, for which purpose they were dis- tributed among a squadron of homeward-bound vessels. Five, as it happened, were shipped on board a carvel laden with sugar and carrying 15,000 ducats in gold. While the Spaniards were dozing on their watch, these five desperadges slipped their irons, attacked their captors, flung them overboard, and brought the carvel triumphantly into a French port. It was natural for these stories to pass from France to England. But the losses inflicted by the French on the Spaniards, and the defenceless condition of the American ports, were not for Englishmen mere matters of hearsay. Friendly relations existed at this time between England and Spain. Many English merchants resided in the latter country, and with the full consent of the Spanish authorities they sometimes shipped for the New World, and resided there for years together. Two English residents in Spain, named Field and Thompson, while on their voyage to America, had a curious experience of the terror which xxii Introduction. French piracy had struck into the Spaniards. They had taken passage on board a Spanish carvel, and were sailing as far as the Canaries some days in advance of the rest of the squadron, intending to take their pleasure in a leisurely fashion at those charming isles. On their arrival at the Grand Canary, the Spaniards received them with a volley of shot which carried away the main- mast. It turned out that the carvel, in which they were, bore a close resemblance to another which had recently been taken by a French man-of-war. The daring captors had emptied their prize, armed her with guns, coolly sailed back into the roadstead, boarded a vessel laden with sugar, and carried her off also. The carvel which carried Field and Thompson was supposed to be the identical vessel by which this shrewd trick had been played, and to be on the point of en- deavouring to repeat it. It was scarcely possible that this desperate game, with the Treasure of the World for a stake, should be played year after year between the Spaniards' and French without some effect being produced on English opinion. Swayed as peoples commonly are, partly by commercial and dynastic connexions, partly by tradi- tional jealousy of their nearest neighbours, and partly by some dim sense of right and wrong, it was natural for the English to side with Spain rather than with France. But whatever might be the rights of the case, there gradually grew among the English people a determination to secure some share for themselves in the Treasure of the World. The first evidences of any substantial interest being taken by Englishmen in the New World date from the end of the period of The Discovery of Potosi. xxiii wars between Spain and France. The last great step in the development of America had by this time been made; the Spaniards had discovered Peru and the mines of Potosi. The wealth of Peru gave the first effective stimulus to projects for securing a share in American enterprise to the English. Potosi was the most important factor in the process. The other factor was supplied by the exploits of the French rovers. These clearly indicated that the Spaniards were in- capable of keeping other nations out of the New World. Nine-tenths of the continent were unexplored : the chances were that other Perus, perhaps other Potosis, still awaited the adventurer. Without Potosi and the French rovers there would doubtless have been in the course of time English projects for the occupation of America. But they would have been formed at a later time, under other circumstances, and by other men. Too much importance must not be assigned to the ephemeral productions of the printing-press ; but straws suffice to show which way the wind blows. Richard Eden's New India ^ was published in 1553 with the view of inducing Englishmen to ' make attempts in the New World to the glory of God and the commodity of our country.' America's wealth in the precious metals is held out as the one inducement. If Englishmen had been alive to their opportunities, says Eden, ' that Rich Treasury called Perularia'^ might long since have been ^ 'A Treatise of the New India, &c. After the Description of Sebastian Munster in his Book of Universal Cosmography.' (Re- printed in Professor Arber's ' First Three English Books on America,' Birmingham, 1885.) 2 The Bullion-Warehouse of Seville. xxiv Introduction. in the Tower of London.' This was eight years after the year in which the silver mines of Potosi were first registered in the books of the King of Spain (1545). It will be remembered that after the discovery of the mines of Potosi the silver mines of Europe were for the most part abandoned, because it was no longer profit- able to work them. The same thing happened to the ancient silver mines of the New World itself Until the discovery of the mines of Guanajuato in Mexico, two hundred years later, Potosi was the principal source of the silver supply of the world. Viewed in the light of these facts, the significance of Eden's suggestion is apparent ; the 'train of reasoning seems to be some- thing to the following effect. Forty years elapsed between the discovery of America and the discovery of the wealthy kingdom of Peru ; and the main treasure of Peru, the mines of Potosi, unknown to the Indians, remained undiscovered for ten years longer. The probability is that the enormous continent of the New World, of which Mexico and Peru themselves are but comparatively small tracts, contains gold and silver in all its parts. The Spaniards are yearly drawing enormous quantities of both metals from their American possessions. It is impossible for Spain to do more than to exploit and to protect the districts she has already occupied. Let Englishmen, then, emulate the famous deeds of Cortes and Pizarro, and seek for gold and silver in those parts which the Spaniards have as yet left untouched. When the New India was written, the question of the future matrimonial alliance of the sovereign, by which the fortunes of England, and the share to be Marriage of Philip and Mary. xxv taken by her in American adventure, could scarcely fail to be largely influenced, still remained undecided. Had Edward VI lived, and had the intended marriage between him and Elizabeth of France been carried out, England's share in American enterprise would have been taken in a different way. The death of Edward and the succession of Mary had the effect of making England again the ally of Spain. On July 19, 1554, Philip of Spain arrived in England ; and on the 25th he was married to Mary at Winchester. He brought with him twenty-seven chests, each forty inches long, filled with bullion, and ninety-nine horse-loads and two cart- loads of gold and silver. The contents of that Rich Treasury called Perularia were actually on their way to the Tower of London ! This was only the beginning. The debased coinage of England was unworthy of a joint- monarch who was master of the Ti-easure of the World. On October 2, there arrived at the Tower of London i" 50,000 of silver in ninety-seven boxes ; this substantial sum was destined to form the nucleus of Philip's ' English Treasury.' Richard Eden, the author of the New India, obtained the post of clerk in this new national institution. He had watched the entry of the king and queen into London ; and on this occasion he had exercised his mind on the possible consequences of the match which had now been made. One thing appeared abundantly clear to him. The commercial bond which united them being now strengthened by a dynastic connexion, Spain and England must hence- forward proceed to exploit the New World hand in hand. It was not that the interests of the two nations in the Treasure of the World were to be fused. xxvi Introduction. \ England, stimulated by the example of Spain, must now take a new departure. Eden resolved to translate into English the Decades of Peter Martyr, which contained the story of the Discovery of the New World down to the conquest of Mexico. In the next year (1555) his , book appeared. So anxious, it would seem, was he to " publish it, that it contained only the first three of Peter Martyr's eight Decades. The rest of the volume was filled with other matter of a similar description : and in the preface Eden unburdens his soul of the ideas with which the entry of Philip and Mary into London had inspired him \ Until 1492, says Eden, God suffered the great sea- serpent Leviathan to have dominion in the ocean, and to cast mists in the eyes of men, which hid from them the passage to the Newfoundland. How great a change has been wrought in sixty years ! The ' heroical facts ' of the Spaniards in the New World far exceed those of great Alexander and the Romans. They have delivered the Indians from the bondage of Satan, and taught them true religion and the arts of life. They have showed a good example to all Christian nations to follow. God is great and wonderful in his works : and besides the portions of land pertaining to the Spaniards and Portugals, there yet remaineth another portion of that mainland, reaching toward the north-east, thought to be as large as the other, and not yet known but only by the sea coasts, neither inhabited by Christian men;. These regions are called Terra Florida and Regio Baccalearum or ^ 'The Decades of the New World or West India. Translated into English by Richard Eden.' (^Reprinted in Professor Arber's ' First ^ Three English Books on America.') ^ opinion in England. xxvii Bacchallaos. In neglecting them the English have no respect either for the cause of God or their own commodity, and are guilty of inexcusable slothfulness and negligence before God and the world. They should cease ever like sheep to haunt one trade, and attempt some voyages unto these coasts, to do for our parts as the Spaniards have done for theirs. Such conditions afforded little countenance to the pretensions which Eden advances. A merely titular king of England, whose rights would cease upon the death of his queen without issue, could scarcely be expected to invite Englishmen to share in the inheritance of the New World. Every politician in Europe knew the practical advantage which the possession of America xxviii Introduction. conferred on the Spanish monarch. Again and again do the current ideas on the subject find pointed expression in contemporary memoirs. It was by means of the treasure of America, says one writer, that Charles the Fifth wrested Italy from France, and took the French king prisoner ; sacked Rome, and took the Pope prisoner ; overthrew the Duke of Cleves, the Elector of Saxony, and the Landgrave of Hesse. The means by which this treasure was distributed had obtained among diplomatists the nickname of the Burgundian Ass, Laden with gold from the Rich Treasury called Peru- laria, this indefatigable animal silently insinuated itself everywhere, the messenger either of war or of peace, as its owner might choose. Truly had Peter Martyr prophesied to Charles that the Indies were a weapon wherewith he should reduce the whole world to obedience ! Another important consideration must have weighed strongly with Philip, if application had ever been made to him to grant charters for English enterprise in the New World, In the great religious struggle which was convulsing Europe a considerable minority of Englishmen were on the wrong side. To concede to the English a footing in America might have the effect of making its virgin soil the seed-plot of heresy. This highly undesirable result was in fact the confessed aim of the Huguenot leaders. The French corsairs who had for thirty years been plundering the treasure ships of Spain were mostly Protestants, and from piracy they were already advancing to territorial occupation. Fore- seeing the possibility of their being one day driven from Europe, they intended to establish themselves in Expedition of the Indonaitts. xxix the New World. In 1555 Coligny actually despatched a number of French Protestants to Brazil with the avowed purpose of providing a refuge for the adherents of the reformed religion in case of their being finally worsted in the struggle against the Catholics. The Expedition of the Indonauts, as it was called by a Pro- testant pedant, who celebrated its departure in an in- different Greek poem, was understood to mark an epoch in the world's history. God looked down from heaven, he says, and saw that the corrupt Christians of Europe had utterly forgotten both Himself and His Son. He therefore determined to transfer the mysteries of Christianity to a New World, and to give the wicked Old World over to destruction. The Anglo-Spanish connexion left on the New World but a single temporary trace. In 1555 Pedro deZurita, governor of Tucuman, established a settlement in one of the valleys of the Argentine Andes, and gave it the name of Londres or London, in honour of the union of Philip with the Queen of England. It was the first community in America named after an English city. New London was of short duration : the colonists were driven out by the Indians, and compelled to choose another site. We are reminded by Eden that the XXX Introduction. reign of Mary had seen a remarkable maritime project brought to an unsuccessful trial. This project had aimed at the discovery of a North-eastern passage to China and India, corresponding to the South-eastern passage round the Cape of Good Hope. Sir Hugh Willoughby had sailed with three vessels, shortly before the death of Edward VI, with the object of exploring this route. He was compelled by the sudden approach of winter to lay up his ships in a harbour of Russian Lapland, where he and the crews of two of the ships were frozen to death. Richard Chancellor, in the third vessel, succeeded in reaching the White Sea, landed near Archangel, and returned by way of Moscow. The search for the North-eastern passage was pursued no further; speculative merchants and navigators turned to the more hopeful project of finding the North-west passage. This project, which Frobisher sailed with the object of executing, carried with it an additional induce- ment. It involved the exploration of the district called by Eden ' Baccalaos,' including the island of Newfound- land and generally those parts of the New World which adjoined Florida on the north. When the passage had been found, it was confidently anticipated that the Pacific shores of the New World, further to the southward, would afford facilities and inducements to colonization similar to those which were offered by Florida itself. Such were the ideas prevalent in England regarding the New World and maritime enterprise generally when Elizabeth succeeded to the throne in 1558. Englishmen eager to make their way to Cathay by the North-west passage, and determined to have their share, in some way or other, in the occupation of America ; Northern and Southern schools. xxxi Spain proved to be feeble at sea, and unable to resist the attempt ; France in a position very similar to that of England, and possessing some actual experience in colonization, though the colonies in Canada and Brazil had proved failures. The accession of a new sovereign to the throne of England might well stimulate the French to engage at once in the colonization of Florida. It is certain that Elizabeth was credited by the French with a desire to signalize her reign by establishing colonies in this district : the expedition of Ribault in 1562 was perhaps hastened with the object of forestalling her. Opinion with regard to the colonization of North America, it should be remembered, was already divided into two opposite schools, the Northern and the Southern. The former was the older of the two, for it dates from before the discovery of either Mexico or Peru. The play-writer of the reign of Henry VIII, already quoted, belonged to the northern school be- cause the southern sdhool had not come into existence. The wealth derivable from the New World, he thinks, consists of the produce of its fisheries, long known to all Western Europe, and of the pitch, tar, and soap ashes which might be made out of its forests. The south of America he considers chiefly noteworthy as a place where men go naked on account of the great heat. The northern school proposed to start from the well-known fishing-grounds of Newfoundland as a basis, and to settle the adjacent districts of the continent. This was the scheme already initiated by Cartier, and afterwards adopted (1583) by the English adventurer Sir Humphry Gilbert, who, after being a partisan of the southern route, like most of his contemporaries, had xxxii Introduction. finally decided in favour of the northern just before sailing. The reason for this change was the proximity of the fishing-grounds, and the number of the shipping which frequented them ; the fish and the surplus stores of the ' Newlanders,' he thought, would insure his colonists against famine. Delighted with the aspect of Newfoundland, Gilbert avowed 'that this voyage had won his heart from the south, and that he was now become a northern man altogether.' In the next year (1584) he proposed to equip two separate expeditions, a northern one for Newfoundland, and a southern one for Florida, Another adventurer, who figures in the last narrative in the present volume, proposed to solve the difficulty arising from the divided field of enterprise in another way. In the year of Gilbert's expedition, some merchants of Bristol were meditating an indepen- dent colonizing expedition, the command of which was offered to Christopher Carlile (p. 233). Carlile wrote a prospectus to commend the project to the merchants of London. A hundred colonists were to be conveyed to the New World, and settled in the latitude of 40"^, or that of Philadelphia. In this way he proposed to collect the commodities of all North America at one central point, uniting the advantages of North and South. Carlile was anticipating the founder of Pennsylvania. 