Gates of forreigne Lords then to tarry the good leisure of their own Magistrates Nor doe they beare so quietly the losse of some parcell confiscated abroad as the greater detriment which they suffer by some prowling Vice Admirall Customer or publique minister at their returne Whether this proceed from the Reverence which men yeild unto their proper Governour I will not here define or whether excesse of trouble in following their causes far from home or whether from despaire of such redresse as may be expected in their owne Country in the hoped reformations of disorders or whether from their more unwillingnesse to disturbe the Domesticall then the forreigne quiet by loud exclamations or whether perhaps their not daring to mutter against the Injustice of their owne Rulers though it were shamefull for feare of faring worse and of being punished for Scandalum Magnatum As slanderers of men in authority wheresoever it comes As there can be but one Allegeance so men are apt to serve no more then they needs must According to that of the Slave in an old Comoedie Non sum servus publicus my Master bought me for himself and I am not every mans man And this opinion there is no Prince unwilling to mainetaine in his owne Subjects Yea such as are most Rigorous to their owne Doe never find it safe to be better unto strangers because it were a matter of dangerous Consequence that the People should thinke all other Nations to be in better case then themselves The breife is Oppression in many places weares the Robes of Justice which Domineering over the naturalls may not spare strangers And strangers will not endure it but cry out unto their owne Lords for releife by the Sword Wherefore the Motive of Revenging Injuries is very strong though it meerly consist in the will of man without any inforcement of nature Yet the more to quicken it there is usually concurrent therewith A hopefull expectation of gaine For of the amends recovered Little or nothing returns to those that had suffered the wrong but commonly all runs into the Princes Coffers Such examples as was that of our late Queen Elizabeth of most famous memory are very rare Her Majestie when the goods of our English Merchants were attached by the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands And by King Philip in Spaine arrested Likewise the goods of the Low dutch here in England that amounted unto a greater value Neither was she contented that her Subjects should right themselves as well as they could upon the Spaniards by Sea But having brought King Philip within foure or five years to better reason though not so far as to Restitution She satisfied her owne Merchants to the full for all their losses out of the Dutchmens goods and gave back to the Duke what was remayning This among many thousand of her Royall Actions that made her glorious in all Nations though it caused even strangers in their speech and writing to extoll her Princely Justice to the skies yet served it not as a President for others of lesse vertue to follow It were more costly to take patterne from those Acts which gave Immortall renowne to that great Queen then to imitate the thirsty dealing of that Spanish Duke in the self same busines who kept all to his owne use or his Masters Restoring to the poore Dutch Merchants not one penny It falls out many times indeed that a Prince is driven to spend far more of his treasure in punishing by War the wrongers of his people Then the losse of his People did amount unto In such cases it is reason that he satisfy himself and let the people whereto commonly they are apt rest contented with the sweetnesse of revenge But when victory makes large amends for all it Royally becomes a Prince to satisfy those for whose satisfaction he undertooke the Warre For besides the purpose it were now to teach how victory should be used or the gaines thereof Communicated to the generall content This being only brought into shew that the profit thereby gotten is a stirring provocation to the redresse of Injuries by the sword As for the redresse of Injuries done unto Princes themselves it may conveniently though not alwayes for it were miserable injustice to deny leave to Princes of mainetaining their owne honour be referred unto the third motive of Arbitrary Warres which is meere Ambition This is and ever hath been that true cause of more Wars then have troubled the world upon all other occasions whatsoever though it least partake of nature or urgent necessity of State I call not here alone by the name of Ambition that vaine glorious humour which openly professeth to be none other and vaunts it selfe as an imperiall vertue for the examples are not many of that kind But where occasion of Warre is greedily sought or being very slight is gladly entertained for that increase of Dominion is hoped thereby we should rather impute the Warre to the scope at which it aimeth then to any idle cause pretended The Romans feared lest they of of Carthage by winning Messana should soone get the mastery over all Sicilie And have a faire entrance at pleasure into Italy Which to prevent they made a Warre upon the Carthaginians this feare I call Ambition Had they not trusted in their own Armes hoping thereby to enlarge their empire but being weaker and more afraid indeed they would have feared lesse For Colour of this Warre they tooke the Mamertines A Crewe of Theeves and cut throats into their protection Whom being their associats they must needs defend But had not their Ambition been mightier then their Justice they would have endeavoured to punish these Mamertines and not to protect them Innumerable are the like examples Know ye not said Ahab that Ramoth Gilead is ours He knew this before and was quiet enough till opinion of his forces made him looke into his right And of this nature though some worse then other in degree are claims of old forgotten tribute or of some acknowledgements due perhaps to the Ancestors of a vanquished King And long after challenged by the Heirs of the Conqueror broken titles to Kingdomes or Provinces Mainetenance of friends and Partizans pretenced wrongs and indeed whatsoever it pleased him to alleadge that thinketh his owne sword sharpest But of old time perhaps before Helen of Greece was borne Women have been the common Argument of these Tragedies As of late Ages in our parts of the world since the names of Guelf and Ghibeline were heard The right of St. Peter that is the Popes Revenews and Authority This last and other of the same kind I know not how patiently they will endure to be ranged among Ambitions quarrels For the Warre that hath such foundation will not only be reputed free from worldly Ambition Just and honourable But holy and meritorious having thereto belonging Pardon of Sins Release from Purgatory And the promises of the life to come As may be seen in the
he imposed the like penance upon England Also when our King Edward the First made Warre upon the Scots word came from Rome that he should surcease for that the Kingdome of Scotland belonged unto the Popes Chappell A great oversight it was of St. Peter that he did not accurse Nero and all heathen Princes whereby the Popes Chappell might have gotten all that the Devill offered and our Saviour refused Yet what need was there of such a banne Since Fryar Vincent of Valnarda could tell Atatalipa King of Peru That all the Kingdomes of the Earth were the Popes who had bestowed more then halfe thereof upon the King of Spaine If the Pope will have it so it must be so otherwise I should have interpreted that place in Genesis Increase and multiply and fill the Earth As spoken to Noah and his Children not as directed only to Tubal Homer and Phatto the supposed Fathers of the old Iberians Gothes and Moores of whom the Spanish blood is compounded But of such impudent presumption in disposing of countryes farre remote And whereto the sword must acquire a better title the mischiefe is not presently discerned It were well if his Holinesse had not loved to set the world in an uproare by nourishing of War among those that respected him as a Common Father His dispensing with oaths taken for agreement between one King and another or between Kings and Subjects doe speake no better of him For by what right was it That Fardinand of Arragon won the Kingdome of Navar why did not the Confederacie that was between Lewis the Twelfth of France and the Venetians hinder that King from warring upon Venice why did not the like between England and France hinder our King Henry the eighth for warring upon the same King Lewis Was it not the Pope who did set on the French to the end that himself might get Ravenna from the Venetians Why was it not the same Pope who afterwards upon desire to drive the French out of Italie excommunicated Lewis and his adherents By vertue of which Excommunication Fardinand of Arragon seized upon Navarr And served not the same Warrant to set our Henry upon the back of France But this was not our Kings fault more then all the peoples We might with shame confesse it if other Countries had not been as blindly superstitious as our Fathers That a Barque of Apples blessed by the Pope and sent hither for presents unto those that would be forward in the War upon France made all our English hasty to take Armes in such sort as the Italians wondred and laughed to see our men no lesse greedy of those Apples then Eve was of the forbidden fruit for which they were to hazard their lives in an unjust War Few ages have wanted such and more grievous examples of the Popes tumultuous disposition but these were amongst the last that fell out before his unholinesse was detected Now for his dispensing betweene Kings and their Subjects we need not seeke instances far from home He absolved our King Iohn of an oath given to his Barons and people The Barons and people he afterwards discharged of their alleageance to King Iohn King Henry the third had appeased this Land how wisely I say not by taking such an oath as his Father had done swearing as he was a Knight A Christian and a King But in a Sermon at Paules People were taught how little was to be reposed on such assurance the Popes dispensation being there openly read which pronounced that Oath voyde Good cause why For that King had the patience to live like neither Knight nor King But as the Popes Tenant and Rent-gatherer of England But when the same King adventured to murmure the Pope could threaten to teach him his duty with a vengeance And make him know what it was to winch and play the Fredericke Thus we see what hath been his Custome to oppresse Kings by their people And the people by their Kings yet this was for serving his owne turne Wherein had our King Henry the sixt offended him which King Pope Iulius would after for a little money have made a Saint Neverthelesse the Popes absolving of Rich Duke of Yorke from that honest oath which he had given by mediation of all the Land to that good King occasioned both the Dukes and the Kings ruine And therewithal those long and cruell Wars betweene the Houses of Lancaster and Yorke and brought all England into an horrible Combustion What he meant by this I know not unlesse to verifie the Proverbe Omnia Romae venalia I will not urge the dispensation whereby the Pope released King Philip the second of Spaine from the solemne Oath by which he was bound to maintaine the priviledges of the Netherlands though this Papall indulgence hath scarce as yet left working And been the cause of so many hundred thousands slaine for this last forty years in the Netherlands Neither will I urge the Pope encouraging of Henry the second and his sons to the last of them against the French Protestants the cause of the first three Civill Warres And lastly of the Leavyings of Byrons in which there hath perished no lesse number then in the Low-Countryes For our Country it affords an example of fresh memory since we should have had as furious Warre as ever both upon us and amongst us in the daies of our late famous Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth if Pope Pius his Bull Could have gored as well as it could Bellow Therefore it were not amisse to answer by a Herald the next Pontificall attempt of like nature rather sending defiance as to an enemy then publishing answers as to one that had here to doe though in deed he had never here to doe by any lawfull power either in Civill or Ecclesiasticall businesse after such time as Brittaine was won from the Romane Empire For howsoever it were ordered in some of the first holy generall Councills that the Bishop of Rome should be Patriarch over these quarters yea or it were supposed that the forged Canons by which he now challengeth more then precedency and primacie had also been made indeed yet could this little help his claime in Kingdomes that hold not of the Empire For those right holy Fathers as in matters of Faith they did not make truth But religiously expounded it so in matters of Ecclesiasticall Government they did not create provinces for themselves But ordered the Countries which they then had They were assemblies of all the Bishops in the Romane world and with the Romane dominion only they medled Requisite it is that the faith which they taught should be imbraced in all Countryes As it ought likewise to be entertained if the same had been in like sort illustrated not by them but by a generall Councill of all Bishops in the great Kingdome of the Abissines which is thought to have been Christian even in those daies But it was not requisite nor is that the Bishops of Abissines or of India
setting winds West the rest North and South and so by the same termes In all the Divisions of Southeast Northeast Southwest Northwest and the rest And if we compare the marveilous great transportations of people by the Saxons Angles Danes Gothes Swedes Norwegians especially and other And how many Fleets for supplies have been set out by them with the swarmes of Danes aswell in our Seas as when they invaded and conquered Scicilie together with the Colonies planted by the Tyrians in Africa as else where and of the Carthaginians the Sons of the Tyrians in Spaine It s hard to judge which of these Nations have most commanded the Seas though for priority Tribullus and Ovid give it the Tyrians Prima ratam Ventis credere docta Tyros And Ovid Magna minorque fere quarum Regis altera Gratias altera Sydonias uterque sicca rates And it is true that the first good Ships were among the Tyrians and they good and great Ships not long after the Warre of Troy and in Solomons time they were of that account as Solomon invited Hiram King of Tyre to joyne with him in his Journey into the East-Indies for the Israelites till then never traded by Sea and seldome if ever after it and that the Tyrians were the chiefe in that enterprise It appears in that they were called Nautas peritos maris in the Hebrew saith Iunius homines navium And in our English Marriners It is also written in the second of Chronicles the eight That Hiram sent Solomon Ships Et servos peritos maris And servants skilfull of the Sea whereby it is probable that the Tyrians had used the Trade of East-India before the dayes of Solomon or before the Raigne of David when themselves commanded the Ports of the Red Sea But the Edumaeans being beaten by David and the Port of Ezion-Geber now subject to Solomon the Tyrians were forced to make Solomon the cheife of that expedition and to joine with him in the enterprise For the Tyrian had no passe to the Red Sea but through the territory of Solomon and by his sufferance Whosoever were the inventers we find that every age had added somewhat to ships and to all things else And in my owne time the shape of our English ships hath been greatly bettered It is not long since the striking of the Top-mast a wonderfull great ease to great ships both at Sea and Harbour hath been devised together with the Chaine pumpe which takes up twice as much water as the ordinary did we have lately added the Bonnett and the Drabler To the courses we have devised studding Sayles Top gallant Sayles Sprit stayles Top stayles The weighing of Anchors by the Capstone is also new We have fallen into consideration of the length of Cables and by it we resist the malice of the greatest winds that can blow Witnesse our small Milbrooke men of Cornewall that ride it out at Anchor half Seas over betweene England and Ireland all the winter quarter And witnesse the Hollanders that were wont to ride before Dunkirke with the wind at Northwest making a Lee shoare in all weathers For true it is that the length of the Cable is the life of the Ship in all extreamities and the reason is because it makes so many bendings and waves as the Ship riding at that length it is not able to stretch it and nothing breaks that is not stretched In extreamity we carry our Ordnance better then we were wont Because our Netheroverloops are raised commonly from the water to wit betweene the lower part of the Port and the Sea In King Henry the eights time and in this present at Portsmouth the Marie Rose by a little sway of the Ship in casting about her Ports being within sixteene Inches of the waters was overset and lost and in her that worthy Knight Sir George Carew Cozen Germaine to the Lord Carew and with him besides many other Gentlemen the Father of the late renowned Sir Richard Greenevile Wee have also raised our second Decks and given more vent thereby to our Ordnance tying on our Nether-overloope We have added crosse pillars in our Royall ships to strengthen them which be fastned from the Kelson to the beams of the second Decke keepe them from setling or from giving way in all distresses We have given longer Floares to our Ships then in elder times and better bearing under water whereby they never fall into the Sea after the head and shake the whole body nor sinck sterne nor stoope upon a wind by which the breaking loose of our Ordnance or the not use of them with many other discommodities are avoided And to say the truth a miserable shame and dishonour it were for our Shipwrights if they did not exceed all other in the setting up of our Royall Ships the Errors of other Nations being farre more excusable then ours For the Kings of England have for many years been at the charge to build and furnish a Navy of powerfull Ships for their owne defence and for the Wars only Whereas the French the Spaniards the Portugalls and the Hollanders till of late have had no proper Fleete belonging to their Princes or States Only the Venetians for a long time have maintained their Arsenal of Gallyes the Kings of Denmark and Sweden have had good Ships for these last Fifty years I say that the forenamed Kings especially the Spaniards and Portugalls have ships of great bulke but fitter for the Merchant then for the man of Warre for burthen then for Battaile But as Popelinire well observeth the forces of Princes by Sea are Marquess de Grandeux d' Estate Are markes of the greatnesse of an Estate For whosoever commands the Sea Commands the Trade whosoever Commands the Trade of the world Commands the Riches of the world and consequently the world it selfe yet can I not deny but that the Spaniards being afraid of their Indian Fleets have built some few very good ships but he hath no ships in Garrison as his Majestie hath and to say the truth no sure place to keepe them in But in all Invasions he is driven to take up of all Nations which comes into his Ports for Trade The Venetians while they attended their Fleets and imployed themselves in their Easterne Conquest were great and powerfull Princes and Commanded the Maritimate parts of Croatia Dalmatia Albania and Epirus were Lords of Peloponesus and the Islands adjoyning of Cyprus Candia and many other places but after they sought to greaten themselves in Italie it self using strangers for the Commanders of their armies The Turkes by degrees beate them out of all their goodly Countryes and have now confined them Candia excepted to a few small Grecian Islands which with great difficulty they enjoy The first honour they obtained was by making Warre upon the Istrii by Sea and had they been true to their spouse to wit the Seas which once a yeare they marry the Turks had never prevailed against them nor ever
Lyars It hath been secondly objected That I put into Ireland and spent much time there taking care to Revictuall my selfe and none of the rest Certainly I had no purpose to see Ireland when I left Plimouth but being encountered with a strong Storme some eight Leagues to the Westward of Scilly in which Captaine Chudleyes Pinace was suncke and Captaine King thrust into Bristoll I held it the Office of a Commander of many ships and those of divers Saylings and conditions of which some could Hull and Trye and some of them beat it up upon a Tack and others neither able to doe the one nor the other rather to take a Port and keep his Fleete together then either to endanger the losse of Masts and Yardes or to have it severed farre asunder and to be thrust into divers places For the attendance of meeting them againe at the next Randezvous would consume more Time and Victuall and perchance the weake ships might be set upon taken or disordered then could be spent by recovering a Harbour and attending the next change of wind That the dissevering of Fleets hath beene the overthrow of many Actions I could give many Examples were it not in every mans Knowledge In the last Enterprize of worth undertaken by our English Nation with three Squadrons of ships Commanded by the Earle of Essex the Earle of Suffolke and my selfe where was also present the Earle of Southampton If we being storme-beaten in the Bay of Alcashar or Biscaye had had a Port under our Lee that we might have kept our Transporting ships with our men of War we had in all likelihood both taken the Indian Fleet and the Asores That we staid long in Ireland it is true but they must accuse the Clouds and not me for our stay there for I lost not a day of a good Wind and there was not any Captaine of the Fleet but had Credit or might have had for a great deale of more victualls then we spent there and yet they had of me fifty Beeves among them and somewhat else For the third Accusation That I landed in Hostile maner at Lancerota Certainly Captaine Baily had greate want of matter when he gave that for an excuse of his turning back for I referr my selfe to Mr. Barney who I know will ever justifie a truth to whom when he came to me from Captaine Baily to know whether he should land his men with the rest I made this answer that he might land them if it pleased him or otherwise keepe them aboard for I had agreed with the Governor for a proportion of victuall which I hourely expected And it is true that the Governor being desirous for to speake with me with one Gentleman with him with their Rapiers only which I accepting and taking with me Leivetenant Bradshaw we agreed that I should send up an English Factor whose ship did then ride in the Roade and that whatsoever the Island could yeeld should be delivered at a reasonable rate I sent the English Factor according to our agreement but the Governour put it off from one morning to an other and in the end sent me word that except I would imbarque my men which lay on the Sea side Slanders were so jealous as they durst not sever themselves to make our Provisions I did so but when the one halfe were gotten aboard two of our Centinells forct one slaine and the English Factor sent to tell mee that he had nothing for us whom he still believed to be a Fleet of the Turks who had lately taken and destroyed Puerto Sancto Hereupon all the Companies would have marched toward the Towne and have sackt it but I knew it would not only dislike His Majesty But that our Merchants having a continuall trade with those Islands that their Goods would have bin stayed and amongst the rest the poor English man riding in the Road having all that he brought thither ashore would have been utterly undone Hereof I complained to the Governour of the Grand Canaries whom I also desired that we might take water without any disturbance but instead of answer when we landed some hundred men far from any habitation and in a Desart place of the Island where we found some fresh water there Ambush was layd and one Fisher of Sir Iohn Fernes ship wounded to death and more had been slain had not Captaine Thornburst and Master Robert Hayman my sonnes Lievtenant two exceeding valiant Gentlemen who first made head against them seconded by Sir Warham Sentleger and my Sonne with halfe a dozen more made forty of them runne away From hence because there was scarcity of water we sayled to Gomarrah one of the strongest and well defenced places of all the Islands and the best Port The Towne being seated upon the very Wash of the Sea at the first entrance of our ships they shot at us and ours at them but as soone as I my selfe recovered the Harbour and had commanded that there should be no more shooting I sent a Spaniard a shore taken in a Barque which came from Cape Blanke to tell the Governour that I had no purpose to make warr with any of the Spanish Kings Subjects and if any harme were done by our great Ordnance to the Towne it was his fault which by shooting first gave the occasion He sent me for answer that he thought we had beene the Turkish Fleet which destroyed Puerto Sancto but being resolved by the Messenger that we were Christians and English and sought nothing but water he would willingly afford us as much as we pleased to take if he might be assured that we would not attempt his Towne-Houses nor destroy the Gardens and fruits I returned him answer that I would give him my Faith and the word of the King of Great Brittaigne my Soveraigne Lord that the People of the Town and Island should not loose so much as one Orange or a Grape without paying for it I would hang him up in the Market-street Now that I kept my Faith with him and how much he held himselfe bound unto me I have divers of his Letters to shew for he wrote unto me every day And the Countesse being of an english Race a Stafford by Mother and of the house of Horn by the Father sent me divers presents of fruits Sugar and Ruske to whom I returned because I would not depart in her debt things of greater value The old Earle at my departure wrot a Letter to the Spanish Ambassador here in England how I had behaved my selfe in those Islands There I discharg'd a Barke of the grand Canaries taken by one of my Pinnaces coming from Cape-Blank in Africa and demanding of him what prejudice he had recieved by being taken he told me that my men had eaten of his fish to the value of sixe Duckets for which I gave him eight From the Canaries it is said That I sayled to Cape de Verte knowing it to be an infectious place by reason whereof I lost
ten pieces of Ordnance which should have come up the River from the entrance by which two Troupes they might have bin inclosed I say had not the rest seene those dispatches and that having stayed in the River above two months they feared the hourely arrivall of those forces why had they not constrained Keymis to have brought them to the Myne being as himselfe confesses within two houres march Againe had the Companies Commanders but pincht the Governours man whom they had in their possession he could have told them of two or three Gold Mynes and a Silver Myne not above foure miles from the Towne and given them the names of their possessors with the reason why they forbare to worke them at that time and when they left off from working them which they did aswell because they wanted Negroes as because they feared least the English French or Dutch would have forced them from those being once thoroughly opened having not sufficient strength to defend themselves But to this I have heard it said since my returne that the Governours man was by me perswaded being in my power to say that such Mynes there were when indeed there was no such thing Certainly they were but silly fooles that discovered this subtilty of Mine who having not yet by the long Calenture that weakened me lost all my wits which I must have done if I had left my reputation in trust with a Malato who for a pot or two of Wine for a dozen of Hatchets or a gay suite of apparell would have confessed that I had taught him to speake of Mynes that were not in Rerum natura No I protest before the Majesty of God that without any other agreements or promises of mine then well usage he hath discovered to me the way to five or sixe of the richest Mynes which the Spaniards have and from whence all the Masse of Gold that comes into Spaine in effect is drawne Lastly when the Ships were come downe the River as farre as Carapana's Country who was one of the naturall Lords and one that reserved that part of Guiana to her Maje hearing that the English had abandoned St. Thome and left no force in the Country which he hoped they would have done hee sent a great Canooe with store of fruits and Provisions to the Captains and by one of his men which spake Spanish having as it seemed bin long in their hands hee offered them a rich Gold Myne in his own Country knowing it to be the best argument to perswade their stay and if it please them to send up any one of the English to view it he would leave sufficient pledges for his safe returne Master Leake Master Moleneux and others offering themselves which when the greater part refused I know nor by what reason lead he sent againe leaving one of his men still aboard to entreate them to carry but two dayes and he himselfe would come to them and bring them a sample of the oare for he was an exceeding old man when I was first in the Country some twenty foure yeares since which being also neglected and the Ships under saile he notwithstanding sent a Boat after them to the very mouth of the River in hope to perswade them that this is true witnesse Captaine Parker Captaine Leake Master Stresham Master Maudict Master Moleneux Master Robert Hamon Master Nicholes Captaine King Peter Andrews and I know not how many others but besides his offer also there hath not been wanting an argument though a foolish one which was that the Spaniards had employed the Indians with a purpose to betray our men but this treason had been easily prevented if they had stayed the old mans comming who would have brought them the Gold oare aboarde their Ships and what purpose could there be of treason when the Guianians offered to leave pledges six for one yea one of the Indians which the English had aboarde them whom they found in fetters when they tooke the towne of St. Thome could have told them that the Cassique which sent unto them to shew them the Gold Myne in his Country was unconquered and are enemies to the Spaniard and could also have assured them that this Cassique had Gold Mynes in his Country I say then that if they would neither force Keymis to goe to the Myne when he was by his owne confession within two houres march of it to examine from whence these two Ingots of Gold which they brought me were taken which they found laid by for Kings quinto or fifth part or those small pieces of Silver which had the same marks and stamps if they refused to send any one of the Fleete into the Country to see the Mynes which the Cassique Carapana offered them if they would not vouchsafe to stay two days for the comming of Carapana himselfe who would have brought them a sample of the Gold oare I say that there is no reason to lay it to my charge that I carryed them with a pretence of Gold when neither Keymis nor my selfe knew of any in those parts if it had bin to have gotten my liberty why did I not keep my liberty when I had it Nay why did I put my life in manifest peril to forgo it if I had had a purpose to have turned Pyrate why did I oppose my self against the greatest number of my Company and was there by in danger to be slaine or cast into the Sea because I refused it A strange fancy had it been in me to have perswaded my Sonne whom I have lost and to have perswaded my Wife to have adventured the 8000.l which his Majesty gave them for Sherbone and when that was spent to perswade my Wife to sell her house at Micham in hope of inriching them by the Mynes of Guiana if I my self had not seene them with my owne eyes for being old and weakely thirty years in prison and not used to the ayre to travell and to watching it being ten to one that I should ever have returned and to which by reason of my violent sicknesse and the long continuance thereof no man had any hope what madnesse could have made me undertake this journey but the assurance of the Myne thereby to have done his Majestie service to have bettered my Country by rhe trade and to have restored my Wife and Children their Srates they had lost for that I have refused all other ways or means for â—hat I had a purpose to have changed my Master and my Country my returne in the state I did returne may satisfie every honest and indifferent man An unfortunate man I am and it is to me a greater losse then all I have lost that it pleaseth his Majestie to be offended for the burning of a Spanish towne in Guiana of which these parts bordering the River Orrenoque and to the South as farre as the Amazones doth by the Law of Narions belong to the Crowne of England as his Majestie was well resolved when
the Governours to the King of Spaine of the eighth of Iuly he not only complaineth that the Guianians are in Armes against him but that ever those Indians which under their noses live doe in despight of all the Kings edicts trade with Los Flamnicos Engleses enemicos With the Flemish and English enemies never once naming the English Nations but with the Epitheton of an enemy But in truth the Spanish Ambassadour hath complained against me to no other end then to prevent my complaints against the Spaniards Who landing my men in a territory appertaining to the Crowne of England they were invaded and slaine before any violence offered to the Spaniards and I hope that the Ambassadour doth not esteeme us for so wretched and miserable a people as to offer our throats to their swords without any manner of resistance howsoever I have said it already and I will say it againe that if Guiana be not his Majesties the working of a Myne there and the taking of a towne there had been equally perillous for by doing the one I had rob'd the King of Spaine and bin a thiefe and by the other a disturber or breaker of the peace A Letter of Sir WALTER RAWLEIGH to my Lord Carevv touching Guiana BEcause I know not whether I shall live to come before the Lords I have for his Majesties satisfaction here set downe as much as I can say either for mine owne defence or against my selfe as things are now construed It is true that though I acquainted his Majesty with my intent to Land in Guiana yet I never made it knowne to his Majesty that the Spaniards had any footing there neither had I any authority by Patent to remove them from thence and therefore his Majesty had no interest in the attempt of Saint Thome by any foreknowledge in his Majesty But knowing his Majesties title to the Country to be best and most Christian because the naturall Lords did most willingly acknowledge Queene Elizabeth to be their Soveraigne who by me promised to defend them from the Spanish cruelty I made no doubt but I might enter the Land by force seeing the Spaniards had no other title but force the Popes donation excepted considering also that they had got a possession there divers yeares since my possession for the Crowne of England for were not Guiana his Majesties then might I aswell have bin questioned for a thiefe for taking the Gold out of the King of Spains Mynes as the Spaniards doe now call me a peace breaker for from any territory that belongs to the King of Spaine it is no more lawfull to take Gold then lawfull for the Spaniards to take Tinne out of Cornewall were this possession of theirs a sufficient Bar to his Majesties Right the Kings of Spain may as well call themselves Dukes of Brittaine because they held Blewet and fortified there and Kings of Ireland because they possessed Smereck and fortified there and so in other places That his Majesty was well resolved of his right there I make no kind of doubt because the English both under Master Charls Leigh and Master Harecourt had leave to plant and inhabite the Country The Orrenoque it selfe had long ere this had 5000. English in it I assure my selfe had not my employment at Cales the next yeare after my returne from Guiana and after that our journy to the Islands hindered me for those two years after with Tirones Rebellion made her Majesty unwilling that any great number of Ships or men should be taken out of England till that rebellion were ended and lastly her Majesties death my long imprisonment gave time to the Spaniards to set up a towne of sticks covered with leaves of trees upon the banke of Orronoque which they call St. Thome but they have neither reconciled nor Conquered any of the Cassiques or naturall Lords of the Country which Cassiques are still in armes against them as by the Governours Letter to the King of Spaine may appeare That by landing in Guiana there can be any breach of peace I thinke it under favour impossible for to breake peace where there is no peace it cannot be that the Spaniards give us no peace there it doth appeare by the Kings Letters to the Governour that they should put to death all those Spaniards and Indians that trade Con los Engleses Enemigos with English enemies yea those very Spaniards which we encountred at St. Thome did of late years murther six and thirty of Master Hales men of London and mine who landed without weapon upon the Spaniards faith to trade with them Master Thorne also in Tower-street in London besides many other English were in like sort murthered in Orrenoque the yeare before my deliverie out of the Tower Now if this kind of trade be peaceable there is then a peaceable trade in the Indies betweene us and the Spaniards but if this be cruell Warre and hatred and no peace then there is no peace broken by our attempt Againe how doth it stand with the greatnesse of the King of Spaine first to call us enemies when he did hope to cut us in pieces and then having failed to call us peace breakers for to be an enemy and a peace breaker in one and the same action is impossible But the King of Spaine in his Letters to the Governour of Guiana dated at Madrill the 29 of March before we left the Thames calls us Engleses enemigos English enemies If it had pleased the King of Spaine to have written to his Majest in seaven months time for we were so long in preparing and have made his Majesty know that our landing in Guiana would draw after it a breach of peace I presume to thinke that his Majesty would have staied our enterprise for the present This he might have done with lesse charge then to leavy three hundred souldiers and transport ten pieces of Ordnance from Portarico which souldiers added to the Garrison of St. Thome had they arrived before our comming had overthrowne all our raw companies and there would have followed no complaints For the maine point of landing neer St. Thome it is true that we were of opinion that we must have driven the Spaniards out of the towne before we could passe the thick woods upon the mountaines of the Myne which I confesse I did first resolve upon but better bethinking my selfe I reserved the taking of the towne to the goodnesse of the Myne which if they found to be so rich as it might perswade the leaving of the Garrison then to drive the Spaniards thence but to have burnt was never my intent neither could they give me any reason why they did it upon their returne I examined the Serjeant-Major and Keymis why they followed not my last directions for the triall of the Myne before the taking of the towne and they answered me that although they durst hardly goe to the Myne leaving a Garrison of Spaniards between them and their Boats yet
they offended their latter directions and did Land betweene the towne and the Myne And that the Spaniards without any manner of parley set upon them unawares and charged them calling them Perros Ingleses by Skirmishing with them they drew them on to the very entrance of the town before they knew where they were so that if any peace had bin in those parts the Spaniards first brake the peace and made the first slaughter for as the English could not but Land to seeke the Myne being come thither to that end so being first reviled and charged by the Spaniards they could doe no lesse then repell force by force lastly it is a matter of no small consequence to acknowledge that wee have offended the King of Spaine by landing in Guiana For first it weakens his Majesties title to the Country or quits it Secondly there is no King that hath ever given the least way to any other King or State in the traffick of the lives or goods of his Subjects to wit in our case that it shall be lawfull for the Spaniards to murther us either by force or treason and unlawfull for us to defend our selves and pay them with their owne Coyne for this superiority and inferiority is a thing which no absolute Monarch ever yeilded to or ever will Thirdly it shews the English bears greater respect to the Spaniard and is more doubtfull of his forces then either the French or Dutch is who daily invade all parts of the Indies with not being questioned at their returne yea at my owne being at Plimouth a French Gentleman called Flory went thence with foure saile and three hundred Land men with Commission to land and burne and to sack all places in the Indies that he could master and yet the French King hath married the daughter of Spaine This is all that I can say other then that I have spent my poore estate lost my sonne and my health and endured as many sorts of miseries as ever man did in hope to do his Majesty acceptable service And have not to my understanding committed any hostile act other then entrance upon a territory belonging rightly to the Crowne of England where the English were first set upon and slaine by the usurping Spaniards I invaded no other parts of the Indies pretended by the Spaniards I returned into England with manifest perill of my life with a purpose not to hold my life with any other then his Majesties grace and from which no man nor any perill could disswade me To that grace and goodnesse and Kinglynesse I referre my self which if it shall find that I have not yet suffered enough it yet may please to adde more affliction to the remainder of a wretched life Sir Walter Rawleigh his Ansvver to some things at his Death I Did never receive any direction from my Lord Carew to make any escape nor did I ever tell Stukely any such thing I did never name my Lord Hay and my Lord Carew to Stukeley in other words or sence then to my honoùrable friends among other Lords I did never shew unto Stukely any Letter wherein there was 10000 named or any one pound only I told him that I hoped to procure the payment of his debts in his absence I never had Commission from the French King I never saw the French Kings hand or seale in my life I never had any plot or practise with the French directly or indirectly nor with any other Prince or State unknowne to the King My true intent was to goe to a Myne of Gold in Guiana it was not fained but it is true that such a Myne there is within three miles of St. Thome I never had in my thought to goe from Trinidado and leave my Companies to come after to the savage Island as Hatby Fearne hath falsly reported I did not carry with me an hundred pieces I had with me sixty and brought back neer the said number I never spake to the French Manering any one disloyall word or dishonourable speech of the King nay if I had not loved the King truly and trusted in his goodnesse somewhat too much I know that I had not now suffered death These things are most true as there is a God and as I am now to appeare before his tribunall seate where I renounce all mercy and salvation if this be not the truth At my death W.R. FINIS Juven Plutaâ—â— Pindar D Sic. Lib. 6. Lib Ger. 1. Cap. 1. Livie 1. Lib. Dec. Polidor Lib. 3. Isidor Orig. 9. de Navig Cap 1. Tacitus de moribus German Tribull Eleg Strab Lib 16. Junius 1. King Cap. 9. Gen. Cap. 1. ver 28. Generall History Lib 2. Cap. 2.28 S. 4. T 3. First Warre Second Warre Anno Domini 1569. Anno. 1573. Officers under the Lo Admirall to bee men of the best experience in Sea-service No Ships to be builded by the great Officer of the Aâ—miraltie exactly look into the soâ—â— buildinâ— of Ship c. The greatest Ships least serviceable The Spaniards phrase 〈◊〉 Shipwrights Mary 〈◊〉 in H. â— time Speciall observation The high charging of Ships a principall cause that brings them all ill qualities Ease of many Cabbins and safety at once in Sea-service not 〈◊〉 be expected His Majesties Navy in such sort as they are not to bee pend up in Rochester-water c. Wight Portsmouth Garnsey and Iersey Devonshire Cornwall Wales or Ireland Portsmouth Dartmouth Plymouth Falmouth Milford and divers others Harbours very capable and convenient for Shipping Halfe a dozen or eight of midling Ships and some Pynnaces to lye in the West c. Ash-water by Plymouth Nota. Charges of Conduct money for Marriners well saved c. A Magazin of all manner of necessary provisions c. His Majesties ships not to be overcharged and pestered with great Ordnance as they are Royall Batterie for a Prince Needlesse expence of superfluous powder and shot c. The journey to the Islands Spaniards Armado in 88. Easterling Hulkes Great error committed in manner of Calking his Majesties ships with rotten Ocum Censure taken of the best Seamen of England His Majesties allowance for victualling Ships very large and honourable Great inconvenience by bad Caske used in his Majesties ships The great Inconveniences of the Cook-rooms in all his Majesties Ships made below in hold in the wast Sea-phrase Musters and Presses for sufficient marriners to serve in his Majesties Ships the care therein very little or the bribery very great The Saylers Proverbe A proportion of Swords Targets of proofe and the like allowed and set downe for every Ship according to his burthen c. His Majesties owne sworne Servants to be preferred to the charge of his Majesties Ships Objection