Part 19

First, the people, assembled on the hill-top, put forth one of their number as spokesman, who “wearied himself” with a long oration directed at the Englishmen mustered below. This over, the men, leaving their bows and arrows behind them, came down the hill bearing presents to the Englishmen, feathers and bags of “tobac,” assumed to have been tobacco. Meanwhile the women, remaining on the hill-top, “tormented themselves lamentably, tearing their flesh from their cheekes,” which was understood to be a sacrifice, a pagan performance that distressed the Englishmen, who expressed their disapproval of it by gestures and endeavoring to offset it with a service of prayer and scripture reading. Then the presents were delivered and this ceremony ended. Next the native king, accompanied by his chief men and a throng of his people, formally welcomed the newcomers with a great demonstration. Of this spectacle the chronicler furnished a minute description, warranted by the novelty of it and the surprising climax:

"The people that inhabited round about came downe and amongst them the King himselfe, a man of a goodly stature & comely personage, with many other tall and warlike men: before whose comming were sent two Ambassadors to our Generall to signifie that their King was comming, in doing of which message their speach was continued about halfe an houre. This ended, they by signes requested our Generall to send some thing by their hand to their King as a token that his comming might be in peace: wherein our Generall having satisfied them, they returned with glad tidings to their King, who marched to us with a princely majestie, the people crying continually after their manner, and as they drew neere unto us, so did they strive to behave themselves in their actions with comelinesse. In the forefront was a man of a goodly personage who bare a scepter or mace before the King, whereupon hanged two crownes, a lesse and a bigger, with three chaines of a marveilous length: the crownes were made of knit worke wrought artificially with fethers of divers colours; the chaines were made of a bonie substance, and few be the persons among them that are admitted to weare them: and of that number also the persons are stinted, as some ten, some twelve &c. Next unto him which bare the scepter, was the King himselfe with his Guard about his person, clad with Conie skins, & other skins; after them followed the naked common sort of people, every one having his face painted, some with white, some with blacke, and other colours, & having in their hands one thing or another for a present, not so much as their children, but they also brought their presents.

"In the meane time our Generall gathered his men together, and marched within his fenced place, making against their approaching a very warre-like shew. They being trooped together in their order, and a generall salutation being made, there was presently a generall silence. Then he that bare the scepter before the King being informed by another, whom they assigned to that office, with a manly and loftie voyce proclaymed that which the other spake to him in secrete, continuing halfe an houre: which ended and a generall Amen as it were given, the King with the whole number of men and women (the children excepted) came downe without any weapon, who descending to the foote of the hill set themselves in order. In comming towards our bulwarks and tents, the scepter-bearer began a song, observing his measures in a daunce, and that with a stately countenance, whom the King with his Guarde, and every degree of persons following, did in like manner sing and daunce, saving onely the women, who daunced and kept silence.

“The Generall permitted them to enter within our bulwarke, where they continued their song and daunce a reasonable time. When they had satisfied themselves they made signes to our Generall to sit downe, to whom the King and divers others made several orations, or rather supplications, that hee would take their province and kingdome into his own hand and become their King, making signes that they would resigne unto him their right and title of the whole land and become his subjects. In which to perswade us the better the King and the rest with one consent and with great reverence, singing a song, did set the crowne upon his head, inriched his necke with all their chains and offered unto him many other things, honouring him by the name of Hioh, adding thereunto as it seemed, a signe of triumph: which thing our Generall thought not meete to reject, because he knew not what honour and profit it might be to our Countrey. Wherefore in the name, and to the use of her Majestie he took the scepter, crowne, and dignitie of the said Countrey into his hands, wishing that the riches & treasure thereof might so conveniently be transported to the inriching of her kingdom at home, as it aboundeth in ye same.”

After these ceremonies the general and his company marched up into the country and visited the villages of the natives. They found the land fair and abounding particularly in deer, of which great herds, a thousand in a herd, they reckoned, were seen. The houses in the villages were circular in form. They were “digged about with earth,” and had “from the uttermost brimmes of the circle clefts of wood set upon their joyning close together at the top like a spire steeple.” The beds herein were of rushes strewn upon the ground. The men were almost entirely without apparel, while the women wore a single garment woven of bulrushes with a deer-skin on their shoulders.

Of the resources of the region scant report was given beyond this significant statement, which was left to be verified for nearly three centuries: “There is no part of earth heere to bee taken up wherein there is not some probable shew of gold or silver.”

Just before his departure Drake nailed upon a “faire great poste” a plate “whereupon were engraven her Majesties name, the day, and yeere of our arrivall there, with the free giving up of the province and people into her Majesties hands, together with her highnesses picture and armes, in a peace of sixe pence of current English money under [beneath] the plate, whereunder was also written the name of our Generall.” And to this record the chronicler adds, to clinch the English claim, “It seemeth that the Spaniards hitherto had never bene in this part of the Countrey, neither did ever discover the land by many degrees to the Southwards of this place.”

While in the “New Albion” port the “Golden Hind” was careened and refitted, so that she finally sailed on the next stage of her voyage in excellent condition. The port was left on the twenty-third of July, the kind natives, who parted with the Englishmen most reluctantly, keeping up fires on the hills as the ship ploughed her way, now westward, perforce with a northwest wind, into the trackless sea.

The next day the Farallones, directly west of San Francisco Bay, were passed, Drake calling them the “Islands of St. James.” After these islands were lost to view they sailed without sight of land for more than two months, or sixty-eight days, when they fell in with “certain islands 8 degrees Northward of the line,” supposed to have been the Pellew Islands. Only a brief stay was made here, and the natives were found so untrustworthy that Drake disgustedly named the group the “Islands of Thieves.” In October they were among the Philippines, and watered off Mindanao. Thence pursuing their way southward, in November they had come to the “Spice Islands.”

At Tenate, where they first anchored, they spent three weeks, the while receiving flattering attentions from the native king, with great show of barbaric splendour. Drake began the exchange of courtesies the morning after his arrival by sending a messenger to the king bearing a velvet cloak as a present to him and also as a token that the Englishmen were here in peace, requiring nothing but traffic. The king responded graciously, and sending Drake a signet, he offered himself and his kingdom to the service of the queen of England. Afterward he made a formal call at the ship. Preceding him there came four great canoes bringing out his men of state and their retinues. The dignitaries were all attired in “white lawne of cloth of Calicut,” and sat in the order of their rank beneath an awning of thin perfumed mats on a frame of reeds. With those in each canoe were “divers young and comely men,” also dressed in white. Guarding them were lines of soldiers, standing, on either side. Without the soldiers were the rowers, sitting in galleries, four score in each gallery, of which there were three rising one above the other and extending out from the canoe’s sides three or four yards. All of the canoes were armed, and most of their passengers carried their weapons, the dignitaries or their young attendants each with sword, target, and dagger, the soldiers bearing lances, calivers, darts, and bows and arrows. Reaching the ship the canoes were rowed around her in order one after another, while the dignitaries “did their homage with great solemnity.” The king followed, accompanied by six “grave and ancient persons,” all of whom “did their obeisance with marveilous humilitie.” The king seemed most delighted with the music of the ship’s band.

The next day a deputation composed of several of the gentlemen in the ship’s company, the vice-king being retained aboard as hostage, received a great entertainment ashore. They were conducted with great honour to the “castle,” where, the chronicler avers, were at least a thousand persons assembled. Sixty “grave personages,” said to be the king’s council, sat in seats of honour. Presently the king entered, walking beneath a rich canopy and guarded by twelve “launces.” He was sumptuously attired in a garment of cloth of gold depending from his waist to the ground. His legs were bare, but on his feet were shoes of cordovan skin. His head was topped with finely wreathed hooped rings of gold. About his neck was a gold chain in great links. On his fingers were six jewels. He took his chair of state, and a page standing at his right began “breathing and gathering the ayre” with a gorgeous fan, “in length two foote, and in breadth one foote, set with 8 saphyres, richly imbroidered, and knit to a staffe 3 foote in length.” At the conclusion of their entertainment Drake’s men were escorted back to their ship by one of the king’s council.

From Ternate, with an abundance of cloves added to their rich cargo, they sailed to the southward of Celebes, and anchored off a small uninhabited island, where they remained twenty-six days refreshing themselves, and meanwhile graving the ship (cleaning the ship’s bottom). Again underway, after sighting Celebes, by contrary winds they became entangled among islands and barely escaped wreck on a rock. They escaped only by lighting the ship of three tons of their precious cloves and several pieces of ordnance, and the sudden coming of a “happy gale” which blew them off. In February they fell in with the fruitful island of “Barateve” (Batjan), where they rested three days enjoying the hospitality of the friendly people and repairing the ship. Thence their course was set for Java major. Here they arrived in March, and also met much courtesy from the natives, with “honourable entertainment” by the rajahs then governing the island. From Java they steered for the Cape of Good Hope. This they passed in June. They found it not at all the dangerous cape that the Portuguese had reported, but a “most stately thing,” and the finest cape they had seen in all their travels. A month later they were at Sierra Leone. Here they stopped long enough to take in fresh provisions. Then setting sail for the last time, they finally arrived at their home port in England on the third of November, 1580, after an absence of three years.

Their arrival with their astonishing freight of riches in gold, silver, pearls, precious stones, silks, spices, and with their amazing tales of adventure, was a momentous event. All England was stirred by the story of the marvellous voyage. At first men of affairs were chary and avoided a recognition of Drake’s achievements, knowing that they must lead to complications with Spain. The queen withheld her approbation while an official inquiry into his conduct was proceeding. In the meantime some critics in high places raised a clamour against him, and termed him the “Master Thief of the Unknown World.” But, with the increasing tension in the relations between the two nations, sentiment changed. On the fourth of April, 1581, five months after his return, the queen visited him in state on the “Golden Hind,” now at Deptford, and at the close of a banquet on the deck of the famous ship, she formally knighted him for his services, and conferred upon him a coat of arms and a crest. At the same time she gave directions for the preservation of the “Golden Hind,” as a monument to his own and England’s glory. So this ship remained for more than a century. Then, having fallen into decay, she was broken up, and from remnants of her frame a chair was made which found a permanent place in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

Drake made no more voyages of discovery. His subsequent exploits on the sea were all for the harassment of Spain. In 1585 he was admiral, with Martin Frobisher vice-admiral, as we have seen, of a fleet sent to intercept the Spanish galleons from the West Indies, and to “revenge the wrongs” offered England by Spain. In 1587 he sailed a fleet to Lisbon and there burned many ships, which he termed “singeing the King of Spain’s beard.” In 1588 he was the resourceful vice-admiral of the great fleet against the Spanish Armada. In 1589 he commanded the fleet sent to restore Dom Antonio to the throne of Portugal. Lastly, he was with his old leader, Sir John Hawkins, again in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main.

And here, in 1595, he died, on board his own ship, near Nombre de Dios, the object of his first assault in his first voyage of reprisal, a quarter of a century before.

XVIII GILBERT’S VOYAGES

Less than a fortnight after the departure of Martin Frobisher on his third and last Northwestern voyage, in May, 1578, Humphrey Gilbert had obtained the letters-patent which he had long coveted from Queen Elizabeth for the “inhabiting and planting of our people in America”; and before the summer was far advanced he had organized an expedition of his own with these objects.

This pioneer charter providing definitely for English colonization in America bore date of eleventh of June 1578, and was limited to six years. The full text is given in the _Principal Navigations_. It conferred upon Sir Humphrey, his heirs and assigns, large powers, and provided the machinery necessary for the government of a colony. It gave him and them free liberty and license to “discover, finde, search out, and view such remote, heathen and barbarous countreys and territories not actually possessed by any Christian prince or people,” and to have, hold, occupy, and enjoy such regions with all their “commodities, jurisdictions, and royalties both by sea and land,” the single condition being that one-fifth part of the gold and silver ore that might be obtained be paid over to the queen. They were empowered to “encounter, expulse, repell, and resist as well by Sea as by land” all persons attempting to inhabit without their special license in or within two hundred leagues of the places occupied by them. They were to have a monopoly of the commerce of such places, no vessels being permitted to enter their harbours for traffic except by their license. The rights of Englishmen were promised to all people who might become members of the colony.

Associated with Sir Humphrey in his enterprise under this charter were “many gentlemen of good estimation,” while his right hand in all the work of preparation was his notable half-brother, Walter Raleigh. By autumn was assured the assemblage of a “puissant fleet able to encounter a king’s power by sea.” There were eleven sail in all in readiness, and a volunteer company of four hundred men, gentlemen, men-at-arms, and sailors, collected for the venture. In the mean time, however, the enterprise had been diverted from its apparent original object to a secret assault upon the West Indies, with possibly an after attempt at colonization on the southern coast of North America, while the preparations had been hampered by divided councils and dissensions among the captains. The breaches in the organization had the more serious effect, for when the time for sailing had come the greater number of the intended voyagers had dispersed, and Sir Humphrey was left with only a few assured friends. Nevertheless, with his fleet reduced to seven ships and his company to one hundred and fifty men, he set off from the Devon coast, as agreed, on the twenty-first of September. But the ships had barely got to sea when they were driven back to port by hard weather. A second start was made on the eighteenth of November. Of the course and of the details of this voyage nothing satisfactory is recorded; and the fragmentary accounts are contradictory. All that appears to be clearly known is that, after an absence of several months, the fleet in part returned to Plymouth, Gilbert arriving first, and Raleigh with his ship last, in May, 1579; and that there had been encounters at sea with the Spaniards in which one of the chief vessels was lost, and also one of the leaders in the expedition, Miles Morgan, “a valiant gentleman.”

In this venture Sir Humphrey had so heavily invested that his personal estate was impaired. But its failure so little disheartened him that he at once began planning another one, this one directly for colonization. Meanwhile, in the summer immediately following his return he served with his ships on the Irish coast. After a year or two, still being without means to perfect his scheme, he gave assignments from his patent to sundry persons desiring the privilege of his grant to plant in the north parts of America “about the river of Canada,” his hope being that their success would further his scheme which was then to colonize southward. Time, however, went on without anything being done by his assigns, and the six years’ limit of his charter was nearing. Consequently if the patent were to be kept in force action was imperative.

At this juncture (in 1583) he was successful in effecting a new organization. Raleigh was again in close hand with him; but the chief adventurer was Sir George Peckham, who had been an associate with Sir Richard Grenville and others in support of a second petition of Gilbert’s to the queen in 1574, for a charter to discover “riche and unknowen landes.” A good deal of time was spent by the projectors in debating the best course to adopt,—whether to begin the intended discovery of a fit place to colonize from the south northward or from the north southward. Finally it was decided that the voyagers should take the north course and follow as directly as they might the “trade way unto Newfoundland,” whence, after their “refreshing and reparation of wants,” they should proceed southward, “not omitting any river or bay which in all that large tract of land” appeared to their view worthy of search.

This programme arranged, five ships were assembled and made ready for the voyage. These were the “Delight, alias the George,” of one hundred and twenty tons, the “Bark Raleigh,” two hundred tons, the “Golden Hind,” forty tons, the “Swallow,” forty tons, and the “Squirrel,” ten tons. The “Delight” was designated “admiral” of the fleet to carry Sir Humphrey as general. The “Raleigh,” the largest vessel in the squadron, was to be “vice-admiral,” and the “Golden Hind” "rear admiral." The “Raleigh” had been built and manned at the expense of Raleigh, but he did not personally join the expedition, the queen refusing to give her permission for him to go out with it. The company brought together numbered in all two hundred and sixty men of all sorts and condition. Among them were shipwrights, masons, carpenters, smiths; a “mineral man” and refiner; gentlemen, adventurers, and sea-rovers. For entertainment of the company and for allurement of the savages who might be met, “musick in good variety,” and toys, as “Morris dancers, Hobby horses, and Mayfair conceits,” were provided. Also a stock of petty haberdashery wares was put in to barter with “those simple people.”

The account of this voyage which Hakluyt gives was the official one, prepared by Edward Hayes, the captain, and also owner of the “Golden Hind,” which alone of the fleet completed it and returned to Plymouth with its tragic story. His narrative appears in the _Principal Navigations_ under this much-embracing title: “A Report of the Voyage and successe thereof, attempted in the yeere of our Lord 1583 by Sir Humfrey Gilbert knight, with other gentlemen assisting him in that

## action, intended to discover and to plant Christian inhabitants in place

convenient, upon those large and ample countreys extended Northward from the Cape of Florida, lying under very temperate Climes esteemed fertile and rich in Minerals, yet not in actual possession of any Christian prince, written by M. Edward Haie gentleman, and principall actour in the same voyage, who alone continued unto the end, and by Gods speciall assistance returned safe and sound.” To Captain Hayes we are also indebted for some particulars of Sir Humphrey’s efforts that culminated in his first abortive voyage of 1578–1579, which are detailed by way of preface to his story of this voyage.

The start was auspiciously made from Plymouth harbour on the eleventh of June, 1583, Gilbert wearing on his breast the queen’s gift of an emblematical jewel,—a pearl-tipped golden anchor guarded by a woman,—sent him on the eve of the departure as a token of her good wishes for his venture. But when only the third night out, with a prosperous wind, consternation was occasioned by the desertion of the “Raleigh.” Earlier in the evening she had signified that her captain and many of her men had fallen sick; then later, with no further communication, she put about on a homeward course. Although after his return from the voyage Captain Hayes heard it “credibly reported” that her men were really affected with a contagious sickness, and that she arrived back at Plymouth greatly distressed, he could not accept this as sufficiently accounting for her act. The real reason he “could never understand.” Therefore he left it “to God.”

With this desertion of the “Raleigh” Captain Hayes’s “Golden Hind” succeeded to the place of vice-admiral, and accordingly her flag was shifted from the mizzen to the foretop. Thus the remaining ships sailed till the twenty-sixth of July when the “Swallow” and the “Squirrel” were lost in a fog. The “Delight” and the “Golden Hind,” now alone, four days later sighted the Newfoundland coast,—seven weeks from the time that the fleet had left the coast of England.