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Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography by Hans P. Kraus

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Preface
Introduction

Sections:
- The Actors
- The Unfortunate Voyage
- Drake's First Success
- The Famous Voyage
- The Spanish Defenses
- The Caribbean Raid
- The Cadiz Raid
- The "Invincible" Armada
- The Beginning of the End
- The Last Voyage

Catalogue of the Collection
Bibliography

The Catalogue of the Collection

Introduction

  1. MANUSCRIPTS
  2. PRINTED BOOKS
  3. MAPS AND VIEWS
  4. MEDALS AND PORTRAITS

ALL SECTIONS ARE ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY

I. MANUSCRIPTS


1.

MEMORIA de la Costa Rica del Mar del norte [with three other narratives]. Manuscript on paper, written in clear and legible cursive script. 30 lines. 24 pp. Folio (308 x 220 mm.). Stains in lower margins; back margins frayed (texts not affected).

Spain, last quarter of the 16th century.

The four distinct narratives in this manuscript are all of great interest, and two of them (especially Nos. 3 and 4, below) are valuable sources for history. They are:

  1. Memoria de la Costa Rica del mar del norte Dende la ciudad de Granada los Puertos y Rios son los siguientes. (Pp. 1-5)
  2. Relacion delas provincias del Piru y dela gente y disposicion dellas y costas y caminos por donde se navegan y andan. (Pp. 5-16)
  3. Gallego de Andrade, Hernán Lamero. Declaracion del estrecho de Magallanes. (Pp. 17-20)
    See illus. p. 116
  4. Silva, Nunho da. Relacion del viage del corsario yngles que dio el piloto Nuño de Silva ante su excelencia del Virrey de Mexico a 20 de Mayo de [15]79. [Side note:] Llama se Franc[is]o Drac este cossario. (Pp. 20-24)
    See illus. pp. 107-108

All the above narratives could have been composed at about the same date--some time during the twenty years after da Silva's deposition of 1579 on his voyage with Drake. This time limit is shown by internal evidence which can be deduced from close study of the information recorded in each passage.

Although there was not much communication between the dominions of Spain in America, these documents cover a wide geographical area. The manuscript must therefore have been written in Spain rather than America; in all likelihood it is a series of direct transcriptions from reports originally composed in the New World. The assembly of the passages in one continuous text suggests that the manuscript was intended to serve as a digest of important information for some dignitary in the Spanish administration, e.g. the President of the Council of the Indies, or one or more royal secretaries, for use at council meetings. The combination of texts, at first sight rather odd, indicates that the subject of such meetings must have been the exclusion of foreigners like Drake from the Pacific coast of Spanish America. Thus No. 1, which describes both coasts of much of Central America, would concern defense against any attempt to cross the continent at its narrowest point, "America being shaped somewhat like an hourglass". 1 Drake had raided extensively in this area in 1572-1573. No. 2 analyzes the wealth and communications of the Viceroyalty of Peru, which had been the main target of Drake's attack. No. 3 contains up-to-date and unpublished first-hand information on the Strait of Magellan, through which Drake had entered the Pacific. No. 4 is a first-hand account of Drake's incursion: moreover, it may be significant that it terminates as soon as its narrative takes Drake well clear of the Strait.

  1. A detailed description of the coasts of Central America, including both the Atlantic and the Pacific shores. The portions covered comprise parts of the coasts of the present-day states of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. In every paragraph interesting and valuable information upon anchorages, winds, landmarks and access is given: the account is plainly intended to help in assessing the possibilities for commerce and navigation in the area. This original, first-hand description of these coasts appears to be otherwise unknown. It has been compared with accounts already printed, such as that of the coasts of El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica written in 1576 by the pioneer maritime writer Dr. García de Palacio, and that drawn up by the royal cosmographer Juan López de Velasco from the body of source material on American geography collected by Philip II around 1570. Although information from López de Velasco's sources--the first attempt at a census in America--confirms the accuracy of much of what is recorded in this manuscript, it is clear that this account is an original one, hitherto unrecorded. 2 In his account here of the Pacific coast the writer refers to
    los llanos de Cheriqui q[ue] h]ay] muy lindo puerto y antiguamente estaua poblado de españoles con vn capitan que se llamaua Vadajos al qual mataron los yndios por quitalle el oro... 3
    This is a reference to Captain Gonzalo de Badajoz, who had accompanied Nicuesa in his expedition to Tierra Firme in 1510. In 1515 he tried to conquer this area of Coiba, which was on the Pacific coast, to the west of the present city of Panama. He crossed the watershed via the Chagres River (near the present Panama Canal) and invaded Coiba. In early successes he captured booty reputed to have been worth 80,000 gold pesos, but this was taken back by the Indians when the cacique Parizo trapped and defeated him. This gave Badajoz the dubious distinction of being the first conquistador to be vanquished by Indians on the mainland of America. However, he was not, in fact, killed by them (as this reference claims): with very few men left, he struggled back, and had to accept a position of subservience to the fiery governor of Castilla del Oro, the dreaded Pedro Arias de Avila. 4 In 1526-1527 he served as Pedro Arias' lieutenant in the Governor's newly founded settlement of Bruselas in Costa Rica. The Governor described him as "persona antigua en la tierra e de esperiencia e consejo." 5
  2. A description of the greater part of the Spanish vice-royalty of Peru, indicating--among other things--the navigation from the city of Panama to Callao, the port of Lima. The narrative gives information on settlements, population and overland routes in most of the present area of Peru, and also in much of what is now Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina (around Tucumán, then included in Upper Peru). There are individual accounts of Tumbez, Piura, Lima, Arequipa, Cuzco, La Paz, Potosí, etc. The piece ends with brief mentions of Chile, the Strait of Magellan and the provinces of the Río de la Plata. Its concentration upon the population of the towns, and its racial composition, shows that the account was written in response to the questionnaire formulated by Philip II in 1568 to obtain information for his pioneering census of America. When collected and arranged, the resulting Relaciones geográficas were studied by Philip II and the Council of the Indies. For many years regarded as highly confidential documents, they were never printed as a collection, although a number relating to Peru were assembled and published by Marcos Jiménez de la Espada in the late nineteenth century. As this description does not appear there or anywhere else, it ranks as an unpublished source document of considerable importance. For the purposes of the present study, it is sufficient to note that its reference to the governing audiencia of Chile shows that it was written some time before the re-founding of that body in 1606: this provides an indisputable terminus post quem for the whole document. 6
  3. This Declaracion of Hernán Gallego is certainly the most striking piece in this manuscript. So far as we can establish, it is unpublished and entirely unknown up to the present day. Gallego describes in it the exploring expedition sent to the Strait of Magellan in 1553 by the Governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia. The Governor, who was killed that year in battle with the Indians, had hoped to establish a direct route to Spain through the Strait, which he could use to ship home the gold and silver he expected to find in Chile. The expedition was commanded by one Francisco de Ulloa, with Hernán Gallego as its pilot: it had previously been known only through passing references to it in the narratives of Juan Fernández de Ladrillero's expedition of 1557-1558, in which Gallego also served as pilot. Information about this expedition of 1553 was discovered in the papers of Don Juan Bautista Muñoz, and printed only in the Anuario Hidrográfico de Chile , in 1879, where it is stated that the Ulloa expedition had gone no further south than 51° and that it probably reached only the Nelson Strait. In 1895 Captain Fernández Duro was of the opinion that it had reached a point 30 leagues up the Strait, but could not prove it. As the 1879 account concludes, "como no se ha conservado narración alguna, es poco menos que imposible restablecer la verdad." 7 It is, however, known that Valdivia believed that the Atlantic was easily accessible frgm the Pacific, and hoped that Ulloa would make rendezvous on the coast of Patagonia with another expedition, sent out under Francisco de Villagra, which was to discover a passage into the Atlantic believed to start near Villarrica, Chile. 8 Apart from this, the outcome of the voyage has remained unknown, as no document explaining it was available for printing in any of the relevant collections of documents--those of Markham (1911), Father Pastells (1920) or Kosenblat (1950). 9 The discovery of the present narrative dispels all this uncertainty. In it, Gallego states that the expedition arrived at the entrance to the Strait of Magellan in 52° south; that he and his companions entered the Strait, and passed through it in four days; that its total length was 100 leagues, more or less; and that they arrived safely at the Atlantic end of the Strait. At that point they were forced to turn back on account of a shortage of victuals. When Gallego's ship reentered the Pacific, gales drove it to 55° south, and on the way back, she put into a harbor at 53½° south. The narrative is detailed and accurate, containing much information about the sailing directions followed, the landmarks and the Indian inhabitants of the region. It is, therefore, a most important addition to the literature of the exploration of America. There were partial passages of the Strait of Magellan from west to east by one of Don Alonso de Camargo's ships and by Sir Francis Drake's companion John Winter in the Elizabeth (both of which wintered in, or at the mouth of, the Strait, in 1540 and 1578 respectively, and then returned to the Atlantic). As neither of them left the Strait on the Pacific side, they did not have to face the problems of locating the western mouth among the maze of islands at the southern end of the coast of Chile. This difficulty, and not the strong current alleged to flow through the Strait from east to west, was the real task with which a ship proceeding from west to east had to contend. 10 It has always been supposed that the first ship to accomplish the full passage from west to east was that of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa in 1579; but this document establishes the Ulloa-Gallego expedition as the first to make the passage in that direction. The later history of Hernán Gallego is most interesting, as it brought him into close contact with the two other famous pioneers mentioned, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa and Sir Francis Drake. His full name was Hernán Lamero Gallego de Andrade. He served as pilot in the subsequent expedition of Juan Fernández de Ladrillero to southern Chile and the Strait of Magellan in 1557-1558, but his greatest exploit was his service in the voyage across the Pacific under Alvaro de Mandaña in 1568. The Solomon Islands were discovered by this expedition, in which Sarmiento also served. 11 Gallego (Lamero) was the owner of one of the smaller ships on the Solomon Islands voyage: this ship was captured by Francis Drake in 1578, while on his voyage of circumnavigation. It was one of Drake's luckier robberies, for from it he seized and took a large quantity of gold, variously stated to have totalled from 24,000 up to 200,000 pesos. Shortly after this, Gallego was heavily criticized for furnishing information about Drake so misleading that the Viceroy of Peru, Don Francisco de Toledo, was induced to send off Pedro Sarmiento on a wild goose chase to Panama in an effort to intercept him. 12
  4. Nunho da Silva was a Portuguese from Oporto. In December 1577 he was sailing to Brazil with a cargo of wine when, near the Cape Verde Islands, he was captured by Drake, who needed a pilot skilled in the navigation of the coast of Brazil. Drake put a prize crew into da Silva's vessel, which he renamed the Mary , and for the time being appointed Thomas Doughty to command her. Witnesses described da Silva as "short, with a dark complexion and...a long beard; not very gray...a man of rather less than sixty years than more...", who could speak (or had been taught by Drake) excellent English. He was treated with respect by Drake and dined at his table. 13 He more than returned this favor by completing Drake's charts, keeping him informed, and bringing him successfully through the Strait of Magellan: his up-to-date method of performing this difficult feat has been analyzed in print. 14

He remained with Drake, sharing all his adventures, until April 13, 1579, when Drake dumped him at the port of Huatulco on the Pacific coast of New Spain. There he was arrested by the Inquisition, taken to Mexico City for trial and for examination by the Viceroy, and rigorously interrogated: he was shipped as a prisoner to Spain, in 1582. 15 The present manuscript is a copy of a deposition made in Mexico City, relating the events of the voyage. It does not contain da Silva's testimony in its entirety, as the story given here ends with Drake's arrival on the coast near Santiago de Chile in December 1578. The termination of the narrative at this point in the present copy is deliberate, since the better part of the last page has been left blank: this much of the story may have been all that was officially required for the purpose for which this document was written.

Hitherto only two texts of this deposition in the original Spanish have been known--one in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville, and one in the Museo Naval (previously the Depósito Hidrográfico), Madrid, which is almost certainly an eighteenth-century copy of the first. 16 Richard Hakluyt used this text to print an abbreviated version of da Silva's story in English as early as 1600; but this omits portions related in this manuscript. 17

1. Thomas Fuller, "Life of Sir Francis Drake," in his The Holy ...(and) The Profane State (Cambridge, 1642), p. 135.

2. Diego García de Palacio, "Relación..." (1576), in: Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de América ...(First series), VI, pp. 5-40; Juan López de Velasco, Descripción universal de las Indias , edited by Justo Zaragoza (Madrid, 1894); Gonzalo Menéndez-Pidal, Imagen del Mundo hacia 1570 (Madrid, 1944).

3. P. 4 in the present document.

4. Colección de documentos inéditos ... América , II, XX, XXXVII, passim ; Sir Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest of America (4 vols., London, 1900), I, p. 285; Carl Ortwin Sauer, The early Spanish Main (Berkeley, 1966), pp. 256, 261, 270, 273.

5. Manuel María de Peralta, Costa Rica, Nicaragua y Panamá en el siglo XVI (Madrid, 1883), pp. 715, 720-724.

6. Marcos Jiménez de la Espada, Relaciones geográficas de Indias: Perú (4 vols., Madrid, 1881-1897); López de Velasco, op. cit. ; Ernesto Schäfer, El Consejo Real y Supremo de las Indias (2 vols., Seville, 1935-1947), II, pp. 504, 516-517; Howard F. Cline, "The Relaciones Geográficas of the Spanish Indies, 1577-1586," in: Hispanic American Historical Review , XLIV (1964), pp. 341-374.

7. Anuario Hidrográfico de Chile , V (1879), p. 48; Cesáreo Fernández Duro, Armada española desde la unión de los reinos de Castilla y de Aragón (9 vols., Madrid, 1895-1903), I, p. 303.

8. Miguel Luis Amunátegui, Descubrimiento i Conquista de Chile (Santiago de Chile, 1913), p. 311.

9. Sir Clements Markham (ed.), Early Spanish Voyages to the Strait of Magellan (Hakluyt Society Second Series, 28, London, 1911); Pablo Pastells (ed.), El descubrimiento del Estrecho de Magallanes (2 vols., Madrid, 1920); Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Viajes al Estrecho de Magallanes, 1579-1584 , edited by Angel Rosenblat (2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1950).

10. Helen M. Wallis, "English enterprise in the region of the Strait of Magellan," in: Merchants and Scholars: essays in the history of exploration and trade collected in memory of John Ford Bell , edited by John Parker (Minneapolis, 1965), p. 202.

11. Lord Amherst of Hackney and Basil Thomson (eds.), The Discovery of the Solomon Islands by Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568 (Hakluyt Society Second Series 1 and 2, 2 vols., London, 1901), I, pp. xi-xiv; II, p. 451; José Toribio Medina, El Piloto Juan Fernández ...(Santiago de Chile, 1918), pp. 203-210. The document printed by Medina proves the connection between Mendaña's pilot and the later exploits of Gallego: Amherst and Thomson had thought that there might have been two men of the same name, although they established a link between Gallego and Ladrillero's expedition of 1557.

12. Amherst and Thomson, I, p. xiii; Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's voyage around the world , p. 389.

13. Wagner, pp. 46, 337, 376, 380.

14. E. G. R. Taylor, "The Dawn of modern Navigation," in: Journal of the Institute of Navigation , I (1948).

15. W. S. W. Vaux (ed.), The World Encompassed of Sir Francis Drake ...(Hakluyt Society First Series, 16, London, 1854), pp. 175-176; Wagner, pp. 129, 487.

16. Zelia Nuttall (ed.), New Light on Drake (Hakluyt Society Second Series, 34, London, 1914), p. 256.

17. Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations ...(3 vols., London, 1598-1600), III, pp. 742-748. [See No. 30.]


2.

TOLEDO, DON FRANCISCO DE, VICEROY OF PERU. Rel[aci]on de la entrada q[ue] hizo por el estrecho el Navio yngles, y de lo q[ue] se previno contra el. 3 leaves. Manuscript on paper. Folio (307 x 220 mm.). Bound in full crimson morocco by Zaehnsdorf. Los Reyes (Lima), 1579.

See illus. p. 112

The original draft of the letter from the Viceroy of Peru to the Governor of the Río de la Plata (resident at Buenos Aires) recounting Drake's depredations on the Pacific coast of Spanish America during his voyage of circumnavigation and the measures taken there against him. The numerous inter-linear and marginal additions and correction throughout this version of the letter prove that it is the original draft. This piece was probably written from dictation, with the Viceroy indicating additions and cancellations as he went along.

The letter states that a ship belonging to English raiders (in Spanish parlance, corsarios --corsairs) had passed through the Strait of Magellan in 1578 and had plundered a ship laden with gold, in the harbor of Santiago de Chile. Toledo then complains bitterly that the officials at Santiago had taken no steps to warn him, so that when the raiders later arrived on the coast of Peru they were able to capture mother treasure ship. At the time he wrote this letter the Viceroy did not know that the English ship was Drake's Golden Hind.

Here he announces that he is sending an expedition to the Strait to see whether any English garrison had been left there, and to discover a suitable place for a Spanish fort and settlement. He proposes that the expedition pass through the Strait into the Atlantic and spend the winter (July-August, in the southern hemisphere) in the province of the Río de la Plata or its vicinity. He requests the Governor to assist the two ships of the expedition, to send any dispatches from it to him overland, by way of Tucumán, and to inform him of any other English ships off the coasts of the Río de la Plata. The letter of which this is the draft was, of course, sent to La Plata by the overland route. Sarmiento de Gamboa is not named here as the commander of the expedition, probably because he had not been selected yet. The expedition encountered many delays during its preparation: and in fact Sarmiento did not receive his official appointment as its commander until October 9, 1579, only three days before it finally sailed. 1

This voyage by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa is important for a number of reasons. It was the second traversal of the Strait of Magellan, but the first in which an accurate survey and a detailed description were made. It led to the first effort to establish a settlement at the southernmost extremity of the American mainland--the ill-fated colonization venture also led by Sarmiento, in 1581-1584. The first west-to-east passage of the Strait of Magellan was that accomplished by Hernán Lamero Gallego de Andrade in 1553--as demonstrated by a newly discovered manuscript in this Collection, described elsewhere. 2 The same pilot, Gallego, navigated for Sarmiento in the expedition envisaged here: in view of the great difficulty of the eastward voyage through the Strait (for reasons ascertained and reasons imagined), it is unlikely that the Viceroy would so readily have taken up the idea of an expedition to reach the Atlantic from Peru had he not known of Gallego's experience.

The present manuscript is, without any doubt, the draft which was owned by Eugenio de Alvarado in 1768. It was then printed among the preliminaries to the Sarmiento narrative of 1581-1583; the texts agree completely, although Alvarado modernized the spelling in his version. 3 From this printing Sir Clements Markham made a translation which appears in the volume he edited. 4 Father Pastells noted and very briefly summarized what is apparently mother copy of the dispatch; his version bears the date February 20, 1579. 5

Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1532-1592), "the Spanish Ulysses," was one of the most outstanding explorers of the 16th century. He first arrived in America in about 1555; he went first to Mexico and Guatemala and then, in 1557, to Peru. He was chief pilot in the 1567-1569 expedition under Alvaro de Mendaña which crossed the Pacific Ocean, discovering the Solomon Islands. Upon his return to Peru he was appointed second in command of the force which pursued and captured the last Inca, Tupac Amaru. He strongly favored the execution of the latter, and wrote reports on the history of the Peruvian Indians which enthusiastically supported the efforts of the great Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo to prove that Spanish rule in Peru was based on justice, and that far from subjecting the Indians to terrorism and exploitation, it had rescued them from the tyranny of the Incas. 6

The Viceroy appointed him, in 1579, first to pursue Drake, and then to search for English garrisons reported to be holding the Strait of Magellan. By his careful record of the voyage he pioneered knowledge of the transit from west to east. The companion vessel lost contact with him and returned to Valdivia. Sarmiento himself continued, as instructed by Toledo, to the River Plate. Thence he eventually reached Spain, after an adventurous voyage in which he narrowly escaped capture near the Azores by Portuguese opposing Philip II's assumption of the crown of Portugal. 7 On making his report, Sarmiento was appointed by the King first governor of a new colony to occupy the Strait (now renamed Strait of the Mother of God) for Spain. The long preparation of this expedition, which set out from Spain late in 1581 on board a fleet commanded by Diego Flores Valdés, and its tragic vicissitudes in crossing the Atlantic and attempting to found the planned settlements of Nombre de Jesús and Don Felipe el Rey (Philippopolis) are an epic in themselves. 8

When returning to Europe in 1586, in desperate haste to beseech aid for his forgotten colonists at the Strait, Sarmiento was captured off the Azores by a ship fitted out by Walter Ralegh. However, in England he was made welcome by Ralegh and by Queen Elizabeth, and after talking with both was released with a safe-conduct. Nevertheless, on his way home through France he was captured near the Spanish frontier by Huguenots. He languished in a noisome French dungeon for three years, until late in 1589, by which time his failing colony in the Strait had vanished altogether. Sarmiento's last appointment was as second-in-command of a squadron of warships instructed to escort the annual New Spain fleet to Vera Cruz; he died at sea within a month or two of writing his last letter to Philip II, dated from the mouth of the Guadalquivir on April 24, 1592. 9

1. Pablo Pastells, S. J. (ed.), El descubrimiento del Estrecho de Magallanes (2 vols., Madrid, 1920), II, p. 862, no. 13.

2. See No. 1.

3. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Viage al Estrecho de Magallanes ...(Madrid, 1768).

4. Sir Clements Markham (ed.), Narratives of the Voyages of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa to the Strait of Magellan (Hakluyt Society First Series, 91, London, 1895), pp. 206-208.

5. Pastells, II, p. 861, no. 9, printed from a manuscript in the Archivo de Indias, Seville, 1-1-1/32, no. 6.

6. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Geschichte des Inkareiches ...( Segunda Parte de la Historia general llamada Indica ...), edited by Richard Pietschmann (Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Berlin, 1906); [in English translation] Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, History of the Incas , translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham (Hakluyt Society Second Series, 22, Cambridge, 1907).

7. Cesáreo Fernández Duro, Armada española ...(9 vols., Madrid, 1895-1903), II, p. 479; Huguette and Pierre Chaunu, Séville et l'Atlantique (1504-1650) (II vols., Paris, 1955-9), III, p. 288.

8. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, Viajes al Estrecho de Magallanes (1579-1584) , edited by Angel Rosenblat (2 vols., Buenos Aires, 1950); Amancio Landín Carrasco, Vida y Viajes de Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa ...(Madrid, 1945), pp. 115-176.

9. Martín Fernñndez de Navarrete, Biblioteca Marítima Española (2 vols., Madrid, 1851), II, pp. 616-625; Landín Carrasco, pp. 175-211; Chaunu, III, p. 522.


2a.

MERCATOR, GERARD. Autograph letter signed, in Latin. 1 page. Folio (310 x 240 mm.).

To Abraham Ortelius.

Duysburg (Duisburg), December 12, 1580.

See illus. p. 87

This letter is one of the most exciting pieces in the famous correspondence between the greatest cartographer and the leading map publisher of Drake's day, whose productions Drake almost certainly used himself. 1 It speculates on the possible connection between Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe (completed about ten weeks before this letter was written) and the secret voyage of Arthur Pett and Charles Jackman in search of the North East Passage, which had left England in June. By the time of their departure nothing since the return of Drake's subordinate John Winter in the Elizabeth from the Strait of Magellan had been heard of Drake's expedition, save threatening reports from Spain of heavy losses of treasure on the Pacific coast of America. 2 Fears for Drake were mounting, and it was thought that if it was as easy to reach the Pacific by the North East Passage as some people supposed, Pett and Jackman could search for Drake by that route.

Rumold Mercator (1546/8-1599), mentioned in line 3 of this letter, was the youngest son of the great Gerard (1512-1594). 3 He was a friend of the younger of the two Richard Hakluyts, who was the source of the news that Gerard Mercator had received from Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598). 4 Probably inspired by the report of the Strait of Magellan as Drake's expedition had seen it, brought home by Winter, 5 Hakluyt had already anticipated Drake's return with the urgings of his "Discourse of the Commodity of the Taking of the Straight of Magellanus," written ten years before his Principall Navigations [27] first appeared: the "Discourse" also argued that "good foresight requireth, that the discoverie of the north-east be taken in hand...to cut Spaine from the trade of the Spicerie, to the abating of hir navie, hit welthe and high credit in the worlde." 6 The latter were the objectives that Drake was largely achieving at the time Hakluyt was writing, in 1579-80.

The scheme that this letter shows was being kept so secret was one supposedly complementary to Drake's voyage: its proposers intended that the financially strong Russia Company (the "merchants who trade with the Muscovites" here mentioned) should fit out an expedition to explore the coast of Siberia much further east than the islands of Nova Zemlya and Vaigatz already reached by Stephen Borough (brother of the William Borough who in 1587 served under Drake) in 1556. 7 Geographers and the Muscovy merchants were afraid that the good relations between England and Russia might not outlast the life of the now elderly Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and thought that they could insure against this risk, and cut off Spanish trade to the Far East, if the English could discover the direct sea route to Japan and Cathay (or China) round the north of Asia. 8 The theoretical champion of this plan was Dr. John Dee, adviser to the Muscovy Company, who had collected maps of China, and was convinced that the sea passage was possible. 9 Many disagreed with him, but Dee's belief rested partly on the maps of the writer and the recipient of the present letter (for both Mercator and Ortelius affirmed the existence of a North East Passage), and partly on notes in Dutch and Latin sent him directly by Gerard Mercator, which alleged that the Passage had already been explored by the British many centuries past. 10

Both Dr. Dee and the elder Richard Hakluyt, the lawyer, prepared notes and instructions for Pett's voyage. 11 But the younger Richard Hakluyt was less confident about the prospects and more concerned to look for Drake, and it was he who decided, through the good offices of Rumold Mercator, to check on the possibility of Pett's voyage with Gerard Mercator, from whose views the scheme originally sprang. Since Hakluyt wrote to Mercator only on June 19, 1580, the latter had to send his reply after Pett set sail, writing that "it grieved me much that...I could not give any convenient instructions: I wish Arthur Pet had bene informed before his departure of some speciall points." But he pointed out that the sea beyond Nova Zemlya would be extremely difficult to cross: "...that there is such a huge promontorie called Tabin, I am certainely perswaded not onely out of Plinie, but also other writers, and some Maps (though somewhat rudely drawen)...the pole of the Loadstone is not far beyond Tabin...because the Loadstone hath another pole then that of the worlde [ i.e. , pointed to magnetic, not true, north],...the neerer you come unto it, the more the needle of the Compasse doth varie from the North...," and went on, rather disappointingly, that "if master Arthur bee not well provided in this behalfe...I feare least in wandering up and downe he lose his time, and be overtaken with the ice in the midst of the enterprise. For that gulfe [the Kara Sea], as they say, is frosen every yere very hard." 12

The present letter shows that Mercator knew Pett had provisions aboard for much longer than the period of a year which he and Dee believed was all the time necessary to reach China from England, 13 and this was one reason why he believed a rendez-vous with Drake in the Pacific had been intended. The letter gives another reason for his guess, for it explains that Martin Frobisher's voyages of 1576, 1577 and 1578 had shown what a difficult way home for Drake's heavily laden ship the North West Passage would have been. 14 In actual fact, nothing came of this idea, for Drake reached Plymouth quite straight-forwardly, around the Cape of Good Hope, on September 26, 1580, while in August of that year Pett reached the Kara Sea and could go no farther, finding an "innumerable quantitie of ice" to the east and north, exactly as Mercator had predicted; on Christmas Day 1580, soon after the present letter was written, he was back in the Thames. 15 It is significant that, in suspecting a connection between Drake's voyage and Pett's, Mercator's view was shared by his close friend William Camden, who contrasted the navigators' fortunes in his Historie [43]: "Whilest Drake sayled thus prosperously round about the world, Iackman and Pett two famous Pilost, being sent forth by the Londoners with two shippes, fought as unprosperously to discover a neerer way to East-India by the Cronian or Frozen Sea. For having passed a few leagues beyond the Isles called Waigats, they met with such uncertaine tydes, so many shelfes, and such heapes of Ice piled together, that they could get no farther forward, and very much adoe they had to returne." 16

The present letter, previously printed only in the original Latin, 17 relates to the whole scope of English exploration. It shows the cartographers of Europe at least as avid to learn about the Far East as to improve the maps of France, about which Mercator here records fresh information. Ortelius had been collecting reports of China for years. 18 The theoretical concern of Mercator and Ortelius for the accuracy of world maps was, of course, shared in practice by Drake, whose voyage did much to improve them. The present letter shows the collaboration of the celebrated mariners of the day with one another and with the merchant venturers, and reveals the links of English geographers like Dee and Hakluyt with their counterparts abroad. It demonstrates that months after Drake's return people so much in the confidence of English promoters as Mercator and Ortelius still remained ignorant of the true route by which he returned to England. 19 From the fact, as Mercator here records, that differing reports of the course were circulated, it can be seen how carefully the secrets of the circumnavigation were guarded. By contrast, this security precaution highlights the eagerness of European observers to have real news of the ventures of such Englishmen as Pett, Frobisher and, most of all, Drake. 20

1. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's voyage around the world (San Francisco, 1926), pp. 36-38.

2. Calendar of State Papers, Spanish , Vol. II (1568-79), pp. 683, 694-695. "Siete cartas de Don Antonio de Padilla sobre Francisco Draque contestadas al margen por Felipe II," in: Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España (112 vols., Madrid, 1842-95), XCIV, pp. 458-471; Zelia Nuttall (ed.), New Light on Drake (Hakluyt Society Second Series, 34, London, 1914), pp. 401-407.

3. H. Averdunk and J. Müller-Reinhard, Gerhard Mercator und die Geographen unter seinen Nachkommen (Gotha, 1914), pp. 2, 53, 152-157.

4. E. G. R. Taylor, Tudor Geography, 1485-1583 (London, 1930), p. 127.

5. E.G.R. Taylor, "More Light on Drake," in: Mariner's Mirror , XVI (1930). pp. 134-151.

6. In: E. G. R. Taylor (ed.), The original writings and correspondence of the two Richard Hakluyts (Hakluyt Society Second Series 76-77, 2 vols., London, 1935), I, pp. 143-144.

7. T. S. Willan, The history of the Russia Company, 1553-1603 (Manchester, 1956), pp. 14-15.

8. John Dee, Volume of Great and Rich Discoveries (1577), British Museum Cottonian MS. Vitellius C.vii, printed in Taylor, Tudor Geography , pp. 278-280; Hakluyt, in Taylor's edition of The original writings , I, pp. 140, 143; Willan op. cit. , pp. 133, 166.

9. E. G. R. Taylor, "John Dee and the map of North-East Asia," in: Imago Mundi , XII (1955), pp. 103-106.

10. Gerard Mercator to John Dee, 20 April 1577, transcribed from Dee's MSS. in E. G. R. Taylor, "A Letter dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee" in: Imago Mundi , XIII (1956), pp. 56-68.

11. Printed by Richard Hakluyt in the 1589 edition of Principall Navigations [27], pp. 455-463, together with the commission to Pett and Jackman from the Russia Company, and instructions for them by William Borough; the 1598-1600 edition [30], I, pp. 433-442, reprints all these, but then omits one of the 1589 eiditon's narratives of the expedition: cf. Taylor, Tudor Geography, pp. 128-134.

12. Gerard Mercator to Richard Hakluyt, 28 July 1580, in: Principall Navigations (1589) [27], pp. 483-485; ibid. , (1598-1600) [30], I, pp. 443-445.

13. Taylor, Tudor Geography , p. 128.

14. William Bourne, A Regiment for the Sea (London, 1580), edited by E. G. R. Taylor (Hakluyt Society Second Series, 121, Cambridge, 1963), preface; Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589) [27], especially pp. 630-635; ibid. , (1598-1600) [30], III, pp. 39-45, 76-93; Richard Collinson (ed.), The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher in search of a Passage to Cathaia and India by the North-West, A.D. 1576-8 ...(Hakluyt Society First Series, 38, London, 1867).

15. Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589) [27], pp. 463-482, especially p. 479

16. William Camden, The Historie of the Life and Reigne of the most Renowned and Victorious Princesse Elizabeth...(London, 1630) [43], II, p. 117; the closeness of his relations with Mercator is made clear in: J. van Raemdonck, Gérard Mercator, sa vie et ses oeuvres (St.-Nicolas, 1869), pp. 292-293.

17. In J. H. Hessels (ed.), Ecclesiae Londini-Batavae Archivum ... Abrahami Ortelii ... et virorum eruditorum ad eundem ... Epistolae ...(Cambridge, 1887), as letter 99, pp. 238-240; and partially in Taylor, Tudor Geography , pp. 261-262.

18. Hessels, op. cit. , letter 62.

19. Wagner, op. cit. , p. 230.

20. Averdunk and Müller-Reinhard, op. cit. , pp. 115-116.


3.

MEDINA SIDONIA, ALONSO PéREZ DE GUZMAN EL BUENO, SEVENTH DUKE OF. Autograph draft of a reply to a memorandum recommending changes in the naval defense of Spanish America and its sea-borne trade. Manuscript on paper, with corrections and sectional headings, all in Medina Sidonia's hand. 5 leaves, followed by a leaf blank except for docket. Folio (315 x 215 mm.). In a half leather case.

Spain, 1586.

See illus. p. 130

This hitherto unknown manuscript in Medina Sidonia's autograph is, in effect, addressed to King Philip II of Spain. It relates to Drake's depredations along the Pacific coast of Spanish America (1578-1579) and in the Caribbean (1585-1586) and suggests measures which should be taken to avert further disasters of this sort. It recommends a thorough overhaul of Spanish naval strategy and new arrangements to protect communications and the transport of bullion from America to Spain. Although it concentrates upon the defense of the Pacific coast of South America (all the way from the Strait of Magellan to the Isthmus of Panama) and the defense of its commerce, it includes suggestions relating to the ports on the Atlantic coast as well.

The docket of the present manuscript is endorsed:

Respuesta del Mem[oria]l q[ue] se dio a Su M[agesta]d
Por don di[eg]o Maldonado en lo de la Mar del Sur.
Embiose a xxv de 8bre 1586--

which may be translated as: "reply to the memorandum given to His Majesty by Don Diego Maldonado in the matter of the South Sea. It was sent October 25, 1586." The other endorsement, also in Medina Sidonia's autograph, is the Duke's "filing instruction": "Instruçiones diferentes / año 1586"-- i.e. , "Miscellaneous orders, 1586", together with the Duke's own cipher or monogram ( rúbrica ), in place of a signature, which would not have been appropriate for a paper to be retained.

Although the document is unsigned, its authorship is attested by this unmistakable cipher and by the rapid, clear handwriting, which is identical with the distinctive flowing script employed by Medina Sidonia in other documents, of proven authorship. The document is arranged in paragraphs, which relate respectively to the sections or capitulos (chapters) of the primary memorandum. Opposite each of these paragraphs is a sectional heading, probably extracted from the opening of each section of the original recommendations. In this document the paragraphs make up not so much an independent connected text of alternatives as a series of replies to the recommendations in the other paper. These, and the Duke's additional observations, were all intended to be read in the context of Maldonado's memorandum.

Maldonado's Memorial must have been submitted to the King at some date previous to October 1586; it must then have been referred by one of the royal secretaries or by the Council of the Indies for the Duke's opinion. The present paper is the draft of the confidential expert advice the Duke was asked to send to assist the deliberations in Madrid. Diego Maldonado was serving as a naval administrator at Seville: a professional seaman, he had held the highest posts in the Spanish Atlantic navigation. In 1575 he was Captain-General of the annual flota to New Spain, returning the next year, and carried out identical duties in 1577-1578; in 1579 he went to the Spanish Main commanding the armada and flota. As he was also a ship-owner, he returned in his own vessel the same year, with Don Cristóbal de Eraso. 1 He again commanded the flota for the Spanish Main, making voyages to and from America, in 1582-1583. 2

Section I of the present manuscript deals with the difficulties of navigation in the Strait of Magellan, pointing out the heavy losses of ships experienced there by Drake, by Sarmiento de Gamboa and his chief pilot Antonio Pablo. This had happened even though they had attempted the navigation only in the southern summer ( i.e. , between November and February).

Section 2 emphasizes that much of the danger to which treasure shipments were exposed in the Pacific could be avoided if only the Viceroy of Peru would carry out his orders to see that they reached Panama by February in every year. Section 3 declares that only the strongest ships should be used for this purpose, while Section 4 estimates that the King actually has strong forces on the coast of the Main: if the armada formed to protect the Indies trade joined the merchant fleet bound for the Main no fewer than 44 great armed ships would be available to protect the trans-shipment of treasure and sweep marauders from the coast of Venezuela. Sections 5 (which consists only of the heading), and 6 criticize Maldonado's plan, which was evidently to send guns and munitions secretly to America in vessels specially provided. Instead the Duke proposes here that such guns as are required should be removed from ships being broken up in American ports, while gunpowder, match, ammunition, etc., should be diverted to Peru from the supply that Alvaro Flores de Quiñones was due to take to Havana and Florida.

Section 7 details the procedure for dispatching armaments from Panama to Callao, incidentally using them to form a squadron to defend the Pacific coast; in Section 8 the Duke assures the King that if the requisite rigging and naval stores are sent from Europe suitable ships may in future be built in the Indies, from American timber. In Sections 9 and 10 the Duke refers to previous pieces of advice, categorically stating that Sarmiento de Gamboa's colonists will be of no use for defending the Pacific coast: "de la Jente q[ue] Ai en el estrecho se Puede hazer Poco fundamento, pues se crehe estara Acabada," he remarks interestingly. (Trans.: "We can build little hope on the people at the Strait, since it is believed they must have perished.") 3

In Section II the Duke approves Maldonado's views assuring the King that the defense of the Caribbean coasts required the presence of galleons. He is glad to report that galleys had enjoyed general success there since they had been based on Cartagena, as no foreign force had dared raid the coast, except for Drake's. Even then, thought the Duke, the galleys might have defended the town adequately had they been properly handled--a reference to the poor performance of the galleys against Drake in February 1586, for which their commander, Don Pedro Vique Manrique, was then standing trial. 4

The remarks in Section 13 express strategic ideas that were to coalesce in the sending of the Armada against England in 1588. They clearly suggest that in order to defend Spanish America and its trade with Spain Philip II must take the offensive by building up a fleet of warships as a mobile striking force. However, the writer here envisages a psychological rather than a directly military effect: he recommends no more than that the war-fleet should enter the English Channel, and that alarums and sounds of warlike preparation should be broadcast to England from all over the Spanish empire.

The present document reveals very vividly the preoccupation of some of the most important people in Spain with the defense of America and of its sea-borne trade. Among their fears the most acute were inspired by the attacks of Francis Drake. First his brilliantly successful passage through the Strait of Magellan had allowed him to plunder at will the Spanish ships he had taken by surprise in the Pacific; then his startling assaults on some of the main harbors for Spanish fleets in the Caribbean--notably Cartagena--showed that they were well within the grasp of an assailant with up-to-date large warships. The Spaniards quite rightly feared that Drake's example would be followed by other English mariners, and even by raiders from other countries. By late in 1586 they realized that they faced widespread war, and were desperately keen to get the greatest possible return from the heavy defense expenditure Drake had forced them to make.

The authorship of the document is highly significant. It casts light upon the advance of strategic thinking in the most powerful nation of the time, and upon the process of decision-making in Philip II's government. It confirms the industry of the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the esteem in which he was held in Spanish official circles--the more so as he still held no formal position in the royal service. 5

The mere existence of so detailed and trenchant a document in the Duke's own autograph shows both the importance attached to the subject of the paper and the falsity of almost everything that has been written about the Duke's character and functions. In the light of the careful weighing of alternatives, the technical grasp of maritime and military questions and the willingness to assimilate information that Medina Sidonia shows here, the statement that "the Duke was a fool and a poltroon--and he knew it" 6 can no longer be accepted. Nor, even, can the later, more charitable view that while he was reasonably intelligent and knowledgeable, Medina Sidonia's main use to Philip II was as "a personage whom the lesser folk were willing to obey as a dignified reprentative of the Sovereign." 7 Doubtless the Duke had good secretarial, legal and financial assistants, and secured the best technical advice--but this is to his credit, for he undoubtedly needed them in order to discharge his heavy and varied responsibilities. These are ideas from his own mind: a grandee of Spain would never have spent his time in copying out the compositions of others--that was work for clerks, not dukes.

Many other points of great interest in the text can be examined in a more detailed study of it which is attached to the manuscript. For instance, it shows the Duke eager to acquire data on trade with China and the Spice Islands (Section 9); he can be seen to have had moderate and well-informed opinions on the relative merits of oared and sailing ships (a subject of lively concern at that time, as Drake's campaigns showed). He also saw the possibility of relieving pressure on America by an aggressive European policy, incidentally appreciating the potential force of propaganda (Section 13). 8

It is ironical that this passage by the man who within eighteen months took command of the Armada nowhere suggests that the Spanish Navy should actually engage English forces--still less attempt to conquer the country. This in turn raises the question of whether, for some Spanish policy-makers, the threat of the Armada was intended as a bluff, which the English eventually called, and forced them to make real. This document is the most substantial paper on the subject that Medina Sidonia produced. It is unpublished; indeed, it goes unmentioned in all existing works on the Spanish Navy, the Spanish-American trade or the war against England. 9

1. Cf. Don Cristóbal de Eraso's plans and view of new defenses proposed for the castle of San Juan de Ulúa at Vera Cruz [Nos. 46 and 47].

2. Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Biblioteca marítima española (2 vols., Madrid, 1851), sub nomine ; Huguette and Pierre Chaunu, Séville et l'Atlantique, 1504-1650 (11 vols., Paris, 1955), III, pp. 208, 230, 236, 258, 262, 274-275, 306, 332.

3. This was at the time of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa's capture in the Atlantic by Ralegh's men [see No. 2].

4. Cf. Don Pedro Vique Manrique's appeal against sentence of death in his trial for negligence and misfeasance at Cartagena [No. 28].

5. The Duke was not appointed Captain-General of the Coast of Andalusia until January 7, 1588, only a month before the King ordered him to command the Armada: patent in Museo Naval, Madrid, Colección Navarrete, III, document 17, folio 236; printed in Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España (112 vols., Madrid, 1842-1895), XXVIII, pp. 376-378.

6. Martin A. S. Hume in: The Cambridge Modern History , Vol. III (Cambridge, 1905), p. 505.

7. E. M. Tenison, Elizabethan England (13 vols., Learnington Spa, 1933-61), VII, p. lxix.

8. Cf. the many facets of the Duke's diplomatic, administrative and martial activity touched on in: the Duke of Maura, El designio de Felipe II y el episodio de la Armada Invencible (Madrid, 1957), and his close attention to the defense of North America and the West Indies recorded in: D. B. Quinn, "Some Spanish reactions to Elizabethan colonising enterprises," in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Fifth Series, I (1951), pp. 1-23; id., The Roanoke Voyages 1584-1590 (Hakluyt Society Second Series, 104-105, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1955), II, pp. 772, 779, 817.

9. Fernández de Navarrete, op. cit. ; Cesáreo Fernández Duro, La Armada Invencible ( 2 vols., Madrid, 1884-5); id., Armada española (9 vols., Madrid, 1895-1903); Clarence H. Haring, Trade and navigation between Spain and the Indies in the time of the Hapsburgs (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1918); Woodrow Borah, Early colonial navigation between Mexico and Peru (Berkeley, 1954); Chaunu, op. cit.; Garrett Mattingly, The Armada (Boston, 1959); Michael Lewis, The Spanish Armada (London, 1960).


4.

PHILIP II, KING OF SPAIN. Letter signed, to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, giving instructions in view of the expected intentions of the English squadron under Drake reported to be then attacking Cadiz. Dated Aranjuez, May 4, 1587. 2 pp. Folio (315 x 215 mm.). Written on paper in Spanish in a clear scribal hand, with an addition of three lines (24 words), after the date, in the King's autograph. Signed by the King "Yo El Rey."

Aranjuez, May 4, 1587.

See illus. p. 132

This letter clearly demonstrates the intimate contact between the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Court. It exemplifies Philip II's reaction to the extremely unwelcome news that the English were not merely taking the preparation of an Armada against them seriously, but were trying to prevent it from ever getting to sea, and even dared to enter his own harbors to attack it. This is the celebrated episode when Drake, as he put it, "singed the King of Spain's beard."

In the letter the King states that he has received news of the damage done to the ships in Cadiz Bay by the English, but has also learnt that Medina Sidonia has been attending to the defense of the town, and expresses his satisfaction and gratitude for the Duke's services. He writes further that although he had understood from Seville that Drake left the bay on May 1st, another dispatch had come from there saying that it was reported at Puerto de Santa María (on the other side of the bay from Cadiz) that Drake had been reinforced and had returned. If this was true, it could only be with the idea of taking the city itself, and the King gives express orders that the Duke should hand over command there to others and on no account allow himself to be shut up in the city. Philip explains that he considers Medina Sidonia too knowledgeable, authoritative and loyal for him not to be greatly missed if he does not retire from Cadiz. He exhorts him to obtain infantry, cavalry, arms and support from the nobles and towns of Andalusia and then take the offensive from outside the city against the English if they do land. The King's autograph addition, translated, reads: "I would be more greatly worried about this situation if you were not in charge; therefore I expect it will have a good outcome."

The letter appears to have been written in some haste, as shown by the autograph addition and by the fact that, unlike almost all Spanish royal letters, it shows no secretary's counter-signature. It bears witness to the confusion caused by Drake's attack and to the disorganization of the Spanish defenses his audacity revealed. The King's affection for the Duke and his esteem for his services--well before Medina Sidonia's eventual appointment to command the Armada--are also obvious. What is also made clear is the difficulty the King had in keeping informed and in control of events when he was so far from his principal ports. Supplying the royal demand for information and maintaining a correspondence with the intensity the King liked represented a severe burden for the men on the spot.

This letter is unpublished, except for an extract printed in Gabriel Maura Gamazo, Duque de Maura, El designio de Felipe II (Madrid, 1957), p. 213.


5.

MEDINA SIDONIA, ALONSO PéREZ DE GUZMáN EL BUENO, SEVENTH DUKE OF. Manuscript dispatch in Spanish. Unsigned: drafted as the model for letters sent by the Duke to authorities in Spanish settlements in the Caribbean area, informing them of Drake's recent attack on Spanish shipping at Cadiz and warning them that he may intend to attack them. Paper, 1¼ pp. Folio (315 x 215 mm.), with attached slip. Endorsed on verso of second (blank) folio.

San Lúcar de Barrameda, May (no day, but probably 18), 1587.

See illus. pp. 135-136

This endorsed "Copy of the letter the duke my lord wrote to the governors of the Indies in the year 1587" is the official "model" of a set of letters sent by the Duke at the behest of King Philip II of Spain. The attached slip is a list of the addressees: it specifies the governors of Havana ( i.e. , of Cuba), of Cartagena, of Puerto Rico and of Florida (Pedro Menéndez Marqués, whose name is here entered), the audiencias (governing supreme courts) of Santo Domingo and Panama, the alcaldes (chief magistrates) of the lesser islands of Jamaica and La Margarita, and Alvaro Flores de Quiñones, the Captain-General of the armed fleet expected to return that year from America via Havana.

In the dispatch the Duke gives a first-hand report that Drake had arrived in the bay of Cadiz on April 29, with 27 ships, and had burnt or sunk 23 ships in the bay, the city being rescued from sack only by the presence of the galleys of Spain. Medina Sidonia says that although it was feared that on leaving Drake had set course for the West Indies, he was sighted off Cape Saint Vincent on May 5 and had entered Lagos Bay, Portugal, on the 12th. The Duke still thought it possible Drake might make for the Indies and asked the authorities to prepare to resist him, assuring them that Drake had with him only five or six ships of any size. He promises them that the day is near when there will be a Spanish squadron detailed to give permanent protection to the West Indies, and assures them that the royal warships (at Lisbon under the Marquess of Santa Cruz) will put to sea as soon as Drake's ultimate intentions are known.

Here is valuable evidence that up to the very end of Drake's expedition the Spanish authorities were completely uncertain about his intentions. Although this document is not dated with the day of the month, it cannot have been written earlier than the middle of May, and was probably sent with a series of dispatches the Duke is known to have sent on May 18, to these and other officials in Spanish America, which gave individual instructions in case of Drake's arrival, varying according to their circumstances. The letter conveys valuable facts and figures on Drake's attack; it raised great hopes in America by its announcement that a squadron of warships would in future be kept on station, so that at last the Spanish West Indies would be protected.

This dispatch has been published only by the Duke of Maura, in his El designio de Felipe II , pp. 211-212, where it is printed with gross inaccuracies. See also Calendar of State Papers, Venetian , Volume VIII, pp. 271-281, which reports events in Madrid; and H. and P. Chaunu, Séville et l'Atlantique, 1504-1650 , Volume III (1587), which has notes on the warnings sent to America and the effects on Atlantic trade.


6.

PHILIP II, KING OF SPAIN. Manuscript document signed (signature is a woodcut stamp). 1 page. Folio (307 x 202 mm.). Partly backed, margin strengthened. Countersigned by Andres de Alva. In a cloth case.

Madrid, June 15, 1587.

See illus. p. 143

Don Pedro de Sotomayor is by this document appointed to serve under the Marquess of Santa Cruz in the "large armada to go and seek the one that has sailed from England and which wanders through the seas of these my kingdoms" (trans.). The situation at this date was indeed unfavorable for Spain. Drake had descended upon Cadiz on April 29, 1587, and had burned up ships and supplies there; had cruised back and forth along the coasts of Spain and Portugal for a month and a half; had captured a rich East Indies galleon laden with merchandise and treasure; and at this date was on his way back to England. The great Armada itself was intended to sail against England in 1587, but Drake's cruise had upset all these plans, and despite frantic efforts by the King and his subordinates, Spain could not even get a fleet to sea to fight him.

The document does not state the exact position to be held by Sotomayor, but as it refers to "vuestras arms"("your arms") it may be surmised that he was to serve as an officer of the infantry forces generally stationed on the larger Spanish ships. His pay was 10 escudos per month. The Marquess of Santa Cruz died early in 1588, after which the Armada sailed out to its defeat under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia.

The document is accompanied by a transcription and translation.


7.

HAWKINS, SIR JOHN. Final portion of a document signed. 1 page. Folio (410 x 285 mm.).

In a cloth case.

N. pl., before 1588.

See illus. p. 51

A legal document in regard to a loan of money, connected with the office of the Treasurer of the Navy, to which post Hawkins had been appointed in 1573. As he was knighted in 1588, and does not use his title here, it can be assumed that the present document falls somewhere between those years.

The document begins imperfectly; though it is unusually badly written, one can see that a legal proceeding of claim is involved, since it speaks of "Counsell learned in the Lawe". It concerns also a claim for payment of expenses connected with the delivery of money in repayment of the loan money. There are a number of interlinear additions, and some passages are struck through, which would indicate that this is a preliminary drafting of the document. A single-word docket "Loane," is on the blank verso of the first leaf.

Hawkins (1532-1595) was an associate of Drake through out his life; he served as Rear-Admiral (third in command under Howard and Drake) of the English fleet which defeated the Invincible Armada. Hawkins' signature is in his usual, large bold style.


8.

DALE, DR. VALENTINE. Letter signed. 1 page. Folio (350 x 225 mm.). With attached address leaf. To Sir Francis Walsingham, "Principal Secretarie to the Q:[ueen's] Ma[jes]tie."

Bourborough (Bourbourg, between Calais and Dieppe), July 25, 1588.

See illus. pp. 138, 141

A letter concerning the futile diplomatic negotiations between an English delegation (the Earl of Derby, Sir James Crofts, Lord Cobham, John Rogers, and Dr. Dale), and the Duke of Parma, representing the King of Spain. Meetings began late in 1587, but Parma had been instructed by Philip II to procrastinate and come to no agreement on any point, as the King intended the negotiations to be simply a cover-up for his war preparations. Dale reports a very threatening remark of the Duke of Parma, "a battail lost by the Queen was the loss of her crowne", to which Dale stoutly replied that "one battail was not enough to carie away the mater". He gives his opinion that if the Armada does not reach the Channel, the expense of keeping Parma's large army mobilized would make the Spaniards more inclined to peace.

Dale (d. 1589) was a noted lawyer and diplomatist, being English ambassador to Flanders and France, and he acted for the Lord High Admiral of England while the post was temporarily in commission (1585).

The Armada was in fact on its way to England at the date of this letter(July 25 new style, or 15 old style), it having put out from La Coruña on July 22 (new style). For the history of these last-minute negotiations, see Mattingly, The Spanish Armada , pp. 192-193, and Wernham, Before the Armada , pp. 389-390, 393-394.


9.

BURGHLEY, WILLIAM CECIL, BARON, AND SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM. Document signed (contemporary copy). 1 page. Folio (330 × 222 mm.). With an attached leaf bearing a 5-line docket.

London, October 11, 1588.

See illus. p. 163

A source for the history of the Drake-Norris expedition against Spain and Portugal, which was planned and organized immediately after the defeat of the Invincible Armada, and which was carried out in the following year, 1589. In this document, Sir Henry Billingsley (d. 1606), then an Alderman of London, and a wealthy merchant; Peter Osborne (1521-1592), a "remembrancer to the Lord Treasurer in the Exchequer", a leading Treasury official of the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I; and Edward Fent, are charged with the duty of controlling and auditing the financial accounts of the Drake-Norris expedition. The enterprise had been organized as a sort of joint-venture, financed by investments by the Queen and private persons.

A pencil notation on the document page states that the piece was formerly in the John Evelyn collection; the single word "Drake", in pencil on the docket page, appears to be in the handwriting of W. Upcott, who acquired many manuscripts from the Evelyn family papers in the 19th century.

The manuscript is of about 260 words in all (including the docket), and is accompanied by a typed transcript.

It is unpublished, so far as we can determine.


10.

(DRAKE-NORRIS EXPEDITION). "A Brief note of the accompte of the voyage intended by Sir John Norreis and Sir Francis Drake knyghts 17 December 1588" (docket). Document. 1 page. Folio (270 x 197 Mm.). With attached leaf bearing a 7-line docket. In a cloth folder. (London), December 17, 1588.

See illus. p. 164

An extract from the "Booke of accompte" of the Drake-Norris expedition which was then being prepared for sailing in 1589. The total sum so far paid in by the joint-venturers was £26,450 11s.; of this, the Queen had invested £16,000, and Drake and others the balance. There are a number of corrections in the figures of the account, and a number of amusing blunders in addition and subtraction of the various sums. As the document specifically mentions the surplus of the Queen's investment over that of the others, the account may have been prepared for her use; it certainly was issued by Billingsley, Osborne, and Fent, the financial controllers of the expedition. A pencil note states that the manuscript is from the collection of John Evelyn. It is apparently unpublished.

A typed transcript accompanies the document.


11.

(DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS). Document on vellum, signed by Alderman Paul Banninge of London. 1 page. Large Folio (640 x 370 mm.). With Banninge's pendant wax seal. In a cloth case. From the collection of R. A. Meyrick, collateral descendant of Drake. (London), May 28, 1593.

See illus. p. 170

The record of Drake's sale of a 71-year lease of a house called "The Herbar" in the Dowgate ward of London. It is Drake's own copy, signed by Banninge; the counterpart copy signed by Drake was given to Banninge, and is not known to be extant.

The document is in English, and is clearly written and legible. It comprises 39 lines (about 1700 words) and is in fine condition. Signatures of two witnesses, Thomas Fytch and W. Spencer, are also on the document. On the verso are two contemporary dockets, and also one of the 19th century.

"The Herbar" was once a royal residence, being occupied by King Richard III, and later (1571-1578) by the Spanish diplomatic mission in London. It had recently been rebuilt and modernized by the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Pullison, and must have been a valuable property, as it fronted on the Thames, and was next to the Steelyard, the headquarters of the Hanseatic League in London. Apparently unpublished.

Cf. John Stow, A Survay of London (London, 1598), p. 183; Lady Eliott-Drake, The family and heirs of Sir Francis Drake , I, pp. 107-108.


12.

WINSLADE, TRISTRAN. De praesenti statu Cornubiae et Devoniae quae duae Provinciae sunt Hispaniae proximiores. 8 leaves. (Second title, in Italian:) Consideracioni al Re Cattolico per li Cattolici di Ingliterra. 3 leaves. Manuscript on paper. Together, 16 leaves, the last 5 blanks. With a manuscript folding map of England, in outline except for Cornwall and Devon, which display detail. Small quarto (230 x 180 nm.). In a cloth case.

Spain, c. 1595.

See illus. pp. 152, 153

An unpublished manuscript, dealing with matters in the "top secret" category. It is indeed remarkable that such a document is extant outside of an official state archive. From the Italian heading of the second part of the report (in a different hand), we may surmise that it was a copy prepared in Spain for the use of the Papal court, as it is most unlikely that any such report would have been supplied to any other Italian authority.

The work is a lengthy intelligence report given to King Philip II of Spain by one of the English Catholic exiles who had fled from England when Elizabeth I became Queen and had entered Spanish service as a soldier. Winslade begins his description with a general survey of Cornwall and Devon, stating that those two counties, together with Somerset and Dorset, formed a peninsula easily defensible on the line of the Stour River from attack from other parts of England. He speaks of the ancient prosperity of Cornwall and Devon and their present misery from high taxes and other exactions; of the former devotion of the people to the Catholic cause; and of notable men of the present generation (Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Francis Drake, "the two Hawkins"--no doubt Sir John and Sir Richard Hawkins), from Devon, and Sir Richard Grenville and others from Cornwall, who had distinguished themselves by their attacks upon Spain and the Spanish possessions. He then goes on to name various Catholic notables of the two counties and the ways in which they could act or use their influence in an uprising to seize control of England. Winslade speaks with confidence of the death of Queen Elizabeth, which he seems to consider imminent (perhaps from an assassination plot), and discusses means for the re-establishment of Catholicism in England. He requests that if this should take place, that he be restored to the lands and income which his family had owned before they lost all from their devotion to Catholicism. This part of the work is illustrated by the folding manuscript map of England.

In the second part of the work, Winslade discusses the government of England in general, with special mention of Sir Walter Ralegh, William Cecil, Baron Burghley, and others, and means to be used in the extirpation of heresy in England, Scotland and Ireland. He informs Philip that with the conquest of England the Spanish possessions in America would no longer be menaced and that he would be spared the expense of a defensive navy there, and that he could then proceed to the conquest of other Protestant lands.

It is evident that, literally, "heads would have rolled" if this document with its numerous references to Englishmen who, so says Winslade, would take arms for Philip against Elizabeth, had ever fallen into the hands of the English government.

The manuscript must be dated after 1581, when Drake was knighted (he is referred to as "Eques" = Knight); it probably is a preparatory intelligence report for Philip II's second Spanish Armada sent against England. The campaign itself was a total failure, the fleet of over 60 ships being driven from the English coasts by contrary winds. However, it was quite clear that the Spaniards were not going to give up, especially when they held a capacious and well-defended naval base in Brittany from which they could dominate the Channel. In any event, a dangerous raid from this port, at Blavet, in 1595 delayed and nearly diverted the expedition to the West Indies being prepared by Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, and showed that their home counties were very much an object of Spanish attack:

Towards the end of July a start appeared probable, and then the Brittany Spaniards made a move. They sent out from Blavet four galleys full of soldiers. These men landed one morning on the Cornish coast and began to burn the fishing villages in Mount's Bay. So sudden was the surprise that Mousehole, Newlyn and Penzance were destroyed before defense forces could gather. The Spaniards then put to sea and made off. Everyone was perturbed by their boldness, and not least the Queen, who took it to be the portent of a new invasion... 1

The Queen was eventually convinced that an expedition fitted out for the West Indies was not suitable for a reprisal on the coast of Spain, but this raid on the West Country was so alarming that she insisted that Drake and Hawkins must not stay away for more than six months.

According to documents reported by Loomie (see below), Tristran Winslade was born about 1552. He must have emigrated from his native Devon early in the 1570's, as in 1597 he is stated to have been in the Spanish service for 23 years. He is reported as having served in Flanders, in Ireland, and in "the Armada against England." Presumably the Irish service mentioned refers to the dispatch of Spanish officers to Ireland in the 1590's to prepare the way for an invasion there; the "Armada against England" is surely the Invincible Armada of 1588. Winslade is reported in 1597 as having returned to Flanders, where he was in the service of the Cardinal-Archduke Albert, Viceroy of the Netherlands, and in that year he was granted a pension of 25 escudos. A Gabriel Denis ("Dionysius" in the manuscript) often referred to by Winslade was also an English exile; he was born c. 1537, emigrated in 1561, and had served as a confidential adviser on English affairs to Don Juan of Austria. 2

The present manuscript is in Latin, in an elegant "Italic" hand. It is not signed by Winslade, but he refers to himself as its author several times in the text, e.g. , 4 verso, line 19.

1. J. A. Williamson, Sir Francis Drake (New York, 1962), p. 116.

2. Albert Loomie, S. J., The Spanish Elizabethans. English Exiles at the Court of Philip II , (1963), pp. 263, no. 153; 248, no. 65; Cambridge Modern History (1905), III, 528-530.


13.

ARMENTEROS, ANDRES. Letter signed, in Spanish. 1 page, with attached leaf blank except for docket. Folio (305 x 210 mm.). In a cloth folder. To the Duke of Medina Sidonia. Seville, June 20, 1596.

See illus. p. 177

News of the death of Drake, one of Medina Sidonia's principal adversaries in the Armada battles of 1588. Armenteros was a lawyer, as his title of "Licenciado" shows, and at this time was a member of the Council of the Indies (see Schaefer, Indice de la Colección de Documentos Inéditos de Indias , I, p. 41). His report, certainly unpublished, states that the ships of Drake's raiding expedition had arrived back in England, having suffered heavy losses in both men and ships, with Drake's body preserved in a barrel of beer. This latter news was false, as he had been buried at sea. Armenteros goes on to say that this had ruined the plans for a great English-Dutch fleet, since the expenses were to be paid from the 2,000,000 ducats which Drake had been falsely credited with plundering at Puerto Rico. Armenteros further reports on the siege of Calais, which had been captured by the Archduke Albert in April.

Any satisfaction which Medina Sidonia might have felt on hearing of the death of his old adversary did not last very long. As these lines were being written, the English-Dutch fleet which Armenteros so confidently refers to as "undone" (trans.) was off the Spanish coast on its way to Cadiz, under the command of the Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham. A few days later it entered that port, and the city and the navy and merchant ships stationed there were burned up.

This defeat was far more damaging to the reputation of Medina Sidonia in Spain than was that of the Armada. The latter was ascribed to adverse winds and storms. The loss of Cadiz, which was under Medina Sidonia's military jurisdiction as the Captain General of Andalusia, was widely attributed to his lack of capacity. When the English evacuated Cadiz after remaining there for two weeks, Miguel de Cervantes wrote a sarcastic sonnet on the event, which concludes with a bitter sneer at the Duke.

For detailed accounts of these events, see Tenison, Elizabethan England , Vols. IX and X. A transcript and translation accompanies this piece.


14.

LEMON, PETER. Document signed. 1 page. Folio (310 x 215 mm.).

Antony House (near Plymouth), Cornwall, November 7, 1596.

See illus. p. 154

Peter Lemon's testimony gives, in brief outline, a fascinating escape-narrative; it was made on the eve of Philip II's last "Spanish Armada," the one of 1597. It is entitled "The depositione of peeter Lemman of Mylbrooke, taken by Richard Carew of Antony in Cornwayle the 7th of November, 1596." He tells how he "went out of England with Sir ffrauncis Drake"--this was with Drake's last voyage, 1595-1596. He was captured, then sent to Spain with other English prisoners, arrived at San Lucar, the port of Seville, escaped thence to Seville, then to Madrid, Bayonne, and back to England. He landed at Fowey in Cornwall, and made this statement to Richard Carew (1555-1620), who was High Sheriff of Cornwall, and deputy-lieutenant, under Sir Walter Ralegh, in command of the regiment charged with the defense of Cawsand Bay, just at the entrance to Plymouth Harbor.

Lemon's statement is almost entirely concerned with the preparations for Philip II's third Armada against England--the earlier ones were of 1588 and 1595.

In the narrative of Drake's last voyage printed by Hakluyt (1903-5 ed., X, p. 236), Lemon's capture is noted; it is stated that he was in a pinnace captured by Spanish galleys from Cartagena. From the phrasing of this report it would appear that he was a minor officer in command of the pinnace; this is further implied by his remark in this deposition about "certaine Englishmen of his companie." His name is written "Lemman" in the heading of this piece; "Lemond" in Hakluyt; but his signature here is "Lemon."


15.

HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM, CHARLES, LORD, [later EARL OF NOTTINGHAM]; THOMAS SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET; AND OTHERS. Privy Council order for the payment of ration and transportation money for a body of troops. Manuscript on paper, written in Elizabethan English cursive script. Signed by Howard ("Notingham"); Sackville ("T. Buckhurst"); Roger Baron North, Privy Councillor; Robert Cecil, Secretary of State; Thomas Egerton, Baron Ellesmere, Privy Councillor; William Knollys, Earl of Banbury, Privy Councillor; and George Carey, Baron Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain. 1 page. Folio (305 x 215 mm.). With attached leaf bearing address and docket. In a cloth folder.

From the Court at Greenwich, August 17, 1598.

See illus. p. 150

The order provides for the payment of £562 12 s. 10 d. for provisions and transport of soldiers to Ireland recruited in Wales "and other counties adioyninge." The most notable of the signatories was Howard of Effingham, Lord High Admiral of England, commander of the English fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada of 1588. Other signers who took part in the 1588 campaign were Knollys, who commanded a force of infantry, and Carey, Governor of the Isle of Wight, an important position.

Thomas Sackville is well known as a poet and dramatist; he planned and wrote part of the noted poem "A Myrrour for Magistrates" (1559-1563), and he collaborated with Thomas Norton in "The Tragedy of Gorbuduc" (1565), the first English tragedy in blank verse. Sackville later became first Earl of Dorset, and he began the great mansion of the Sackvilles at Knole, in Kent.

The dispatch of these troops tb Ireland was undoubtedly connected with the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, which was then in progress, and English fears that Tyrone would be assisted by the landing of a Spanish army (one actually did land in 1600).

Cf. Cyril Falls, Elizabeth's Irish wars (London, 1960).


16.

FENEKE MUñOZ, CARLOS. Tratado Tocante el Armar y disciplina de las Galeras. Dedicado al muy digno y Illustre Ambrosio Spinola, Duque de Sanceverino...General de las galeras de su Catholica Mag[esta]d en los estados de Flandes. Manuscript signed by the author, on paper; written in a clear cursive script. 48 leaves. Small quarto. Original vellum. From the library of Ambrogio Spínola; with contemporary note "delo heredio spinola" on front leaf.

Bruges, September 1, 1603.

See illus. p. 156

An unpublished manuscript of great interest for the study of sea-power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for the history of the Eighty Years War between the Dutch and Spain and for assessing the performance of galleys in the Spanish Armada of 1588; it gives the role of oared vessels in the attack on England extended discussion. Feneke has here produced a treatise resuming recent developments in naval tactics in order to examine the possible uses of this type of ship in Spanish service in the Netherlands.

The treatise discusses the advantages and disadvantages of galleys, makes suggestions for improving them and for their more effective use in future. In general, Feneke emphasizes that the standard Mediterranean galley was very poorly constructed for naval action on the northern seas; in illustration of this contention he records the failure of oared vessels in the Armada campaign (ff. 14-17). He discusses past and projected use of galleys by the Spanish command in the Netherlands.

In his dedicatory letter to Ambrogio Spínola, Feneke, who is apparently unknown except as author of this piece, describes himself as a gentleman soldier with 24 years' experience in the Spanish service. He had been a trusted subordinate of Ambrogio's younger brother Federico Spínola (1571-1603), who had joined his brother in the Spanish Netherlands expressly to command the galleys there. Feneke states that this work is based on his discussions with Federico and also on papers he had left.

Federico Spínola had been convinced that galleys--in the use of which the Spaniards were, of course, expert--could, if properly equipped and handled, strike decisive blows against both the English and the Dutch. But off Sluys, on May 26, 1603, Dutch sailing warships outmaneuvered him and ran his ships down. This event set the seal on a whole century of evolution in naval warfare, writing finis to the long period in which oared vessels had had freedom of action while sailing vessels had acted as carts at sea, fit only for moving bulky commercial cargoes. More than a century of improvement in hull construction, of rationalization in rigging and innovation in mounting more and more heavy guns had made the sailing warship with its fearsome broadside armament the queen of the seas--a position it was to hold for two centuries and a half. Galleys and similar vessels had indeed been very useful in conducting coastal raids and amphibious operations in the Netherlands, but Drake's fleets, and ships owned by the English Levant Company had shown they could trounce Spanish galleys at Cartagena de Indias, in the Mediterranean and at Cadiz--in 1586-1587. Nevertheless, Spain's adversaries had continued to fear attacks from oared vessels. Even Drake had acquiesced in this preoccupation, for the program of naval building approved by him, Hawkins and others as an immediate consequence of the 1588 Armada campaign included vessels specially designed to counter galleys. Spínola's defeat in 1603 doomed the galley in unsupported operations against sailing ships and largely banished it from northern waters where, as Feneke says in the present manuscript, it had performed so poorly in 1588. This proved Drake and other English observers to have been even righter than they had thought in believing that galleys could never seize command of the Channel or the North Sea, nor effectively invade England.

The manuscript is in a clear secretarial hand, and is signed by Feneke at the end of the dedicatory letter. A later inscription on the title interprets his name as "Fonst," but this is clearly merely a misreading.

On Federico Spínola and his battles, see: Jean Orlers and Henry Haestens, Description et représentation de toutes les Victoires ...(Leyden, 1612), pp. 258-260 [see No. 35]; Sir Julian Corbett, Successors of Drake (London, 1900), pp. 277-289, 386-395. Notes upon the use of oared vessels in northern waters at this time are set down by R. C. Anderson, Oared Fighting Ships (London, 1962), and R. H. Boulind, "The Crompster in Literature and Pictures," in: Mariner's Mirror , LIV(1968), pp. 1-17.

II. PRINTED BOOKS


17.

BRETON, NICHOLAS. A Discourse in commendation of the valiant as vertuous minded Gentleman, Maister Frauncis Drake, with a reioysing of his happy adventures. 8 leaves. With a type ornament border on the title. (Upper margin trimmed, touching the toplines). Small octavo. 18th century English brown calf. From the collection of Thomas Rawlinson (1681-1725), with his shelf-marks on the front end paper. London, John Charlewood, 1581.

See illus. p. 82

FIRST EDITION: an unrecorded work by one of the most prolific of the writers of the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Drake's great voyage of circumnavigation began in 1577 and lasted until September 26, 1580, when his ship, the Golden Hind , anchored again at Plymouth. Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to Drake's ship on April 14, 1581, at which time knighthood was conferred on him; the present work must have been published, therefore, before that date, as he is here called only "Gentleman" and "Maister."

The work begins (after the title-leaf) with a dedicatory letter to Drake, followed by a poem of three 6-line stanzas. The Discourse itself follows on leaves 3-8, the last paragraph being printed in a smaller face of black letter to avoid having to run a few lines of text on to another page. In it, Breton speaks, in the racy prose of that era, of "heving at ancors, hoising up sailes, hawling at cables, & such other sea work"; of "Our Countrey man [who] hath gone rounde about the whole world"; of"the Lande where Treasure lies, the way to come by it and ye honor by the getting of it"; etc. Significantly, though Breton repeatedly mentions the cargo of loot brought home by Drake, he is silent as to just where it was acquired; this undoubtedly is a reflection of Drake's anomalous position, since England and Spain were nominally at peace, and some of Elizabeth's counsellors were urging her to disavow him and restore the plunder to the Spaniards. She chose to support Drake, however, and shared in the treasure of perhaps a million pounds sterling or more, to the tune of about £300,000.

This is the first extant prose work of Breton, only three little volumes of his poetry preceding it in his literary output. Works of this author are of notorious rarity, in spite of the large number of his publications (see STC nos. 3631-3715), most of which are extant in only one or two copies.

Breton (c. 1545-1622) was the son of a wealthy London tradesman and landowner. "As a literary man Breton impresses us most by his versatility and his habitual refinement" (DNB, article by Sir Sidney Lee). The present work is full of the euphuistic conceits so characteristic of the Elizabethans. In his day, Breton was very highly esteemed as a writer, and he was eulogized by such outstanding men as Ben Jonson, Francis Mores, and Sir John Suckling. The discovery of this hitherto unknown work, connecting him with the greatest navigator of his day, is a notable event in English literary history.


18.

MEDINA SIDONIA, DON ALONSO PéREZ DE GUZMáN EL BUENO, SEVENTH DUKE OF. Don Alonso Perez de Guzman el Bueno Duque de la Ciudad de Medina Sidonia...Capitan General del Mar Oceano...y desta Real Armada y Exercito...Lo Que Ordeno y Mando Que hazar y cumplan los Generales, [y] Maestros de Campo...que vinieren en esta dicha Armada todo el tiempo que durare esta Jornada, es lo siguente. (Caption title). 4 leaves. Folio. In a cloth case.

(Lisbon), 1588.

See illus. p. 144

THE FIRST EDITION (unrecorded, and apparently unique) of the General Orders for the Invincible Armada of 1588. This is the personal copy of the commander-in-chief of the fleet, the Duke of Medina Sidonia. It may be extant in only this present copy. The text has been known from its publication by Captain Fernández Duro, who obtained it from a manuscript copy by Navarrete (Fernández Duro, La Armada Invencible , II, no. 99, pp. 22-32). It is also known through the very rare contemporary translation into English [see No. 19].

A manuscript docket on the verso of the last leaf reads "Instrucjon Jen[era]l que se dio al arm[a]da. año 1588" ("General order which was given to the Armada. Year 1588"). This is in the handwriting of the Duke of Medina Sidonia.

The document begins with regulations for the discipline of the enlisted men and officers, both sailors and soldiers; gives regulations for communication with Medina Sidonia's flagship San Martín de Portugal ; orders that the smaller supply and escort ships remain close to the flagship, except for the number assigned to the flagships of the wings; appoints various places of rendezvous for ships which have become detached from the main fleet; gives the signals to be used (by cannon, flags, or lantern); gives directions for the issue of rations, for fire prevention, and for the maintenance in good order of the artillery and small arms; and, finally, for the public reading of these general orders.

At the end it is stated that copies to be circulated to the ships by the fleet are to be signed by Medina Sidonia; there is a blank space for the insertion of month and day of issue. The present copy is not signed or dated.

Drake's service against the Armada as Vice-Admiral, under Howard of Effingham, is one of the high points of his career. He captured the galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario , flagship of the Andalusian squadron, with its Admiral Pedro de Valdés; he led the attacks on the Armada off Portland and the Isle of Wight, and inflicted great damage on the enemy in the final battle between the fleets off Gravelines.


19.

MEDINA SIDONIA, THE DUKE OF. Orders, Set down by the Duke of Medina, Lord general of the King's Fleet. to be observed in the voyage toward England. Translated out of Spanish into English by T. P. Black letter. 8 leaves. Small quarto. Blue morocco, triple gilt line borders, gilt back, inner gilt borders, g.e., by F. Bedford.

London, Thomas Orwin for Thomas Gilbert, 1588.

See illus. p. 145

THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. It is a translation of the previous number. The Short Title Catalogue (and the Bishop and Ramage supplements) locates only four copies of this piece: British Museum, Harmsworth (now Folger), Huntington, and Harvard.

STC 19625.


20.

BIGGES, WALTER, AND MASTER CROFTES. Expeditio Francisci Drake Equitis Angli in Indias Occidentales A(nno). M.D. LXXV. 21, (1) pp., 1 blank leaf. With a woodcut vignette of a ship on the title. Engraved views of the Drake attacks upon Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena (in a separate half morocco folder); the St. Augustine view not present [see No. 49]. Small quarto. Old marbled boards (17th century), leather back. In a half morocco case. Leyden, Fr. Raphelengius, 1588.

See illus. pp. 120, 124-125

FIRST LATIN EDITION; an edition in French appeared the same year (no priority known). This is one of the earliest publications to mention Virginia. The text is somewhat abridged from the original English version, which was published in two editions in the following year [see Nos. 21 and 22].

The Baptista Boazio view-plans (four in number of which three accompany this copy) are probably the most interesting and important published graphic work pertaining to Drake and his career. They exist in two different engravings; one set measures c. 205 x 300 mm. (as the present ones); the other c. 405 x 520 mm. (as reproduced by Thomas Greepe, David W. Waters (ed.), The true and perfecte Newes ...). Of the larger size, nine sets are known; of the smaller, only seven (not including the present set of three).

Each of these view-plans gives a bird's-eye view of the various cities and the surrounding country, showing Drake's attacks in progressive stages. These are apparently the first published views of each of these localities. Many features bear numerical designations, but there is no key on the engravings, and apparently none is extant. The larger view-plans bear alphabetic designations, and printed keys exist. In the smaller view-plans, captions in Latin are present in compartments running along the bottom; in the larger plates these are in cartouches. In the smaller engravings, French captions are also present below the Latin--these are not to be found at all on the larger plates.

It would seem probable, from the fact that the smaller sized engravings include captions in Latin and French, that they might have been intended for publication with the Latin and French editions of the Bigges narrative issued at Leyden in 1588. No copy of either of these editions is known to have the engravings bound in, however. The Church copy of the German edition of 1589 (Cologne), in an apparently contemporary binding of stamped pigskin, contains a variant issue of these smaller engravings, with captions in Latin only, perhaps indicative of a later issue or state.

There is no evidence for an earlier date for the larger engravings than 1589, when they are mentioned on the title pages of the two English editions issued that year. It is therefore entirely possible that the smaller engravings appeared before the larger ones; no priority can, however, be established at present. The entire subject of the editions of the Bigges-Croftes narrative, in its various translations, editions, and issues, and of the Boazio maps, is worthy of a detailed study.

The Boazio plates made one later contemporary appearance, in the De Bry Grands Voyages , Part VIII. Those engravings are clearly derived from the smaller Boazio engravings, since they are keyed in numerals rather than letters. It should be noted that the figures of the Iguana, the Alligator, and the Flying Fish on these engravings, are after drawings by John White, one of the participants in the Ralegh settlement of Virginia, and are in fact the first publication of any of White's work.

A large general map of the Drake voyage is extant, but it is highly uncertain whether this was ever intended to accompany any of the editions of the narrative.

Sabin 20828; Church 134A; Greepe, D. Waters (ed.), True and Perfecte Newes of ... Syr Frauncis Drake (Hartford, 1955), pp. 53-70 (Taylor, Americanum Nauticum , no. 3); Paul Hulton and D. B. Quinn, The American drawings of John White , 1577-1590 (2 vols., London, 1964).


21.

(BIGGES, WALTER). A Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Frances [sic] Drakes West Indian Voyage. 2 leaves, 52 pp. Headlines and page numerals trimmed. Small quarto. Sewn. In a half morocco case.

London, Richard Field, 1589.

See illus. p. 120

The first edition in English, and also the first complete publication of the text, since the Latin and French editions of the previous year were in slightly abridged form. This is the chief source of information about Drake's voyage to Cape Verde and the West Indies in 1585-1586, in the course of which he captured and plundered Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands, the city of Santo Domingo, capital of Hispaniola, Cartagena de Indias on the north coast of South America and St. Augustine, Florida.

On his return to Europe Drake abandoned an attack on Santa Elena, Florida and instead brought relief to the Virginia colony sent out to Roanoke Island by Walter Ralegh in the previous year. At their own wish, Drake conveyed the surviving colonists, under their governor Ralph Lane, back to England; also on board were John White and the originals of his superb pioneering drawings of Virginia. 1 It has been believed that tobacco and the potato were first brought back to England by these colonists. However, scholarly study of precedents and species has shown the matter to be a good deal less simple: the Virginia colonists seem to have amplified rather than initiated English knowledge of what turned out to be many varieties of plants of potato type, while Drake's followers had used tobacco at least as early as their return to England from the Isthmus of Panama in 1573, and on this occasion introduced the Indian pipe rather than the plant. 2 But what is certain is that the colonists and their reports did much to make knowledge of American products widespread, and the voyage thus ranks among the most important in English economic history.

Captain Bigges composed the narrative up to the time of the expedition's attack on Cartagena, where he died from sickness, as did many of his fellows. It was then continued by his Lieutenant, Croftes, and was in the ownership of another officer, Thomas Cates, when it was printed. Two issues of this first edition are known: one adds to the title wording referring to "Geographicall Mappes"; the other is without such a note (as in the case of the present copy). The reference is to engravings of the capture of the four towns, which exist in two versions [see No. 20].

STC 3056; Sabin 20842; Church 136; David W. Waters (ed.), True and Perfecte Newes of ... Syr Frauncis Drake , pp. 53-70.

1. Paul Hulton and D. B. Quinn, The American drawings of John White, 1577-1590 (2 vols., London, 1964); D. B. Quinn (ed.), The Roanoke Voyages , I, pp. 243-313.

2. William Camden, Historie ...(London, 1630), III, pp. 61-62; Jerome E. Brooks, Tobacco: its History Illustrated ... in the Library of George Arents (5 vols., New York, 1937-52), I, pp. 46-49; II, pp. 156-158; R. N. Salaman, The History and Social Influence of the Potato (Cambridge, 1949), pp. 83-96; Quinn, Roanoke Voyages , I, pp. 344-348.


22.

BIGGES, WALTER. A Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Frances [sic] Drakes West Indian Voyage. (First line of title and a few headlines trimmed.) With woodcut printer's mark of Richard Field on the title. 4 leaves, 37 (1) pp., 1 blank leaf. Small quarto. Morocco.

London, Roger Ward, 1589.

See illus. p. 120

THE SECOND ENGLISH EDITION, published the same year as the first. The present Roger Ward edition seems to be less well known than the Richard Field edition (STC 3056) which preceded it the same year--see the previous number. STC-Bishop-Ramage locate only 4 copies of the Ward edition as against 11 of the Field. The present copy has the leaf before the title, blank except for the signature-mark "A," and the blank leaf at the end.

STC 3057; Sabin 20841; Church 136 (note); Waters (ed.), True and Perfecte Newes ... Syr Frauncis Drake , pp. 53-70; Quinn, ed., The Roanoke Voyages , I, pp. 32-35.


23.

F., T. The Copie of a Letter sent from Sea by a Gentleman, who was Employed in discoverie on the coast of Spaine by appointment of the Generals of our English Fleets. 4 leaves. With printer's mark on the title. Small quarto. Morocco. London, Richard Field, 1589.

See illus. p. 151

"T. F." was sent to sea on February 4, 1589, for the purpose of reconnoitering the Iberian coasts in preparation for the Drake-Norris expedition of 1589. He gives news of the fate of the Invincible Armada of the previous year: "And as concerning the last Fleete, [a marchant of Lisbone] sayth, that of all the ships and carvels of the Spanish Fleete there are come home but nine and thirtie...but most of all the men that came home died immediatly at their landing...Also the Duke of Medina is banished the Court for ever." This latter detail is quite false--King Philip did not blame the Duke for the failure of the Armada campaign. He also gives particulars of a naval action off Lisbon in which a Greek ship laden with wines from Crete was captured, and predicts great success for the coming attack.

Only three copies of this tract are recorded in STC-Bishop-Ramage.

STC 10653.


24.

(WINGFIELD, ANTHONY). A True Coppie of a Discourse written by a Gentleman, employed in the late Voyage of Spaine and Portingale. 2 leaves, 58 pp., 1 blank leaf. (Pp. 27-30 lacking, supplied in photostat.) Woodcut vignette on the title. Small quarto. Old boards, leather back.

London, printed (by T. Orwin) for Thomas Woodcok, 1589.

See illus. p. 160

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. Wingfield's narrative is the most detailed account extant of the 1589 attack on Spain commanded by Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norreys (Norris), which sailed from Plymouth on April 17, 1589, and returned late in June. In the STC the book is wrongly ascribed to Queen Elizabeth's favorite, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who took part in the expedition--much against the Queen's will--as a volunteer. However, an unnumbered later listing gives Wingfield as the author. 1

The expedition failed in its principal objective, the raising of a rebellion in Portugal against King Philip II of Spain, and the enthroning of Dom Antonio, the last male offshoot of the Aviz dynasty, in Philip's place. It did a certain amount of damage to Spanish naval shipping at Corunna, including some remnants of the Armada of the previous year; and over 60 ships laden with corn and naval supplies which the English regarded as contraband were taken near Lisbon from the Hanse.

Two issues of this work are extant; signature E (pp. 25-32), which relates events of the attack upon Lisbon, in some copies (including this one) contains a passage in praise of the Earl of Essex on p. 26 (E 1 verso). As Queen Elizabeth was highly displeased with the Earl's running off on this voyage against her orders, it is perhaps likely that the issue with the passage is the earlier of the two.

STC 6790.

1. See Tenison, Elizabethan England , VIII, pp. 139-140.


25.

EPHEMERIS expeditionis Norreysii & Draki in Lusitaniam. 1 leaf, 34 pp. (blank first and last leaves not present; some damp marks). Small quarto. English 18th century brown calf. Half morocco case.

London, Thomas Woodcocke, 1589.

See illus. p. 161

FIRST EDITION. One of the most important original sources for the history of the Drake-Norris attack upon Spain and Portugal in 1589; it has never been translated into English (except for brief extracts in Tenison). 1 Historians of the era have generally overlooked it. It is a diary of the events of that expedition, from March 15 to July 3; also present are a preface by O. H. and a postscript purporting to be a letter from an unnamed person in England to Michael Isselt of Amersfort, asking him to transmit the diary to King Philip of Spain. Isselt was a Dutch priest and historian, 2 strongly devoted to the Spanish and Catholic cause, and it may be surmised that the letter was ironical in intent. The whole piece is probably an English propaganda publication, with the Isselt material included to attract attention to it in the Netherlands. A contemporary writer has written "errat imp[ud]issime" and "error imp[ud]iss." in the margins at references to Isselt in the preface and postscript.

Tenison conjectures that the work was written by Anthony Wingfield, who served as lieutenant-colonel of infantry in the expedition, but the contents differ widely from the English narrative ascribed with good reason to that author [see No. 24].

The present copy is very large (205 × 150 mm.), with several uncut edges of leaves; the fore edge of the title is the original rough deckle.

STC 18653.

1. Tenison, Elizabethan England , VIII, 104-107 (with reprod. of title).

2. Foppens, Bib. Belgica , II, 894.


25a.

WARHAFFTIGE UND GRUENDTLICHE HISTORIA desz Zugs, Welchen die...Herrn Norwitz und Drak...in Portugal fuergenommen haben...30 pp., 1 blank leaf. With armorial woodcut on title and full-page woodcut of "Collonel Norwitz" on verso. Small 4to. Wrappers. Frankfurt am Main, Paul Brachfeldt, 1590.

The very rare first German edition of the Ephemeris expeditionis [25]. This is a literal translation of the Latin day-by-day report of the Drake-Norris expedition to Portugal from March 15 is to July 3, 1589, containing also the preface to Michael Isselt of Amersfort by O. H., but not the post-script.

Sabin 101423. Not in J. Carter Brown, Harrisse, nor Church; not in the British Museum.


26.

A DECLARATION of the Causes which mooved the chiefe Commanders of the Navie...to take and arrest in...the River of Lisbone, certaine Shippes. 1 leaf, 21 pp. (Trimming on lower edge affects some catchwords and signature marks.) With a woodcut vignette on the title, and full-page woodcut arms of England on verso of tide. Small quarto. Morocco.

London, Deputies of Christopher Barker, 1589.

See illus. p. 160

First edition in English of this official diplomatic document, a sort of 16th century "white paper." Two Latin editions were also published this same year.

When the Drake-Norris expedition against Spain and Portugal arrived off Lisbon on June 30, 1589, they seized there a large number of merchant ships, including 60 German Hanse vessels "passing to the ayde and furnishing of the king of Spaine with corne, and provisions of warre." 1 The Hanse towns had protested against this, alleging their neutral status; this reply quotes from agreements between England and the Hanse as far back as the reign of Edward I (1302), as well as from a warning sent to Hamburg in 1585, when English-Spanish hostilities were impending. 2 The author cites not only Philip II's overt hostilities against England, but also his sponsorhip of the Jesuits, who, they say "cease not...to runne from house to house, and Towne to Towne, stirring up the people by their whisperings to rebellion, and scattering certaine popish Buls..."

STC 9196.

1. E. P. Cheyney, "International law under Queen Elizabeth," in: English Historical Review , XX (1905), pp. 659-672.

2. Carl J. Kulsrud, Maritime Neutrality to 1780 (Boston, 1936), pp. 213-220, 226.


27.

HAKLUYT, RICHARD. The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land, to the most remote and farthest distant Quarters of the earth at any time within the compasse of these 1500 yeeres. 8 leaves; pp. 1-242; 1 blank leaf; pp. 243-501 (1); 506-643; 6 unnumbered leaves; pp. 644-825; 5 unnumbered leaves (complete). With a large folding engraved map of the world by Franciscus Hogenberg, after Ortelius. Folio. Contemporary brown roll-stamped calf (back mended; clasps gone).

London, George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, 1589.

See illus. pp. 50, 60, 69-80

FIRST EDITION: a "stout quarto volume which...signalized the rise of England to maritime power." Hakluyt's great collection is an almost inexhaustible archive of information on exploration, trade and navigation after a century of unparalleled endeavor. With rare tact, thoroughness and dedication he collected authoritative accounts from published works, merchants' papers, private archives, the records of state and through extensive private contacts. Although collections of voyages were a widespread and admired form of publication in the sixteenth century, Hakluyt's work is the first one to be organized on a national rather than a general basis, though he did not exclude accounts of voyages by foreigners of particular relevance to English enterprises. It is difficult to overestimate the great value of Hakluyt's labors as a historian of discovery and colonization, or even as an outstanding prose writer in the greatest age of English literature. 1

This copy of the work contains the first narrative to be published of Drake's circumnavigation of the globe: here, as in other copies, it appears on the six unnumbered leaves following p. 643. It is curious to note that in his preface Hakluyt specifically mentions that he is excluding the Drake narrative, after originally hoping to be able to print it--as would, of course, seem only natural with the most celebrated English voyage of the century, and indeed of all time, in question. But he had changed this plan so as "not to anticipate or prevent another mans paines and charge in drawing all the services of that worthie Knight into one volume." Evidently this project of a separate publication of accounts of all Drake voyages to that date was soon after abandoned, as Hakluyt again changed his intention, reverting to his original plan, but only after most, at least, of his book had been printed. Comparison of his text with other literary and cartographic references shows that it can hardly have appeared later than 1592 2 ; while the paper and type used for it were apparently the same as those employed in the main volume. It is thought that it was a frequent practice to draw up and print the tide-page last in a work of this size: hence the allusion in it to the circumnavigation is correct, and conveys Hakluyt's final, rather than his first intention. These leaves are often lacking, but where found, they are usually inserted as in this copy, which was presumably Hakluyt's intention. 3 All Hakluyt's ability as an editor seems to have been called on in compiling his own narrative, "wherin I must confess to have taken more than ordinary paines." 4

On the same page, Hakluyt refers to the map accompanying the volume--a reproduction of the "Typus Orbis Terrarum" engraved by Franciscus Hogenberg for Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570, 5 stating that:

I have contented myselfe with inserting into the worke one of the best generall mappes of the world onely, untill the comming out of a very large and most exact terrestriall globe, collected and reformed according to the newest, secretest, and latest discoveries, both Spanish, Portugall and English, composed by Mr. Emmerie Molineux of Lambeth, a rare Gentleman in his profession, being therin for divers yeeres.

Molyneux's pioneering great globes appeared in 1592, the terrestrial one of the pair bearing Drake's track around the world, and they did set new standards for English geographers. 6 It is, however, uncertain whether the plane map Hakluyt seems to have hoped Molyneux would produce ever appeared, though possibly the excellent "new map of the Indies" often associated with the second edition of the present work, owes much to him? 7

STC 12626; Sabin 29594; Church 139; John Carter Brown I (2), 317.

1. G. B. Parks, Richard Hakluyt and the English Voyages (New York, 1928), pp. 124-132.

2. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's voyage around the world , pp. 231-232, 238-239.

3. W. H. Kerr, "The treatment of Drake's circumnavigation in Hakluyt's 'Voyages,' 1589," in: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America , XXXIV (1940), pp. 281-302.

4. In the preliminaries of the work here described, leaf 4 v

5. A. M. Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries , I, p. 179.

6. Helen M. Wallis, "The first English globe: a recent discovery," in: Geographical Journal , CXVII (1951), pp. 275-290; ibid., "Further light on the Molyneux globes," in: ibid. , CXXI (1955), pp. 304-311.

7. C. H. Coote, "Shakspere's New Map," in: Transactions of the New Shakspere Society (1877), pp. 88-100 Hind, I, pp. 178-181.


28.

(VIQUE MANRIQUE, PEDRO). La Vista que V[uestra] S[eñoría] Vio en Revista entre el Licenciado Alonso Perez de Salazar...con don Pedro Vique Manrique, cabo y Capitan general que fue de las Galeras de la Costa de Cartagena, de las Indias leaves. Folio. Half vellum.

(Madrid, c. 1590)

See illus. p. 128

A work containing new evidence concerning the Drake raid on the Spanish Main in 1586. The document is an appeal for the commutation of the sentence of death passed on Don Pedro Vique Manrique, commander of the galley flotilla at Cartagena, on charges arising out of the disastrous Spanish defeat by Drake there. Appeal is here lodged against the royal prosecutor ( fiscal ), Licenciado Pérez de Salazar. In seeking to extenuate his offenses this statement sets out details, on leaves 8-11, of Don Pedro's valuable services during Drake's attack on Cartagena, when Vique Manrique, who nominally held only a naval command, was forced to take over control of the city because of the incompetence of the Governor. 1 This copy is signed "Xandres" (?) on the last page--presumably the name of Don Pedro's attorney. The testimony of eyewitnesses of the capture of the city is quoted at length.

Drake's expedition had a mixed success at Cartagena. He was able to take a quite strongly held city very quickly. But he secured very little plunder there, as the citizens had been warned of his approach, and had removed their valuables; he had, furthermore, to debit against this the very heavy casualties among his men from sickness in the fleet. The galleys and the city's defensive works were, however, destroyed. Drake took approximately 300 liberated galley slaves back to England with him from Cartagena: some were Englishmen and other western Europeans caught raiding in the Caribbean, but most were Turks and Moors whom Queen Elizabeth caused the Levant Company to repatriate to the Ottoman Empire. 2

Sentence of death was eventually passed upon Vique Manrique because of serious frauds he had committed: it did not result primarily from his military failure, although this was the occasion which provoked the charges against him. Don Pedro came from an old Aragonese family and had given distinguished service in the Spanish galleys in the Mediterranean, notably under Don John of Austria at Lepanto. He had been selected to take command during the adventurous voyage of the galleys destined to form a flotilla to police the coast of the Spanish Main, crossing the Atlantic in company with Don Cristóbal de Eraso in 1578. 3 The flotilla, intended to prevent raids by marauders like Drake and John Oxenham in 1572-3 and 1575-6, had been largely successful in keeping the coast clear for a number of years, until it was overwhelmed by Drake's force in February 1586. 4 Investigation into Vique's tenure of command then revealed that his galleys had been culpably declining in efficiency for a number of years. He had allowed slaves and convicts to escape, had spent far too much time in harbor and had used the galleys for private trade. It was also concluded that he had seized provisions from Spanish trading vessels he ought to have protected, on the pretext that they were needed for his galleys: he had then, in fact, sold the supplies and pocketed the proceeds. His flagrantly disreputable private life outraged the austere rectitude of Philip II's officialdom, and he outraged the King's conscience when it was determined that he had enslaved Indians. Owing to the powerfully argued extenuating circumstances, however, this appeal was successful in securing the commutation of the sentence to life imprisonment, and Vique's brother, the Bishop of Majorca, eventually secured his release from the castle of Peñíscola. 5

Vique Manrique's defense of Cartagena is described by Irene A. Wright in Further English Voyages to Spanish America , and in Thomas Greepe's True and Perfecte Newes , as edited by David W. Waters (1955). Neither of these works mentions this source.

Not in Palau; not in Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana , nor in the standard bibliographies of Americana.

1. Irene A. Wright (ed.), Further English Voyages to Spanish America , pp. xliii-lv; Thomas Greepe, David W. Waters (ed.), True and Perfecte Newes of ... Syr Frauncis Drake , pp. 38-40.

2. E. P. Cheyney, A History of England from the defeat of the Armada to the death of Queen Elizabeth , I, pp. 384, 390.

3. Cf. Nos. 46 and 47.

4. Cf. the Duke of Medina Sidonia's pungent remarks in section 11 of his 1586 memorandum [No. 3].

5. Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Patronato 270, no. 1, ramo 24: dossier to support Don Pedro Vique Manrique's appeal for remission of sentence, 1594.


29.

RELACION del Viage que hizieron las cinco Fragatas de Armada de su Magestad, yendo por Cabo dellas Don Pedro Tello de Guzman, este Present Año de Noventa y cinco . (Caption title). 4 leaves. Small quarto. Tan polished calf, gilt line borders, gilt back.

Seville, Rodrigo de Cabrera, after February 21, 1596.

See illus. p. 174

The narrative of Drake's repulse at Puerto Rico shortly before his death, which is apparently unrecorded. Palau (No. 257265) does note one edition, but there are differences of spelling which make it quite certain that the present piece is not being described (e.g., Palau gives "hicieron," instead of "hizieron," as above; "cinco" for "las cinco"; "de la Armada" for "de Armada").

The narrative tells how Don Pedro Tello sailed from San Lucar for America on September 25, 1595 and how his frigates captured a small vessel from the Drake-Hawkins flotilla off Guadeloupe and learned from it of the intended attack on the treasure ships at Puerto Rico. It relates the measures taken for the defense of that place, and Drake's attack and repulse there. Events are related down to December 20, 1595.

Drake's lack of success on this voyage may be attributed at least in part to Don Pedro's enterprise and spirit, which contrasts most strongly with that of some other of Drake's opponents in America.


30.

HAKLUYT, RICHARD. The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. 3 volumes bound in 2. 12 leaves, 620 pp.; 8 leaves, 312, 204 pp.; 8 leaves, 868 pp. Folio. English 18th century diced Russia calf, gilt tooled borders, backs elaborately gilt tooled in the compartments (by Roger Payne). London, George Bishop, Ralfe Newberie, and Robert Barker, 1598, 1599, 1600. [ Vol. 1 ] [ Vol. 2 ]

See illus. pp. 109, 178

"This is a much enlarged edition of Hakluyt's collection of voyages published in 1589. The third volume relates entirely to America...Hakluyt's Principall Navigations was the fruit of a life devoted to promoting the cause of English colonization and commerce by disseminating knowledge..." (Church).

Copies of this work are known with the title page of Volume I dated 1589, and including the "Honorable voyage unto Cadiz, 1596" on pp. 607-619; with the 1598 tide, but without the Cadiz voyage, or with a reprint of it; and with a title dated 1599, reset to omit any reference to Cadiz. The present Vol. I has the first issue title, dated 1598 and with mention of Cadiz, but has pp. 607-620 in reprint (as described in Church Cat., II, 756, no. 3). There are a few insignificant marginal damp marks, breaks, etc., but the copy is on the whole a fine one.

Vol. III contains, among other very interesting material, "The famous voyage of Sir Francis Drake...about the whole Globe of the earth" (1577-1580), on pp. 730-742, which was slightly revised after its appearance with the 1589 edition. A part of "The famous voyage..." is repeated, as Hakluyt in this edition inserted it in Volume III, pp. 440-442, apparently to emphasize Drake's achievement as an explorer of California.

Sabin 29595, 29597-8; Church 322; J. C. Brown I (2), 360, 372-3; STC 12626.


31.

BRY, THEODOR DE. Grands Voyages. (Latin edition). Parts VI-IX. Bound in one volume. With numerous engraved maps and plates. Blank lower margin of title cut off. Folio. Contemporary vellum, black line borders, fleurons. Stamped ex libris on titles and last page. Frankfurt, 1596-1602.

See illus. pp. 90-91, 126-127

The first Latin edition of each part. Part VIII contains the narratives of Drake's voyages of 1577-1580; 1585-1586; and 1595-1596. Among the engravings to this part are the fine double-hemisphere world map, showing the track of the circumnavigation, and with an inset portrait of Drake; an engraving showing Drake's reception by the California Indians; one showing him on the coast of Patagonia; and 4 engravings after Boazio of his captures of Santiago, Santo Domingo, Cartagena, and St. Augustine.

The parts are:

  • VI: Americae Pars Sexta. (Benzoni, part 3). Frankfurt, 1596. 84 leaves, the last blank. With a folding map of the western hemisphere; double-page view of Cuzco; and 28 engravings.
  • VII: Americae Pars VII. Frankfurt, de Bry, 1599. 32 leaves, the last blank. With one engraving.
    The travels of Ulrich Schmidel in Brazil and Paraguay.
  • VIII: Americae Pars VIII. Continens...Descriptionem Itinerum...Francisci Draken...Secundo, iter...Thomae Candisch...Tertio, duo itinera...Gualtheri Ralegh. Frankfurt, de Bry, 1599. 110 leaves, the last blank. With a map on the title; folding map of northeastern South America, and 18 engravings.
  • IX: Americae Nona et Postrema Pars. Frankfurt, Becker, 1602.306 leaves, including two blanks. With an engraved map of the Strait of Magellan, and 39 engravings.
    This part includes Acosta's Historia ... de las Indias , and the de Weert and van Noort voyages to the East Indies.

Church 158; 161; 163; 168.


32. BRY, THEODOR DE. [ Vol. 1 ] [ Vol. 2 ]

Grands Voyages. (German edition). Parts I-XII. Bound in two volumes. With numerous engraved maps and plates. Folio. Contemporary manuscript marginalia in German throughout. Blind-tooled pigskin over boards, with date 1659 and initials "H.V.G" stamped on front covers.

Oppenheim and Frankfurt am Main, 1599-1623.

See illus. pp. 92, 93

Drake narratives in Part VIII comprise the expeditions of 1577-1580 (the circumnavigation); 1585-1586; and 1595-1596. Among the illustrations of Drake's voyages are the celebrated four views of the cities captured on his voyage of 1585-1586: Santiago, Santo Domingo, Cartagena, and St. Augustine. The latter engraving is the first picture of any city now in the United States (apparently the third version of this engraving).

Parts I and VII are in the third, Parts II-VI in the second, and Parts VIII-XII in the first German editions. The parts are as follows:

  1. HARIOT, THOMAS. Wunderbarliche/doch warhafftige Erklärung/von...Virginia. 3rd edition in German. Oppenheim, Hieronymus Galler, 1620. Complete with engraved title; double folio map of Virginia; Adam and Eve plate; and 22 (numbered) engraved plates (2 of them from the 2nd German edition). 2 additional plates from the first edition in Latin, 1590.
  2. LAUDONNIèRE, RENé GOULèNE DE. Der ander Theil...von dreyen Schiffahrten/so die Frantzosen in Floridam...gethan. 2nd edition in German. Frankfurt am Main, Wolffgang Richter, 1603. Complete with engraved title; letterpress title to plates; engraved double folio map of Florida; engraving of Noah's sacrifice; and 42 (numbered) engravings in the text.
  3. STADEN, JOHANN AND JEAN DE LéRY. Dritte Buch Americae...Brasilia. 2nd edition in German. Frankfurt am Main, Theodor de Bry (Johann Theod. de Bry), 1593 (c. 1606-1612). With engraved title and 30 engravings in the text (several repeats, as indicated in Church Catalogue). (Engraved map of South America and signatures A-D, preliminary to "Schiffahrt in Brasilien," including 2nd engraved title, not present).
  4. BENZONI, GIROLAMO. (Das vierte Buch...von dem Nidergängischen Indien/so von Christophoro Columbo im Jar 1492...erfunden). 2nd edition in German. (Frankfurt am Main, Matthias Beckers Wittib, 1613). With engraved title of the 2nd edition in Latin (should have tide in German); 2nd engraved title (variant state); engraving "America Retectio"; and 24 (numbered) engraved plates (nos. I-XV from the 1st German edition; XVI-XXIV from the 2nd German edition). Engraved map of the West Indies; and signature "A" (4 leaves) of Benzoni's history not present (replaced by 3 leaves with repeats of plates I-III).
  5. BENZONI, GIROLAMO. (Americae Das Fünffte Buch). 2nd edition in German. (Frankfurt am Main, Erasmus Kempffer, 1613). With engraved title of the 2nd edition in Latin (should have title in German); letterpress title to plates, dated 1613; engraved double folio map of Mexico; and 22 (numbered) engraved plates (nos. XVI and XIX from 1st German edition; plates VIII-XI not present and replaced by plates VIII-XI from Part IV).
  6. BENZONI, GIROLAMO. Das sechste Theil Americae...wie die Spanier die...Landschafften dess Peruauischen Königreiches eingenommen. 2nd edition in German, 1st issue. (Oppenheim, Hieronymus Galler), 1619. Complete with engraved title; letterpress title to plates, dated 1618; engraved double folio map of the western hemisphere; double folio plan of Cuzco; coat-of-arms of Maurice of Hesse; and 28 (numbered) engraved plates.
  7. SCHMIDL, ULRICH. (ULRICUS FABER). Das VII. Theil...etlicher...Landschafften und Insulen. (Voyage to Brazil and Paraguay). 2nd edition in German, here called the 3rd. Oppenheim, Hieronymus Galler, 1617. Complete with engraved title.
  8. (DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS).--SIR WALTER RALEGH AND FRANK PRETTY. (Three voyages by Drake and Hawkins). Americae Achter Theil...Königreich Guiana.--Zum andern/die Reyse dess...Thomas Candisch. 1st edition in German. Frankfurt am Main, Matthäus Becker, 1599. Complete with 3 titles with title vignettes, dated 1599 and 1600; letterpress title to plates; engraved double folio map of Guiana; and 21 engraved plates (numbered I-VI; I-XV).
  9. ACOSTA, JOSEPH DE, S.J. Neundter und Letzter Theil. (Historia, plus De Weert's and van Noort's circumnavigations). 1st edition in German. Frankfurt am Main, Wolffgang Richter, 1601. With engraved title and 2 printed titles with title engravings, dated 1601 and 1602; letterpress title to plates; and 39 engraved plates (numbered I-XXV; I-XIV). Engraved map of the Strait of Magellan and folio "(?) 2 " (dedication to the Landgrave of Hesse) not present.
  10. VESPUCCI, AMERIGO AND JOHN SMITH. Zehender Theil...Erstlich/zwo Schiffarten Herrn Americi Vesputii...Zum andern:...Bericht von...Virginien...Zum dritten: Beschreibung dess newen Engellands...von Capitein Johann Schmiden. Sole edition in German. Oppenheim, Hieronymus Galler, 1618. Complete with title engraving of two ships under full sail; letterpress title to plates; and 12 (numbered) engraved plates. Blank leaf "C 4 " present, as in Crawford copy. Additional engraved map of the two hemispheres (not called for in either Church or Crawford copies), bound in before letterpress title to plates.
  11. SCHOUTEN, WILLEM.-J. LE MAIRE.-J. VAN SPILBERGHEN. Historische Beschreibung Der wunderbarlichen Reyse. Sole edition in German. Frankfurt am Main, Paul Jacobi, 1619. Complete with 2 titles with large engraved vignettes (the first repeated in plate I); letterpress title to plates; 3 engraved maps (2 of them double folio); and 29 engraved plates. Blank leaf "E 4 " present, as in Crawford copy.
  12. HERRERA, ANTONIO DE. Zwölffter Theil...Entdeckung aller der West Indianischen Landschafften. Sole edition in German. Frankfurt am Main, Joh. Theodor de Bry, 1623. With engraved title, and 14 engraved maps (misbound with Part VII). Engraved double folio map of western hemisphere and plan of Cuzco (repeats from Part VI) not present here.

It should be noted that copies in contemporary binding, as this one, invariably are of differing states and editions, and are plus and/or minus various leaves. The present copy is in an unusually well preserved binding; the impressions of the plates are generally clear and dark.

Church nos. 178; 180; 182; 184; 187; 189; 192; 194; 195; 196; 198; 199. Earl of Crawford, Bib. Lindesiana , Coll. & Notes, no. 3, pp. 3-47.


33.

ARGENSOLA, BARTOLOME LEONARDO DE. Conquistas de las Islas Malucas. 5 leaves, 411 (misnumb. 407) pp. With engraved title page by P. Perret (closely shaved, with loss of engraver's name). Small folio. Contemp. mottled calf (rebacked). From the library of Sir Charles Killigrew (1655-1725), with his signature on the first page and with armorial bookplate and signature of Joseph Harford, dated 1780. Madrid, Alonso Martin, 1609.

See illus. pp. 97, 114

First edition of a book starting with early voyages of discovery by the Spanish and Portuguese, the English and the Dutch and including Magellan's and Sir Francis Drake's voyages. It deals in detail with the history of the conquest of the Moluccas and adjacent islands, with their natural history and with the language, manner and customs of the natives.

Leonardo de Argensola (1562-1631) was royal chaplain and rector of Villahermosa; his work has been praised for his good judgment and elegance of style; it was translated into English, French and German.

Palau 16089; Sabin 1946; Medina, Bibliog. de Filipinas , 48; Perez Pastor, Bibliog. Madrileña , 1046.


34.

ROSACCIO, GIUSEPPE. Discorso...Nel quale si tratta breuemente della Nobilita, & Eccellenza della Terra rispetto à Cieli, & altri Elementi. 12 leaves. With engraved portrait of the author, by Luigi Rosaccio, and a double folio map of the two hemispheres, engraved by Alovisio Rosaccio. Small folio. Three quarter vellum. Florence, Volcmar Tedesco (c. 1610).

See illus. pp. 99, 100

A little known work embodying a geography of world-wide scope, including up-to-date information on the comparatively recent discovery of the American continent. Among the accounts of various expeditions, the book includes (on leaf C 2v .) a detailed reference to Sir Francis Drake's famous circumnavigation of 1577-1580 when he made his passage through the Strait of Magellan with the aim of exploring the South Sea. The author mentions Drake's stay with the friendly California Indians, his return voyage via the Molucca Islands, where he negotiated the important agreements for English trade with the Spice Islands, and his arrival at Plymouth in 1580. Following the Drake account is a reference to the later circumnavigation of Thomas Cavendish (Tomaso Gãdiz), made in 1586-1588.

The book contains an interesting planisphere map, with the two facing orbs above a small Ptolemy world map, engraved by Alovisio Rosaccio. The left hemisphere shows the New World, with the Pacific Ocean as far as New Guinea, and Tierra del Fuego as an integral part of the otherwise unknown Southern continent; the right globe: Europe, Asia, Africa, with Japan to the extreme right, and the Southern continent (Terra Incognita) continued across the entire bottom of the map. In the center of the map are a portrait vignette of the young Duke Cosimo II de Medici (to whom the book is dedicated) and the Medici arms. As Rosaccio states himself (leaf C 2v .) this map is an improved version of another planisphere map which he published in 1597, bearing the same title and with the data on America newly made public added to it.

Giuseppe Rosaccio (c. 1530-1620), a physician and cosmographer, published a number of geographical works, among them an edition of Ptolemy in 1598, which he mentions in the present work (leaf C 2v .) and for which he became widely known. The Discorso is Rosaccio's last work.

Sabin 73194 (suggesting the date of 1615); Liruti, Notizie delle vite ed opere scritte da letterati del Friuli , IV, 166-169. Almagiá, "Un grande planisfero di Giuseppe Rosaccio," in: Rivista Geogr. Italiana , 1924.


35.

ORLERS, JEAN, AND HENRY DE HAESTENS. Description et représentation de Toutes les Victoires...souz la Conduite de...Maurice de Nassau. 4 leaves, 284 pp. (misnumbered 282). With engraved title, coat of arms, portrait, and 42 double-page engravings. Folio. Contemp. vellum. Leyden, 1612.

See illus. p. 155

First edition in French. This work includes one of the very rare contemporary representations of the Armada battle. The Spanish fleet is shown fleeing in confusion, closely followed by the English, past Gravelines on the Flemish coast; Calais and Dover are shown in the background. The accompanying text (pages 36-59) comprises a French translation of the Relacion de los galeones (a detailed listing of the naval and military strength of the Armada) and a narrative of the Armada battle. This gives a lengthy account of the events of August 8th, when the fleets were fighting off the coasts of the Netherlands.

The work offers pictures and descriptions of many other very interesting events in the lifetime of Count Maurice of Nassau, including the English-Dutch raid on Cadiz, led by the Earl of Essex and Lord Howard of Effingham in 1596, and the defeat and death of Federico Spínola, commanding the Spanish galleys.

Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange (1567-1625) was one of the greatest soldiers of his family. He contributed greatly to the victory of the Dutch in their war with Spain. At the end is printed the text of the 12-year truce concluded in 1609, which virtually assured Dutch independence.


36.

BLUNDEVILLE, THOMAS. His Exercises, containing eight Treatises. 8 leaves (the first blank), 799 pp. With 2 folding plates, 1 map of France, 1 folding table, 3 volvelles, all in woodcut, and numerous woodcut diagrams in the text (pointer of one volvelle lacking). Quarto. Contemporary brown polished calf, blind-stamped on sides and back.

London, William Stansby, 1613.

See illus. p. 101

A handbook of basic knowledge composed for a young gentleman who wished to instruct himself in what was then known as the "art," now the science of navigation, as it was practiced towards the end of the Elizabethan period.

Included in the section on globes are two chapters on the circumnavigations of Drake and Cavendish. They describe (p. 535) the routes taken by Drake in 1577-1580, and by Cavendish in 1586-1588, as marked on the terrestrial globe constructed by Emery Molyneux of London in 1592. The author relates the passage of both men through the Strait of Magellan. In mentioning Drake's stay on the Californian coast Blundeville specifically points out his trip north to the bay which he then named "Nova Albion."

The last section was revised and printed for this edition, the fourth; the others were written for the first edition of 1594.

STC 3149; Nederlandsch Historisch Scheepvaart Museum, Catalogus d. Bibliotheek , I, p. 15; David W. Waters, The Art of Navigation , pp. 212-215; Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the world (quoting Blundeville's account of Drake's voyage from the 1594 ed., pp. 310-313).


37.

CABRERA DE CORDOVA, LUIS. Filipe Segvndo Rey de España. Al Serenisimo Principe sv nieto esclarecido Don Filipe de Austria. 4 leaves, 1182 pp. (numbered 1-328, ff. 329*-331*, pp. 329-1176), 30 leaves. With fine engraved tide page showing Philip II in full armor as champion of the Faith, fighting against two armed opponents, in a landscape with the Escorial in the background (by Petret). With contemporary owner's manuscript inscriptions of the Lisbon Monastery of Saint Paul of Thebes, the first Eremite. Contemporary Spanish mottled calf, gilt back (rubbed).

Madrid, Luis Sánchez, 1619.

See illus. pp. 52, 98

This biography of Philip II of Spain includes two events from Sir Francis Drake's life which were of the greatest consequence for his fame and career. The earlier incident (Vol. I, Bk. viii, Ch. 10, p. 515) relates his defeat by a Spanish fleet at the port of Veracruz, San Juan de Ulúa, where the English ships had taken shelter during their 1568 voyage under the command of John Hawkins (Juan Aquinas). The English ships were victims of a surprise assault by Don Martin Enríquez, the new Viceroy of Mexico, who had arrived in the port on board of the Spanish treasure fleet. It caused great loss of life and destroyed all but two of the English ships. Drake never forgot this experience of Spanish treachery and it was then and there that he set his mind on revenge and engaged himself in a personal war with the Spanish empire and Philip II. Naturally, the incident is here told from the Spanish point of view, accusing Drake of the desertion of his commander Hawkins and of pocketing the trading profits as he slunk back in solitude to England.

The other Drake reference is to his circumnavigation of 1577-1580 (Vol. II, Bk. xii, Ch. 23, pp. 1071-1072) when he made the passage through the Strait of Magellan with the aim of exploring the South Sea. On his way up the west coast of America, he captured his richest prey ever, the treasure ship Nuestra Señora de la Concepción , also called the Cacafuego. The author also relates Drake's important achievement during that voyage, his negotiation of an agreement for English trade with the Spice Islands of the Moluccas on behalf of his Queen.

Palau 38917; Pérez Pastor 1586; Salva 1850; Heredia 7162; Wagner, Spanish South West , 25 (locating no copy in America). Not in Medina, Sabin, Church, or J. C. Brown catalogues.


38.

CARO DE TORRES, FRANCISCO. Relacion de los Servicios que hizo a Su Magestad del Rey Don Felipe Segundo y Tercero, don Alonso de Sotomayor...en las Provincias de Chile, y Tierrafirme, donde fue Capitan General. 10 leaves, 88 ff. With woodcut arms of Sotomayor on the title and verso of prelim. leaf (8). Small quarto. Contemporary vellum.

Madrid, viuda de Cosine Delgado, 1620.

See illus. pp. 172-173

The detailed narrative of the resistance to the raid on Spanish America made by Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, in 1595-1596, when Sotomayor was in charge of the land defenses around Panama. This portion of the narrative is on ff. 49-78, and is an important account of the affair from the Spanish point of view. The defense was so well conducted that the expedition was unsuccessful, and both Hawkins and Drake died during its course. The book includes also an account of Sotomayor's services in Chile, where he was military commander from 1581 to 1595.

The book is extant in two different editions, both with the same imprint and date. The bibliographer O. Rich first distinguished them, noting that in one edition, line 7 of preliminary leaf 2 recto reads "contra la armada Inglesa" (as in the present copy), and that the other reads at that place "cõtra la armada Inglesa." There are, in addition, a great many other typographical differences; the woodcut coat of arms is from different blocks in the two editions; and woodcut initial letters are entirely different. In some copies (including this one) a 2-leaf"Indice" occurs among the preliminary leaves; it is, however, not noted in Medina's detailed collation, and the leaves apparently were not issued with all copies. Unfortunately Medina considered that the "contra"--"cõtra" difference was simply a press correction or variant (Rich having noted only that one point of difference), and in this he was followed by Palau. As a result, it is impossible to tell whether a particular recorded copy is of one edition or the other. There is no known priority of the editions.

Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Chilena I, pp. 167-171, no. 48; Palau 44868; J. C. Brown II (1), 145; Sabin 10952.


39.

HOLLAND, HENRY. Herwologia Anglica, Hoc Est, Clarissimorum et Doctissimorum Aliquot Anglorum Qui Floruerunt ab Anno Cristi M. D. usq' ad Presentem Annum M. D. C. XX. Vivae Effigies. 10 leaves, 240 pp. With engraved title and 67 full-page portrait engravings by Willem and Magdalena van de Passe. Folio. Russia calf (hinges mended). From the collection of Sir Robert Naunton (1563-1635); manuscript ex libris "Sr. G. N." on title (= ? Gulielmus Naunton, Robert Naunton's brother and heir); engraved exlibris of George Rushout, Baron Northwick (1811-1887); and E. G. Spencer-Churchill. Arnhem, Crispin van de Passe and Janson, (1620).

See illus. pp. 45, 51, 138

FIRST EDITION of this splendid series of English portraits. The work is in two parts, the first containing eulogies and portraits of sailors, soldiers and statesmen; the second, of scholars and clerics. Among those included are Sir Francis Drake (p. 106), with a long biographical sketch giving an account of his expeditions (pp. 107-110); Sir John Hawkins (pp. 102-105) with an account of the disastrous expedition of 1567-1569; Martin Frobisher (pp. 95-100), Drake's Vice-Admiral in the West Indies raid of 1585-1586, and his associate in the Armada campaign; Christopher Carleil (pp. 93-96), commander of the infantry in the 1585-1586 raid. Other notables included, among them some of interest to Americanists, are Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Essex, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Richard Grenville. Among the scholars and divines are Drake's friend John Fox, William Tyndale, John Rainolds and John Caius.

The chief merit of this copy lies in the fact that it bears extensive additions and annotations in the handwriting of Sir Robert Naunton, in his youth an associate of Robert, Earl of Essex, and later Secretary of State to King James I. Naunton is best known for his Fragmenta Regalia , "a valuable account of the chief courtiers of Queen Elizabeth" (D. N. B.). Naunton's additions are as follows:

  1. P. 117. Earl of Essex portrait. Poem in Latin, 26 Lines of elegiac verse, plus several lines of headings. A note in English: "They made him a traitor by inference (?)" reflects Naunton's favorable view of his old patron.
  2. P. 123. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Naunton has written in Cecil's motto, "Sero, sed serios" and written two epigrams (6 and 2 lines) in Latin on Cecil.
  3. Pp. 140-141. Epitaph in English, 4 lines, by R. Naunton, on Anne Naunton; epitaph of 12 lines, in English, by A. N., in R. Naunton's hand; epitaph of 7 lines in Latin; quotations from Plato, Seneca, Cicero.
  4. P. 33. Quotation in Greek from St. Gregory Nazianzen, opposite portrait of Jane Gray.

Besides these, there are a number of notes of a few words' length, underlinings, etc., throughout the volume. The writing has been compared with a specimen supplied by the British Museum. Most of the writing in this volume is in an "Italian" cursive, while the specimen is in Elizabethan script; there is, however, enough Elizabethan in the volume ( e.g. the side notes on pp. 117, 165, 166) to establish that this is indeed R. Naunton's writing. Most of this material has been published in Memoirs of Robert Naunton , (London, 1814).

This copy has all the errors of pagination of the "A" variety listed by Hind (p. 148). It has one of the two added leaves, the Index, but not the added poem by I. Gruterus.

STC 13582; Hind, Engraving in England , II, 145-162.


40.

PURCHAS, SAMUEL. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas his Pilgrimes. Contayning a History of the World, in Sea voyages, & lande-Trauells, by Englishmen & others. With : the fourth edition of the Pilgrimage. Together 5 volumes. [ Vol. 1 ] [ Vol. 2 ] [ Vol. 3 ] [ Vol. 4 ] [ Vol. 5 ] Engraved title of volume I not present; double folio map of "China" present only once, in volume V (between pp. 436 and 437); blank space in place of the small map of "New Spaine" in volume II. With more than 70 maps, many of them folding and double folio, engraved for Purchas by Henricus Hondius, and numerous engraved plates in the text. Folio. Contemporary brown calf, gilt on sides and back, green leather labels (volume V, the Pilgrimage , wrongly numbered "6"). (By Hering).

London, William Stansby for Henry Fetherstone, 1625-1626.

See illus, pp. 102, 105

First edition of Purchas' famous Pilgrimes. Together with the fourth edition, ("the best") of the Pilgrimage , it forms a complete set and is "one of the fullest and most important collections of early voyages and travels in the English language" (Sabin). The Rev. Samuel Purchas was Richard Hakluyt's literary executor, and papers containing much material not used by Hakluyt came into his possession. His book is thus a continuation and enlargement of the Principall Navigations , with the addition of many more voyages and travels of English, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese explorers.

Volume I contains the first issue of pp. 703-706, and the uncancelled map "Designatio Orbis Christiani" (p. 65), instead of the map in two hemispheres usually substituted for it. The fourth edition of the Pilgrimage --volume V of this set--is here present in its first issue, differing from the Church copy. Captain John Smith's map of Virginia in volume IV has the page numbers 1692 and 1693 in the upper comers and is present in its fifth state, which is appropriate for this appearance.

The discoveries made in the American continent occupy much of volumes I and V, and most of volume IV.

The following narratives included by Purchas relate to Sir Francis Drake:

Volume I, Book 2, Chapter 3: "The Circum-Navigation of the Earth: Or the renowned Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, the first Generall which euer sayled about the whole Globe begun in the yeere of our Lord, 1577..." (this is very little changed from the account published by Richard Hakluyt); and volume IV, Book 6, Chapter 4, pp. 1179-1186: "A briefe Historie of Sir Francis Drake's Voyages." Book 10, Part 2 pertains to the wars between England and Spain and includes, in Chapter 12, "A Discourse of the Portugall Voyage, A. 1589, Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake Generalls, written (as is thought) by Colonell Antonie Wingfield..."

STC 20508-20509; Sabin 66683-66686; 66682; J. C. Brown, II, pp. 129-131; Church 401 A; Winsor III. p. 47.


41.

KURTZE, WARHAFFTIGE RELATION. ..der...vier Schiffarten...Ferdinandi Magellani...Francisci Draconis...Thomae Candisch...Olivarii von Noort...So alle vier umb den gantzen Erdtkreiss gesegelt. 3 leaves, 53, (1) pp. With title engraving, 9 folding maps, 6 full-page engravings, and an engr. coat of arms. Small quarto. Boards, vellum back.

Frankfurt, Hartmann Palthenius and Levinus Hulsius, 1626.

See illus. pp. 94, 95

A narrative of the four earliest circumnavigations of the world, forming part 6 of the Hulsius series of voyages; the present copy is of the third Hulsius edition. The narrative of Drake's circumnavigation is taken from Hakluyt. Engravings illustrating the Drake voyage show his capture of the Spanish treasure ship Cacafuego , and his visit to the Sultan of Ternate. Drake's portrait is in a roundel in the title engraving.

Church 284; Lenox Lib., Hulsius , p. 11; J. C. Brown I,(2), 458.


42.

(DRAKE, SIR FRANCIS, 1st baronet, ed.) The World Encompassed By Sir Francis Drake, Being his next voyage to that to Nombre de Dios formerly imprinted; Carefully collected out of the notes of Master Francis Fletcher Preacher in this imployment, and divers others. 2 leaves, 108 pp. With an engraved portrait of Drake, and a folded engraved map by Robert Vaughan. Small quarto. Red morocco, g.e., by W. Pratt.

See illus. pp. 38, 66, 83, 84, 89

First edition of the earliest detailed account of the famous voyage of circumnavigation to appear. Although Drake himself is known to have kept a journal of the voyage, which he presented to Queen Elizabeth, this is not now extant. It is certain that English policy was to suppress detailed information on the voyage, probably because of its questionable, semi-piratical nature.

Fletcher was not very friendly to Drake, perhaps because he had been quite severely disciplined (and even "excommunicated") by Drake while the Golden Hind was in the East Indies, and his account has been rather heavily "edited," probably by Drake's nephew, notably the passage concerning the execution of Thomas Doughty. Part of Fletcher's original version is still extant in a late 17th century copy. 1 This contains information available nowhere else, and interesting though crude, drawings. 2

The frontispiece portrait is known in two versions; one with the verses at the bottom in English; one with the verses in Latin. In the copy here described (as in the Church copy), the Latin verses are present. 3

The double hemisphere map of the world is also known in two states: with the reading "Fol. 61" in the upper left corner, and without it. The state without the numeral is evidently the later one, as the plate is much worn in those copies. The present copy has the state with the numeral, which is apparently the proper state for this volume, though the numeral does not refer to this volume's text. The map is also found in this state in Botero's Relation , 1630, though the numeral does not refer to that volume's text either. The map numeral therefore remains a mysterious factor. 4 With the book is correspondence with the British Museum and the John Carter Brown Library on this point.

STC 7161; Church 413; John Carter Brown II, (1), 214; Sabin 20853.

1. British Museum Sloane ms. 61. This, a transcript made by Joseph Conyers in 1677, contains only that part of the voyage as far as the island of Mocha, Chile. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the world , pp. 289-290, believes that in the 1620's Fletcher composed a book on the voyage which he hoped to publish, but was unable to find a publisher because of his extreme hostility to Drake. His manuscript was used, however, as the title of the present work indicates, as the basis for The World Encompassed of 1628, and later used by Conyers to make the copy of which only the first half survives. However, Fletcher must have based his own proposed book on a narrative he had written in time for it to be used by Richard Hakluyt in compiling his "Famous Voyage" account, but after the return to England of Thomas Cavendish, whose voyage the Conyers manuscript mentions.

2. Fletcher's manuscript, as far as it survives, has been printed much more satisfactorily in N. M. Penzer (ed.), The World Encompassed, and analogous contemporary documents ...(London, 1926), than anywhere else. His pictures--unique graphic records of the circumnavigation--are, however, all reproduced in Wagner, op. cit. , who discusses the correct status and complex relationships of Fletcher's work, pp. 286-293.

3. A. M. Hind, Engraving in England , III, p. 53, no. 16b.

4. Hind, III, p. 73.


43.

CAMDEN, WILLIAM. The Historie of the Life and Reigne of the most Renowned and Victorious Princesse Elizabeth, Late Queene of England. Composed by Way of Annals. 4 parts in 1 volume. With an engraved portrait, "Queen Elizabeth crowned by stars," by F. Delaram after Nicholas Hilliard. Folio. Contemporary brown calf. With engraved ex libris of William Brodie of Brodie.

London, Benjamin Fisher, 1630.

See illus. p. 44

The first edition of this translation by Robert Norton, from Camden's original Latin Annales. An English version had already appeared previously (1624-1629), but this was merely translated by Abraham Darcie at second hand from the French translation of Camden's original Latin of 1615. Camden had refused to publish his work in English during his lifetime, fearing carping criticism from the ignorant. This is, therefore, the earliest authoritative vernacular text. Camden's work is considered one of the best sources for the events of Elizabeth's reign. The Introduction covers the period of 1533-1558, from her birth to her accession, and the following four Books cover her long reign, from then to 1603.

The events of Drake's life are described in Book 2, pp. 110-115 (the circumnavigation); Book 3, pp. 60-62 (the 1585-1586 raid); pp. 112-123 (the Cadiz attack); pp. 128-144 (the Armada); Book 4, pp. 6-10 (Drake-Norris expedition) and finally, pp. 74-76 (Drake's last voyage).

Nicholas Hilliard (1537-1619), who made the portrait of Elizabeth, was the leading English artist of his day. The engraving is in the 4th state (appropriate for its appearance here), with the coat of arms of England.

STC 4500; Huntington Checklist p. 63.


44.

LE VOYAGE CURIEUX faict autour du Monde, Par François Drach, Admiral d'Angleterre. 4 leaves, 230 pp. With engraved printer's mark on the title. Small octavo. Contemporary mottled sheep. From the libraries of the Dukes of Holstein, and T. W. Streeter.

Paris, Antoine Robinot, 1641.

See illus. p. 81

The translation into French by F. de Louvencourt, Sieur de Vauchelles, of the narrative of Drake's voyage round the world, 1577-1580, as printed by Hakluyt in a supplement to his Principall Navigations , 1589. The work has been ascribed to one Francis Pretty, but H. R. Wagner has convincingly demonstrated that it was in fact compiled, probably by Hakluyt, from several briefer eyewitness accounts, one being Francis Fletcher's original narrative. 1 It is not by Drake, and in fact several of the sources were quite hostile to him, though almost all of their disparaging comments were edited out by Hakluyt. There was apparently an embargo on the publication of exact information about the voyage for many years, 2 and in the introduction to the 1589 volume Hakluyt specifically stated that he was excluding any narrative of it. After the bulk of his book was printed, however, the present narrative, termed the "Famous Voyage" from its caption title, was printed on 12 folio pages and inserted into some of the copies of the 1589 Hakluyt. 3 It is here present on pp. 1-82. Pp. 83-230 are occupied by a compilation of geographical information about Africa, the Near and Far East, and the East Indies. Though it is in the form of a narrative by Drake, it is "so far as Drake is concerned...pure fiction." 4

The present edition is the third in French. It was first published in 1613, a second edition in 1627. 5

Sabin 20846; J. C. Brown II, (2), 292 (copy with added portrait and map).

1. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the world , p. 238; cf. [42] in this Collection.

2. E. G. R. Taylor, "Francis Drake and the Pacific," in: Pacific Historical Review , I (1932), p. 360.

3. Cf. [27] in this Collection.

4. Wagner, pp. 239-240.

5. Brunet, II, 831; Sabin 20844.


45.

(CROUCH, NATHANIEL). --"R.[ICHARD] B. [URTON]," pseud. The English Hero: or, Sir Francis Drake Reviv'd. 2 leaves, 174 pp., 1 leaf. A few headlines and catchwords trimmed. With engraved frontispiece portrait and 3 woodcuts (one a repeat). 12mo. Half green Morocco.

London, Nathaniel Crouch, 1695.

See illus. p. 61

A biography of Drake in chap-book form. It is called "The fourth edition" on the title (the first having appeared in 1687), but Wing does not record any second or third edition, and they presumably are not extant. The work was very popular, and was reprinted frequently, until as late as 1762. Like all such chap-book publications, copies are seldom found; Wing locates only one copy of the 1687 edition, and three of the present edition (BM, LC, and J. C. Brown).

The work is based upon the Sir Francis Drake Revived of 1653, with additional material; it describes the voyage of 1572-1573; the circumnavigation of 1577-1580; Drake's service against the Armada in 1588; the Drake-Norris expedition against Spain and Portugal in 1589; and the final voyage of 1595-1596.

Wing C 7322; Sabin 9500 (note).

III. MAPS AND VIEWS


46.

SAN JUAN DE ULúA. View and ground plan of this fortress, by Cristóbal de Eraso, in ink, with some water coloring. On vellum. Upper corners damp marked, with very slight marking of the drawing; mounted on cloth. Folio (515 x 715 mm.). From the collection of George Legge, Baron Dartmouth (1648-1691).

San Juan de Ulúa (Vera Cruz) Mexico, c. 1570.

See illus. p. 56

The earliest known view and plan of this key fortress in Spanish America; apparently this and the following item are also the earliest extant American military architectural drawings. Located near where Cortes landed in 1519 on his conquest of the Aztec empire, San Juan de Ulúa was, just before the date of this piece, the scene of the hard-fought battle between an English flotilla commanded by John Hawkins, under whom Francis Drake was serving, and the Spanish fleet under the supervision of Don Martin Enríquez, Viceroy of Mexico. San Juan-Vera Cruz was the emporium for trade and communication, and all shipments of treasure between Mexico and Spain were made exclusively through this port.

In 1570, the fortress consisted of a tower, with embrasures for artillery and a gun-platform on the top, and a stone wall 300 feet in length along the shore. Ships were moored to the wall by means of hawsers passed through the large iron rings shown here and in later drawings, with one end anchored out in the channel. Shown on the view are the proposed additions: a 138-foot extension of the wall and a large tower with two gun platforms. These additions greatly enhanced the strength of the fortress, and undoubtedly were planned following the difficulties earned by Hawkins and Drake on their stop at the port in 1568.

On October 2, 1567, Hawkins sailed from England with his fleet of two warships and eight smaller vessels, one of which, the Judith , was commanded by Drake. Hawkins went to the African coasts, where he raided and traded for slaves, then set sail for the West Indies, to sell there the slaves and other merchandise he had brought along. The unseaworthy state of several of his ships obliged him to put into San Juan de Ulúa on September 15, 1568, which he reached just two days before the arrival of the annual convoy from Spain, with which the new Viceroy Enríquez was traveling. All of Hawkins' ships, and part of the Spanish fleet, were moored side by side with their bows to the sea-wall and fort depicted here. A few days later, the Spaniards broke the truce Hawkins had concluded with the Viceroy and attacked the English, who were driven from the bay with the loss of most of the men and ships. Only one of the warships, commanded by Hawkins himself, and Drake's small vessel survived the action and reached home again. 1

This plan has been intensively studied by Sr. Juan Manuel Zapatero of Madrid, who has identified it, and has prepared an article showing the development of the San Juan de Ulúa fortifications throughout the 16th century. He has established that this is the plan prepared by Don Cristóbal de Eraso in 1570, previously known from references in historical literature, but which had disappeared. 2 Papers relating to Don Cristóbal's proposed extension of the fortifications are extant in the Archivo de Indias, Seville. 3 The present piece, which certainly was drawn before Eraso's proposed additions were actually built, is the earliest extant view or plan of San Juan de Ulúa ; the fortifications as projected here were completed by 1584 or earlier, and the earliest view hitherto known, by Battista Antonelli, dated January, 1590, shows them as completed. 4 It is hardly necessary to stress the very great rarity and very great importance of any original graphic material relating to America in the 16th century.

The importance of this fortress throughout American history is well known. To the end of the colonial era in Mexico it remained the main east coast port of entry. In the 19th and 20th centuries it again was the focus of invasion and battle, being attacked by French forces in 1838 and 1861, and by U.S. forces in 1847 and 1914. In the biography of Drake, the San Juan de Ulúa fight is most important, as in his later raids on Spain and Spanish America he always cited this attack by the Spaniards as his justification.

The lengthy historical study of this view-plan by Sr. Zapatero is available.

1. Rayner Unwin, The Defeat of John Hawkins , (1960) gives an account of the fighting at San Juan de Ulúa in 1568.

2. J. A. Calderón Quijano, Historia de las fortificaciones en Nueva España (Seville, 1953), pp. 10-11.

3. Audiencia de Méjico, 257.

4. Diego Angulo Iñíguez, Bautista Antonelli (Madrid, 1942), pp. 38-41; Calderón Quijano, pp. 11-12, 249-250.

5. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the world , pp. 10, 366.


47.

SAN JUAN DE ULúA. Ground plan of a projected fortress, by Cristóbal de Eraso, in black ink, with a part in yellow water color. On vellum. Mounted on cloth. Folio (710 x 645 mm.).

From the collection of George Legge, Baron Dartmouth (1648--1691).

(Mexico, c. 1570)

See illus. p. 57

This view of the celebrated harbor fortress at Vera Cruz, Mexico, is among the earliest drawings of an American fortification extant, although it represents a project never carried out in this exact form. It displays a more developed and larger project than the one which was actually constructed by 1570, and it probably was an alternative plan to be used if funds for such a larger structure should become available.

The portion of the plan (part of a tower, and one wall) in yellow coloring display the San Juan fortification as it was at the time of the battle between the Spaniards and John Hawkins in 1568 (Drake then being a subordinate of Hawkins). As projected in 1570, the 300-feet sea wall and mooring was extended by 138 feet and a tower was added at the end of this extension.

In the present plan, the 300-foot wall is adapted as a one side of a rectangular fortress with towers at each corner, with storage rooms incorporated into the walls, and with four blocks of houses in the enclosed space.

There are about a dozen inscriptions on the map referring to its various dimensions and other specifications. One of these refers to the dock ("muelle") which extended along the waterfront; two inscriptions refer to "Sr. don Cristobal" (de Eraso) in connection with various alternative construction details; these dearly clearly refer to the Royal engineer who is known to have worked at Vera Cruz, and who was later on several occasions the general commanding the annual transatlantic treasure fleet.

Sr. Juan Manuel de Zapatero has made an extensive study of this plan, demonstrating how it fits in with the earlier and later fortification works at San Juan. A fortress on this general plan (though much different in detail) was in fact built in 1712, a drawing of which is in the Archivo General de Indias, Seville (Méjico 563).

A copy of Sr. Zapatero's study is available for consultation. See Rayner Unwin, The Defeat of John Hawkins , (1960), which gives an account of the Hawkins-Drake battle and of the situation and fortifications of San Juan in 1568.


48.

SYPE, NICOLA VAN. La Herdike (sic, for Heroique) Enterprinse Faict par le Signeur Draeck D'Avoir Cirquit Toute la Terre. Engraved map, with two inset views; two inset panels with text; oval portrait of Drake. 235 x 440 mm. (engraved surface); 402 x 500 mm. (paper). In a cloth case. The T. W. Streeter copy.

(Antwerp?, c. 1581).

See illus. p. 103

According to Mr. F. P. Sprent, late Superintendent of the Map Room of the British Museum, "There is good reason for believing this to be the earliest of the maps which show Drake's route round the world ...The fact that Drake's route is shown, but not that of Cavendish (who sailed round the world in 1586-8) suggests that the latter voyage had not yet been made; maps after 1588 almost invariably show both routes...The portrait, the watermark, and the absence of any allusion to the voyage of Cavendish supply evidence which points to a date not later than c. 1585, but there is reason to think that the actual date is even earlier than this...During the winter of 1580-1581, immediately after Drake's return from his voyage, the seaports of Western Europe were no doubt full of talk of his exploits and discoveries. There seems every reason to think that in such a town as Antwerp, with its big seafaring and trading population, the production of such a map as this may well have been hurried, in order to catch the popular taste while Drake's voyage was still the topic of the hour." 1

What Mr. Sprent did not notice was that this map, of all the early maps known concerning the Drake circumnavigation, is the very closest to the great Whitehall map (no longer extant). According to Samuel Purchas, who was writing towards the end of the reign of James I, this was "presented to Queen Elizabeth, [and is] still hanging in His Majestie's Gallerie at White Hall." 2 The points of resemblance are as follows:

  1. An inscription quoted in full by Purchas from the Whitehall map, beginning "Cum omnes fere hanc partem Australem..." is here present in French translation: "Combien que l'on pense que la pattie meridionale...".
  2. Purchas states that "The name Elizabeth [at Elizabeth Island, south of Tierra del Fuego] is expressed in golden letters, with a golden Crowne, Garter, and Armes affixed." In the present map, the crown, garter and arms are at the designated spot; they are also found placed at Nova Albion (Upper California, explored by Drake). Both of these places were claimed for England by Drake. 3 An examination of the early maps of the Drake circumnavigation reproduced by Wagner 4 shows that of all of them this is the only one which bears the crown, garter, and arms, as described by Purchas, in that particular spot.

There is one other early map of the Drake circumnavigation which closely resembles the van Sype map. It has a tide in French reading much the same as the van Sype title, but the text in the panels and the legends on the map are in a mixture of Dutch and French. Mr. Sprent considered that the Dutch-text version 5 might be even a little earlier than the van Sype map, but the contrary is in fact proven by the fact that the Dutch-text map has neither the crown, garter and arms, nor the text on Greenland, nor the so-called "boundary lines." As all of these were features of the Whitehall map, it is therefore clear that the Dutch-text map is copied from the van Sype map, with some of the latter's features omitted. This order is all the clearer when one notes the evidence of breathless haste in van Sype's map. In brief, the three maps are related as follows: (1) the manuscript Whitehall map = the original exemplar; (2) the van Sype map, engraved after the Whitehall map; (3) the Dutch-text map, engraved after the van Sype map, and corrected.

In comparing the present map with several others which are known or believed also to be copies of the Whitehall map, we find elucidations of some of the puzzling features of the present map. Foremost among these other maps is a manuscript one in the Mellon collection. 6 This has the Magellanica inscription exactly as quoted by Purchas, but without the crown, arms and garter "affixed" to it. In its place, and also on California and Virginia, are English flags. By comparison with the Mellon map, we see that the inscription on Greenland on the van Sype map is a badly translated French version of the inscription which must have been on California (its logical position) in the Whitehall map. We also see that the much debated "boundary lines" of the van Sype map, extending across America, and supposed to indicate an English claim to most of North America, are apparently a misunderstood garbling of the boundary line of New Spain in the Whitehall map, which had a broad tinted border; this was interpreted by van Sype, or the person who sketched the Whitehall map for him, as an indication of a distinct territory or territorial claim. 7

A most illuminating difference between the two maps is the fact that on the van Sype map there is no name or inscription relating to Virginia. That name on the Mellon map securely dates it to 1584 or later, since only then was the land so named. 8 This would surely indicate that, at least at first, the Whitehall map bore no such name or inscription. "Virginia" was either inserted later, or the name and inscription were an addition to the Mellon copy. This argument also tends to establish a pre-1584 date for the van Sype map. An even later date for the Mellon map is postulated by the presence on it of the track of the Drake 1585-1586 voyage to the West Indies.

A unique feature of this map by van Sype is the statement that it is a "Carte veuee et corige par le dict seigneur Drack" (trans.: "A map seen and corrected by the said Sir Drake"). This would seem to be meaningless so far as the engraving itself is concerned, which certainly bears no indication of having been made in England, but insofar as van Sype's map appears to be the closest extant copy of the Whitehall map, the statement is indeed literally true. Purchas did not state who had "presented [the map] to Queen Elizabeth," but the logical donor certainly would have been Drake himself; even if he were not, he surely would have been consulted about it.

Henry R. Wagner, in his study of the maps of the Drake circumnavigation remarks that of the 6 or 7 copies known of the van Sype map, all except one (BM) known to him were folded up and bound into the 1627 or 1641 editions of Drake's voyage, translated into French from the Hakluyt narrative (termed by Wagner the "Famous Voyage"). 9 This has led him into the error, as we see it, of concluding that the van Sype map was necessarily published only in 1627, or even as late as 1641. Mr. Sprent considered Wagner's dating and categorically rejected it, even though he was no more aware than Wagner of the closeness of the map's derivation from the Whitehall wall-map, as shown by the facts set out above. As Mr. Sprent pointed out, the ludicrous mistakes in French spelling and grammar rule out the van Sype map as the work of a Frenchman, or as a French product--quite the reverse of Wagner's argument. Furthermore, a number of copies of Le Voyage Curieux exist without the van Sype map; and the statement on the map (inscription in the cartouche at the upper left) that Drake returned to Plymouth on September 26, 1580, directly contradicts the erroneous date of November 3 given in the text of the book. 10 Wagner himself noted the work's enlargement with a geographical disquisition which "so far as Drake is concerned...is pure fiction," but does not draw the obvious conclusion that the French work was a publisher's compilation. 11 His evidence of association hence seems to us to be quite valueless in determining the origin of the map.

Two other indications of an early date of origin for this map may here be mentioned. Drake is shown in a small head and neck portrait set in an oval frame, with his age specifically given as 42. It is difficult to date the portrait conclusively in absolute terms, but it must have a relatively early origin, since the majority of the various engraved portraits of Drake give his age as 43: a map published after these began to appear would hardly have gone to this trouble to demonstrate that it was not up to date. A portrait miniature said to be by Nicholas Hilliard from which van Sype could have derived his version does exist: this is inscribed as showing Drake aged 42. 12 Besides this--the one now owned by the Earl of Derby--there is another in Vienna, and an oil-painting produced to the request of the Archduke Ferdinand of the Tyrol, probably at the time of Drake's great celebrity after his return, and stating his age as 42 years. The other indication is not conclusive, but as the majority of maps produced after 1585 take the trouble to include "Virginia," its omission here is suggestive.

Two engravers of the name van Sype are recorded: Georg Johann and Lorenz van Sype, but not Nicola. 13 Thus the fact that they were working in Germany during the second quarter of the seventeenth century indicates only that a contemporary family of that name was established as engravers. The paper on which the map is printed bears the Nivelle watermark, as does the British Museum copy: a great deal of paper of Nivelle manufacture was used at Antwerp during the last two decades of the sixteenth century. The significance of this watermark was also debated by Wagner--with the late Edward Heawood, Wagner arguing that the large size of the device ruled out a sixteenth-century origin for the paper. However, Heawood's view seems preferable, especially as his posthumous catalogue shows that, if anything, Nivelle watermarks were smaller rather than larger in the seventeenth century. 14

In brief, we may conclude that the map of the circumnavigation by Nicola van Sype is (a) the earliest extant copy of the Whitehall map probably produced in Drake's lifetime, and was engraved directly from a sketch of it, and is (b) truthful in claiming that it was seen and corrected by Drake, insofar as it reproduces the Whitehall map. We are sure that this is not an insignificant claim. The whole subject of the maps of the Drake voyage around the world is in urgent need of a new and exhaustive study: it seems certain that in such a study the present map will be recognized as one of the basic documents of the second circumnavigation of the earth.

1. British Museum, Sir Francis Drake's voyage round the world: two contemporary maps , with notes by F. B. Sprent (revised ed., London, 1931).

2. Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus (20 vols., Glasgow, 1905-7), XIII, pp. 3-4. The map must have perished in the Whitehall fires of 1694 and 1697, if indeed it lasted as long as that: it has been suggested that it disappeared from the Palace at the time of the Civil War or Interregnum (1641-1660): cf. R. A. Skelton, "The royal map collections of England," in: Imago Mundi , XIII (1956), pp. 181-183.

3. "The Famous Voyage," in Hakluyt, Principall Navigations (1589), insert between pp. 643 and 644, sigs. [Mmm 7 v -Mmm 8]. The question of the claim to land around the Strait seems more complex: John Winter told Purchas that Drake had claimed islands in the Strait, while Drake himself told Richard Hawkins he had claimed an island outside it, at furthest south. Francis Fletcher seems to attribute this latter act to himself: Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus , (1905-7), XVI, p. 136; Sir Richard Hawkins, Observations ...(1622), in: Sir Clements Markham (ed.), The Hawkins Voyages , p. 224; N. M. Penzer (ed.), The World Encompassed, and analogous contemporary documents ..., pp. 131-132. Cf. Henry R. Wagner, "Creation of rights of sovereignty through symbolic acts," in: Pacific Historical Review , VII (1938).

4. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the world , pp. 405-437.

5. Reproduced in two versions: ibid. , p. 425.

6. Information kindly supplied by Mr. Paul Mellon.

7. Cf. Zelia Nuttall (ed.), New Light on Drake (Hakluyt Society, London, 1914), pp. lv-lvi. Mrs. Nuttall, who did not know of the Mellon map, considers that the boundary lines were placed on the van Sype map by Drake to indicate that he foresaw extensive English colonization in North America and to lay down the direction it should take; this is to bolster her theory that Drake intended from the beginning to establish a permanent colony in California and found the United States. In a note accompanying this copy, Mr. Lawrence Wroth of the John Carter Brown Library expresses the opinion that it is a "trial proof," showing features like the lines across America appropriate to this state: he points out certain small letter-like marks, in the lower margin of the example Wagner reproduced, in support of this.

8. D. B. Quinn (ed.), The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590 (2 vols., Hakluyt Society, London, 1955), I, pp. 120, 147.

9. Wagner, op. cit. , pp. 430-431, 434.

10. In the 1641 edition [see No. 44] the wrong date appears at pp. 81-82. Cf. Wagner, op. cit. , pp. 192-193.

11. Wagner, op. cit. , pp. 239-240.

12. A. M. Hind, Engraving in England , I, p. 159.

13. Thieme-Becker, XXXII, p. 364.

14. Edward Heawood, "The use of watermarks in dating old maps and documents," in: Geographical Journal , LXIII (1924), pp. 391-412; Wagner, op. cit. , pp. 431-432.


49.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA.--BOAZIO, BAPTISTA, AND JOHN WHITE. Opidum [sic] S. Augustini. Engraved view-plan, depicting Sir Francis Drake's attack upon the city, May 28-29, 1586; with engraving, lower left, of the Dorado fish after the design of John White. With hand coloring. Folio (418 x 545 mm.). In a cloth case.

London, 1589.

See illus. p. 123

One of the most important geographical engravings in American history. It is, first, the earliest engraving of any city or territory now part of the United States; and it includes one of the famous natural history subjects drawn by John White, Governor of the first Anglo-American settlement in America, in the Hatteras region then called Virginia (now in North Carolina). The Drake raid to the West Indies of 1585-1586 picked up the Virginia settlers and returned them to Europe. It was undoubtedly in the course of this return voyage that the author of this view-plan was able to copy the figure of the Dorado fish from White's original drawing. This original is still extant, in the British Museum. 1

The engraving shows the Drake fleet at anchor off Matanzas River; a body of troops landing on Anastasia Island and bombarding Fort San Juan de Pinos (later Ft. San Marcos) across the river; another body of troops landing at the residential part of the settlement south of the Fort. The text printed in a cartouche to the left informs us that the homes were built of wood, and were situated among pleasant gardens (which are shown); that the garrison was of 150 men, with as many more at Fort St. Helen (Jacksonville) 36 miles to the north; and that these garrisons were placed there, not because the Spaniards wanted the territory, but so that they, like dogs in a manger, could keep out the English and French. Needless to say, this is a document of the first importance in American history, though it was in itself an incident of little importance in Drake's career.

The engraving is one of a series of four, the other three being of Santiago (Canary Islands), Santo Domingo, and Cartagena. They are extant both in this larger size, which undoubtedly was produced in England, and also in a smaller (and somewhat better engraved) folio version--no priority is known. 2 Baptista Boazio is stated to be the author of the view-plans in one issue of the Bigges narrative of Drake's raid; he was active in England c. 1586-1603. 3 The engraver is not known.

The engraving is within a narrow decorative border; a good margin is preserved at the bottom, but on the right, left and top this border is shaved in some places. There is also a very small piece chipped off at the upper left.

Church, Catalogue of Americana , nos. 134A, 136, 138; see also David W. Waters' edition of Thomas Greepe, True and Perfecte Newes of ... Syr Frauncis Drake (H. C. Taylor, Americanum Nauticum no. 3), pp. 53-72. There is no satisfactory account so far of the Bigges narrative of the Drake raid and its accompanying engravings.

1. Paul Hulton and D. B. Quinn, The American drawings of John White (2 vols., London, 1964), no. 26, and reproduction, II, p. 33.

2. Cf. [20] in this Collection.

3. Edward Lynam, "English maps and map-makers of the sixteenth century," in: Geographical Journal , CXVI (1950), pp. 25-28.


50.

(LA CORUñA--EL FERROL, SPAIN). [ 50a. ] [ 50b. ] Manuscript double chart, in pen and water colors, on vellum, depicting (right) the harbors of La Coruña and El Ferrol, and (left) the harbor of Santander. Oblong folio (516 x 716 mm.) Cloth backed. From the collection of George Legge, Baron Dartmouth.

(England, c. 1589).

With:

--, Manuscript double chart, in ink outline, on a paper bifolium, depicting (leaf 1 recto) La Coruña and El Ferrol, and (left verso--2 recto), Santander, 412 x 262 mm., and 412 x 524 mm. Cloth backed on verso of leaf 2. From the collection of George Legge, Baron Dartmouth.

(England, c. 1589).

See illus. pp. 165-167

These two double charts are closely related, as the legends on them are so similar in wording that the derivation of one from the other is indicated (probably the paper from the vellum--less likely the reverse) or derivation from a common source. For instance, the inscriptions on the scale of the La Coruña-El Ferrol charts read as follows: (vellum) "This Scale Containeth. 4. Leagus in Length Every Broad space Being an English Myle Itt Hyes in the Groine [La Coruña] in Spring Tydes. 12 Foot water"; (paper) "Not[e that this scale for the grooine [La Coruña.] is 4 Leges in lengthe as there is betwene evere rundle, an mile & betwene evere pricke, a quarter of a mile, it hyes at the grooine in spring tide. 12. foote water."

The date, localities depicted, and provenance of these charts make it very probable that they were prepared for use in the Drake-Norris expedition of 1589. It is well known that the 44 surviving warships of the 1587 Invincible Armada which reached Spain (of the 68 which had entered the Channel) almost all entered ports on the north coast of Spain. The Duke of Medina Sidonia himself reached Santander in the flagship San Martín de Portugal on September 23. 1 One of the objects of the Drake-Norris expedition was, according to their official orders, to "carefully enquire in your way towards the coast of Spain what ships there are of importance in any of the ports either of Guipúscoa or Biscay or Galicia; which our pleasure is you shall do your best endeavour either to take or destroy." 2 As Santander was the chief port of the province of Guipúscoa, and La Coruña-El Ferrol was the chief port of the province of Galicia, the maps very evidently depict places which were intended to be attacked. Drake and Norris did not attack Santander--which port held far more of the Armada's ships--though they were successful at La Corufia--and for this omission they were roundly berated by Queen Elizabeth. 3 The paper map bears the name (evidently the signature) of one James Bere, at the end of a note concerning the tides of Santander; Bere evidently was the cartographer.

The provenance of these pieces from the Baron Dartmouth papers is also significant. Dartmouth was Master of the Ordnance to King James II, and, as such, in charge of the British military map files. His map collection consisted largely of materials removed from the ordnance files. 4

1. Cesáreo Fernádez Duro, La Armada Invencible , II, pp. 296-300.

2. Quoted in E. M. Tenison, Elizabethan England (13 vols., Leamington Spa, 1933-1961), VIII, p. 19.

3. Tenison, VIII, pp, 117-120.

4. R. A. Skelton, "The royal map collections of England," in: Imago Mundi , XIII (1956), pp. 181-183.

ADDENDUM to p. 215: Catalogue [50].

The James Bere whose signature attests the authorship of the manuscript map on paper in the pair of charts of La Coruña-El Ferrol and Santander can be identified as an eminent draughtsman and mariner in accounts printed by Hakluyt. A James Beare (with surname spelt thus) is mentioned as taking part in the voyages of Sir Martin Frobisher (1535?- 1594) of 1577 and 1578 to the northern parts of America for the discovery of a way to Cathay (China). In 1577 Beare sailed as Master of the Michael , Frobisher's smallest ship, in his search for the North West Passage, and in Frobisher's next expedition, a year later, he held the same command in the larger ship Anne Francis. It was said of him in 1578 that he "was known to be a sufficient and skilful Mariner, and having bene there the yere before, had wel observed the place, and drawen out Cardes of the coast." 5 This mention of "James Beare" as Frobisher's cartographer makes it highly likely that he was also the "James Bere" who signed the La Coruña-El Ferrol and Santander chart: among other connections, he had that of Frobisher's service trader Drake in the West Indies in 1585-1586 and against the Armada in 1588.

James Beare is mentioned also as the Master of the ship Judith which is listed in a document of about 1584 as piratically captured by the celebrated Romadan Pasha, Beylerbey of Algiers, in contravention of the firman that Sultan Murad III granted to English merchants of the Levant Company in 1580. 6 The Judith's crew and men of several other English ships were almost certainly released through the energetic intervention of William Harborne, ambassador to the Sublime Porte, but opinions seem to differ on how quickly this was accomplished, and it is not known exactly when Beare returned to England. 7 The Judith which Beare commanded was very probably the ship of the same name which had sailed under the command of Edward Fenton as "Lieutenant generall" in Frobisher's 1578 expedition, but it is unlikely that she was the ship in which Drake had escaped from the disastrous affray at San Juan de Ulúa while with John Hawkins in "the unfortunate voyage" of 1567-1569. 8 The Judith present at San Juan de Ulúa was, like all the other English ships there save the Queen's Jesus of Lubeck , owned by the Hawkins family, which still possessed her at Plymouth in 1570. 9 The Judith captured by the Algerians is described as "of London" and, if she is the same as the one commanded by Fenton in 1578, was then bought by Frobisher's syndicate from William Borough, a shareholder in the expedition and later Drake's Vice-Admiral at Cadiz in 1587--but was evidently largely unpaid for. Borough's letter on this occasion strengthens the identification with Beare's ship, for he values the Judith he sold to Frobisher at £320, while 3100 florins (£310) is given as the valuation of the Judith captured from Beare. 10

Little is known of Beare's experience in cartography save what George Best recorded in his contemporary True Discourse of Frobisher's 1578 voyage. It should, nonetheless, be noted that the two maps that Best printed in it from woodcuts came from originals which have been ascribed to Beare. 11 In 1578 Best was Beare's direct superior as Captain of the Anne Francis: in his account of the voyage he gives a vivid report of how on 11 August he himself, "taking the Master of his Shippe with him, went up to the toppe of Hattons Hedland, which is the highest land of all the streights, to the ende to descry the situation of the Country underneath, and to take a true plotte of the place; whereby also to see what store of Yce was yet left in the streights...." 12 Of his later life little can be said other than that he was probably the James Beare who, when he died possessed of a substantial estate in 1608, was described as "citizen and inholder of London," of the parish of All Hallows, Lombard Street. 13 As far as can be established at the moment, the present chart of La Coruña-El Ferrol and Santander is the only manuscript by Bere still in existence.

5. Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (1598-1600) [30], III, pp. 61, 80; (1903-1905), VII, pp. 285, 334.

6. Id. (1598-1600), II, ii, p. 180; (1903-1905), V, p. 281. Cf. Maximilian Epstein, The Early History of the Levant Company (London, 1908), pp. 15-23.

7. E. P. Cheyney, A History of England from the defeat of the Armada to the death of Queen Elizabeth , I, p. 383; H. G. Rawlinson, "The Embassy of William Harborne to Constantinople," in: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Fourth Series, V, pp. 1-27.

8. Hakluyt, loc. cit. ; cf. p. 51, above.

9. James A. Williamson, Sir John Hawkins: the time and the man , pp. 132, 288-289.

10. Hakluyt, loc. cit. ; Borough to Sir Francis Walsingham, January 14, 1578/9 (State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, Vol. CXXIX, no. II), printed in: Rear-Admiral Richard Collinson (ed.), The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher ... A.D. 1576-8 ...(Hakluyt Society First Series no. 38, London, 1867), pp. 329-330.

11. By J. G. Kohl, A Descriptive Catalogue of those Maps, Charts and Surveys relating to America ... mentioned ... in Vol. III of Hakluyt ...(Washington, D.C., 1857), pp. 17-20; reproduced in: Hakluyt (1903-1905), Vol. VII, opposite pp. 256, 336, and in: R. A. Skelton, Explorers' Maps , as Figures 63 and 75. Cf. id. , pp. 115, 119, 133.

12. Hakluyt (1598-1600), III, p. 89; (1903-1905). VII, p. 357. One of the expedition's rendezvous in what is now the Hudson Strait was named Beare's Sound after the cartographer: cf. G. B. Manhart, "The English Search for a North West Passage in the time of Queen Elizabeth," pp. 50, 70, in: Studies in English Commerce and Exploration in the reign of Elizabeth (Philadelphia, 1924).

13. Index of Wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury ... V, 1605-19 (British Record Society, The Index Library, Vol. XLIII, London, 1912), p. 49.


51.

ADAMS, ROBERT. Expeditionis Hispanorum in Angliam vera descriptio Anno Do: MDLXXXVIII. Series of 8 engraved plates (of 12), engraved by Augustine Ryther after the designs of Robert Adams. With contemporary, probably original, coloring. Each engraving c. 375 x 500 mm. Matted. In a cloth case.

(London, Augustine Ryther, c. 1590).

See illus. pp. 146, 148

Original edition of the great series of engravings depicting the defeat of the Spanish Armada. They are an important primary source for the history of this campaign. Michael Lewis says of them, "The best contemporary evidence [of the Armada's sailing order] comes from the set of charts drawn by the artist Adams and engraved in 1590. These doubtless transcribe faithfully enough the information which [Lord] Howard [of Effingham] and others gave the draughtsman. They show the Armada in the form of a quarter moon, its convex curve pointing up-Channel, its horns trailing west." 1 Garrett Mattingly remarks that "his [Adams'] eleven charts are unusually accurate for the period during which the English and Spanish fleets were in contact." 2 A. M. Hind calls them the "greatest achievement" of Ryther as an engraver. 3

SUBJECTS OF THE ENGRAVINGS

Title, with legend as above, within a very ornate decorative border, arms of England above, arms of the Grocer's Company of London below.
  1. The Spanish fleet off Lizard Point. July 19-20, 1588. This copy is of the second state with added lettering (see Hind). A few ink spots, all except one in the dotted sea background.
  2. The battle off plymouth, showing two stages of the action. July 21.
  3. The battle off Start Point, showing the capture by Drake of Nuestra Señora del Rosario , flagship of the Andalusian division. July 22.
  4. The battle off Portland Bill, showing the capture by Thomas Howard and John Hawkins of the San Salvador , vice-flagship of the Guipúscoan division. July 13.
  5. The battle off Beachy Head; the Spanish fleet at anchor off Calais. July 27.
  6. The fire-ship attack on the Armada at the Calais anchorage. Night of July 28-29.
  7. The final battle with the Armada, off Gravelines, showing the English attack on the San Lorenzo , flagship of the galleass division, and the sinking galleons San Felipe, San Mateo, Maria Juan , and one other. July 29.

The engravings not present depict phases of the battles in the Channel (2, 6, 7) and a general map of the course of the Armada around England.

CONDITION OF THE ENGRAVINGS

Apart from the ink spots on no. 1, noted above, the engravings are in fine condition throughout, with margins extending beyond all printed surfaces. The coloring is contemporary and in pristine condition. That the engravings were issued with coloring may be inferred from the fact that both the BM copies are also colored (see below).

The watermark on all the present impressions is reproduced in Heawood, Watermarks , who notes its occurrence on an undated map by Jan van Deutecum (fl. 1586-d. 1601). 4 English printers bought much Dutch paper in this period. Hind notes crossed arrows, grapes, and arms of Strassburg watermarks on sets of these engravings he has examined, so it is evident that a variety of paper was used. 5

RECORDED SETS OF THE ARMADA ENGRAVINGS

Only a few sets of the engravings are extant. 6 Those recorded are:

  1. British Museum, set 1. Complete. Colored.
  2. BM, set 2. Complete. Title uncolored, engravings colored.
  3. Royal Geographical Society, set 1. Incomplete (8 of 12 present). Uncolored, a poor set.
  4. RGS, set 2. Incomplete (8 of 12 present). Uncolored.
  5. Pepys Library, Magdalen College, Cambridge. Complete. Uncolored.
  6. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Complete. Uncolored.
  7. Mellon Collection.

The engravings were intended to accompany Petruccio Ubaldini's Discourse concerninge the Spanish fleete , 1590, 7 but the Short Title Catalogue notes that the engravings were issued separately (STC 24481a--no copy located in STC Bishop-Ramage).

1. Michael Lewis, The Spanish Armada (London, 1960), p. 105, and cf. p. 128.

2. Garrett Mattingly, The Armada (Boston, 1959), p. xiv.

3. A.M. Hind, Engraving in England , I, p. 138.

4. Edward Heawood, Watermarks, mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries (Hilversum, 1950), no. 1247.

5. Hind, I, pp. 145-146.

6. Hind, op. et loc. cit. , and plates 79-85.

7. An extract in Hind, I, pp. 147-149; cf. also Ubaldino's narrative in G. P. B. Naish (ed.), "Documents illustrating the history of the Spanish Armada" in: The Naval Miscellany , IV (London, 1952).


52.

HULSIUS, LEVINUS. Nova et exacta delineatio Americae partis Australiae.--In Chica regione. Engraved double folio map, printed on two sheets (263 x 326 mm.; 216 x 323 mm.); uncut. From: Kurtze warhafftige Beschreibung der newen Reyse , Part IV, second edition. In folder. Nuremberg, L. Hulsius, 1602.

See illus. p. 96

The folding map of South America and the West Indies, printed on two separate sheets, with uncut margins.

The map was engraved for the second edition of the fourth part of Hulsius' collection of voyages, which consists altogether of 26 parts. The "Vierte Schiffart" is an account of Ulrich Schmidel's voyage to Brazil and the Rio de la Plata, from 1534 to 1554.

In this second edition of the map, three islands have been inserted below the bottom border of the lower map, with the name "Francisci Draco Ins." These islands, now the Queen Elizabeth Islands, had appeared on maps since Hakluyt published a. new map of America in his Latin edition of Peter Martyr in 1587. 1 During his passage of the Strait of Magellan, Drake had made the discovery that the Tierra del Fuego (Terra del Fogo) was an island. 2 Further, several new names were added to this edition of the map, along the west coast of South America, as well as the plate mark "No. 2" in the lower left comer of the lower map.

Copies of this map in original size with full margins are virtually unknown. As used in the book, edges are always trimmed up to the engraving.

Cf. Church 272; Lenox Lib. Cat. Hulsius , p. 8.

1. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the world , pp. 406-408.

2. Mendoza's letter to Philip II, April 20, 1582, in: Calendar of State Papers, Spanish , III, p. 315; cf. Sir Julian Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy , I, pp. 268-274.


53. PINE, JOHN, ENGRAVER.

The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords Representing the several Engagements between the English and Spanish Fleets in the ever memorable Year MDLXXXVIII. 3 leaves, 23, (I) pp. With 18 double folio engravings by Pine. Folio. Contemporary calf, rebacked.

London, 1739.

See illus. pp. 147, 149

During or immediately after the Armada campaign, Robert Adams, Surveyor of Works to Queen Elizabeth, prepared a series of drawings displaying the principal incidents of the sea battles between the Spanish and English, with a general map. These were engraved and published by Augustine Ryther [see No. 51]. Shortly thereafter, the English commander-in-chief, Lord Howard of Effingham, ordered a set of tapestries after the Adams drawings (or the engravings from them); these were made by Henrik C. Vroom and Francis Spiring of Haarlem. In 1616, Howard sold the tapestries to King James I, who hung them in the House of Lords, where they remained until their destruction by fire in 1834. The present series of engravings is therefore the sole record of the appearance of the tapestries, which are, of course, an important original iconographic source for the history of the Armada, as we may assume that Howard would have taken care to have them accurately done.

The series consists of 10 double folio engravings depicting the tapestries; 5 double folio engravings bearing copies of the Adams-Ryther engravings, two subjects to the plate; one double folio plate displaying a copy of the Adams-Ryther general map; two double folio engraved maps of English coastal defenses.

The engravings in blue-black tint are framed by elaborate borders in black ink containing medals, portraits, etc.

Lowndes IV 1869; see also Hind, Engraving in England , I, pp. 24-25, 142-149.


54. DONN, BENJAMIN.

A Map of the County of Devon with the City and County of Exeter, Delineated from an Actual Survey...the Scale an Inch to a Mile. 6 leaves of text (on paper). With 12 double folio maps and a key map, all printed on vellum, engraved by Thomas Jefferys. Folio. Contemporary marbled boards, new leather back and comers.

London, 1765.

See illus. p. 41.

First edition. Donn's huge map of Devonshire, which would measure 1.88 x 1.71 meters if fitted together as a wall-map, entirely superseded all the previous maps of the county, so superior was it in accuracy and detail. Its publication was a great success by the standards applied to works of this sort; the subscription list was very lengthy, and individual subscribers took as many as 100 copies. At least one later edition was published.

We can find no trace of other vellum copies; the British Museum and Bibliothèque Nationale copies are on paper, and vellum copies are not mentioned in the subscribers' list. The maps are brilliant clean impressions.

Devon was Drake's native county; his residence at Buckland Monachorum (Buckland Abbey) is located on sheet 9 of this map, and one of the subscribers was his collateral descendant Sir Francis Drake of Nutwell Court. 1

Donn (1729-1798) was a Devonshire mathematician and cartographer who was appointed Royal "master of mechanics" towards the end of his fe. His map of Devon received an award of £100 from the Royal Society of Arts. 2

Thomas Jefferys (fl. 1732-1771) was a leading engraver who went on to survey eight other counties of England. 3

BM, Catalogue of Printed Maps (1885), I, 1043.

1. Cf. Lady Eliott-Drake, The family and heirs of Sir Francis Drake , II, pp. 158-164.

2. E. G. R. Taylor, The mathematical practitioners of Hanoverian England (Cambridge, p. 1966), p. 225.

3. R. A. Skelton, Decorative printed maps of the 15th to the 18th centuries , pp. 72-74.

IV. MEDALS AND PORTRAITS


55.

DRAKE. --Franciscus Draeck Nobilissimus Eques Angliae An° Aet Sue 43. Engraved portrait, three-quarter length. 387 x 305 mm. Inlaid in Whatman paper. Matted. (London, Jodocus Hondius?, c.1583; second state).

See frontispiece

The finest contemporary portrait of Drake. It is unsigned, but was attributed to Hondius by George Vertue in the 18th century, and Hind follows this attribution, though suggesting that it may possibly be the work of Remigius Hogenberg. It is certainly different in style and posture from other engravings of Drake signed by Hondius. It apparently was never circulated in Drake's time, as only two contemporary impressions are known (British Museum, Scheepvaart Museum, Amsterdam), both of them in unfinished state. Vertue obtained the original copper plate from Drake's descendants, and completed it, largely by adding shading in the background. The present impression is of the second state.

Drake is depicted standing, his right hand on a helmet, his left holding a baton. Through a window above to the left a landscape is visible; before the window hangs a terrestrial globe or two-hemisphere disc map hanging by an ornamented finial.

The present impression is a fine and brilliant one.

Hind, Engraving in England , I, p. 159, no. 3, and pl. 92.


56.

ARMADA MEDAL. Medal of Silver, commemorating the defeat of the Invincible Armada. 51 mm. diameter. In a cloth case.

(Holland), 1588.

See illus. p. 157

This is perhaps the best known of the many medals (thirteen in all are recorded by Fernández Duro) issued in England and Holland to propagandize the stunning defeat of the Spanish Armada. The obverse displays a rocky islet--a church building on it (symbolizing the Church of England) remains unmoved by the stormy seas which beat against the rocks. The legend, in a surrounding border, "Allidor Non Laedor" may be paraphrased as: "The waves break against me, but I am not broken." On the reverse is a naval battle scene, with the legend in surrounding border: "1588. Flavit Jehovah et Dissipati Sunt" ("Jehovah" in Hebrew script) = "God blew, and they were scattered."

This medal, with its frequently quoted legend "Flavit Jehovah...," greatly promoted the idea that the Armada was defeated by adverse weather; actually, this was only a small part of the cause, as the Spanish fleet was in full retreat back home when many of its ships were wrecked by tempests.

Cesáreo Fernández Duro, La Armada Invencible , I, 218, no. 9; Michael Lewis, The Spanish Armada , p. 186, and fig. 31-32.


57.

ARMADA MEDALS. Three medals, two on silver, one on copper, commemorating the defeat of the Spanish Armada. 50, 30, and 30 mm. diameter (the second and third are from the same die). In a cloth drop case with tie.

(Holland), 1588.

See illus, p. 157.

These medals vividly display the rejoicing which spread all over Protestant Europe when Philip II's threatened conquest of England came to grief. They are a 16th century propaganda medium, for the smaller ones, especially the one on copper, circulated widely among the people and spread the news even among the illiterate.

The 50 mm. medal shows a lively scene of a Spanish galleon breaking up on a rock, with a galley and several other galleons in the background. Above this is the legend "Veni Vide Vive. 1588," and in the border around "Tu Magnus Deus et Magna Facis. Tu Solus Deus." The reverse shows the Pope, the Emperor, Philip II and various prelates and noblemen, all seated blindfolded, with their feet resting on a bed of spikes, a legend above "O Coecas Hominum Mentes O Pectora Coeca," and one in the border around "Durum Est Contra Stimulos Calcitrare." This is of course a sneer at the disappointment of Philip's and the Pope's hopes for the conquest of England.

The 30 mm. medals (on silver and copper) show on the obverse a Spanish galleon striking a rock and breaking, with legend in the surrounding border "Hispani Fugiunt Et Periunt Nemine Sequente"; on the reverse, a man, woman, boy and girl, on their knees praying. Below them is the date 1588, and the legend in the border "Homo Proponit Deus Disponit."

Fernández Duro, La Armada Invencible , I, pp. 217-218; (50 mm. medal) Van Loon, I, 384.1.


58.

MERCATOR, MICHAEL. World Map, in two hemispheres, engraved or struck on silver, and bearing the track of Drake's 1577-1580 circumnavigation of the earth. 68 mm. diameter, with a small tang projecting 2 mm. at the North Pole, pierced with a minute hole. Weight, 383 grains Troy. In a red leather case.

London, Michael Mercator, 1589.

See illus. p. 104

A splendid example of the Drake Silver Map or Silver Medal, a piece commemorating Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the earth, and in itself a treasure of the art and science of cartography. This specimen bears the following inscription ( extant only on this copy ), in a cartouche in the oceanic regions below Africa: "Micha:[el] Merca:[tor] fecit[.] extat Londi[ni] prope templu Gallo:[rum] An[n]o 1589.*"; (trans.) "Michael Mercator made (this). It is available at London near the church of the Frenchmen, 1589." As we know from John Stow, 1 the French church was in the old building known formerly as the Hospital of St. Anthony of Vienna, built in 1231 a synagogue, soon after expropriated, and again expropriated in Henry VIII's reign.

This inscription is of appreciable importance. In the first place, it strikingly confirms the contemporary account of this Silver Map as given by Purchas. The latter claimed that Drake had discovered the passage around Cape Horn from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as was proven by the manuscript wall-map in Whitehall which had been presented to Queen Elizabeth, presumably by Drake himself. 2 Purchas then continues: "And my learned friend Master Brigges told me, that he hath seene this plot of Drakes Voyage cut in silver by a Dutchman (Michael Mercator, Nephew to Gerardus) many yeeres before Scouten or Maire intended that voyage" (i.e., around Cape Horn). 3 Henry R. Wagner, a noted authority on the Drake voyage, had expressed his disbelief in Mercator's authorship of the Silver Map, as he thought Michael had been born after 1572 and therefore too late to have created it. 4 In fact, he was born between 1565 and 1570, the son of Arnold, the son of Gerard Mercator.

Arnold was married at least by 1563. 5 Little is known of Michael's career--he engraved a world map which appeared in the 1595 edition of Mercator's Atlas, though the plate may have been prepared years earlier; another map of his is also known dated 1606. 6 Researches inspired by the wording of this present inscription have established that Michael Mercator was in London shortly before 1590, when collectors of the poll tax assessed him as "servaunte to Baptista...[owing] per poll...iiijd." 7 The form of this entry in the London subsidy rolls shows that Mercator must have been reported to them on an occasion immediately previous to their 1590 assessment, so that he was known by the authorities to have been living in the parish of St. Benet Fink--exactly where the inscription on the present piece places him in 1589. The original note by the subsidy collectors shows, perhaps surprisingly, that whoever Mercator's master was, he was not Baptista Boazio, 8 who had just designed the engraved maps of Drake's West Indian voyage of 1585-6. Thus this Exchequer roll enlarges the number of people known to have had some part in recording Drake's voyages. Michael Mercator's residence in London had hitherto been entirely unsuspected, it being assumed that the medallion had been prepared in the Netherlands, if it was by him, or that it had been made by Jodocus Hondius, if made in London.

The map is of considerable cartographic importance. It depicts not only the newly established colony of "Virginea," but also the Drake discoveries in Upper California. It is the second published map to include these features; apparently only the map inserted in the Hakluyt edition of Peter Martyr's Decades (1587) preceded it. 9

KNOWN SPECIMENS OF THE SILVER MAP

There is considerable variation in the weight of the known examples of the Silver Map, the lightest weighing 260 grains, the heaviest 424 grains. The present example is intermediate; it weighs 382 grains. There is much doubt as to the method by which the medallions were made. Miller Christy, author of the earliest detailed study, refers to it as "cast or struck" and to the "die or mould" used in its preparation. Lord Milford Haven remarks that "it was at one time believed that these pieces had been struck with a die in imitation of engraving, but a recent careful comparison showed that each had been engraved by hand." A. M. Hind the latest authority, is equivocal, remarking that this and similar pieces "were multiplied either by striking afresh with a die taken from the original engraved counter, or by repeated engraving with the aid of paper or vellum prints from the original impressed on the new surface as a guide to the engraver." 10

The copies now known are:

  1. H. P. Kraus, no. I. The example here described. 383 grains; with tang. Unique example, inscribed with the cartographer's name and the date 1589. Probably the prototype.
  2. H. P. Kraus, no. 2.410 grains; with tang. [See No. 58a.]
  3. British Museum, no. 1 (1882.5.7.1). 300 grains; with tang. Probably the first example to be properly described (by Sir Wollaston Franks, 1874).
  4. British Museum, no. 2 (1891.9.5.12). 260 grains; with tang. Also located by Sir Wollaston Franks: "somewhat battered and slightly broken," according to Miller Christy (p. 3).
  5. (Sir John Evans?)--Lord Dillon--J. G. Murdoch. 424 grains; with tang. Possibly the one described by Evans in 1906.
  6. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, no. 1 (A.4, 1934-49). 326 grains. Purchased 1934: provenance unknown.
  7. National Maritime Museum, no. 2 (A.4, 42-136). 275 grains. Presented in 1942, through the agency of Earl Mountbatten; earlier provenance unknown.
  8. A specimen reported by Lord Milford Haven (1919) and Henry K. Wagner (1937) as being in the possession of Drake's descendants. 284 grains. Probably the one noticed by Lady Eliott-Drake as at Nutwell Court in 1911 ( The family and heirs of Sir Francis Drake , I, pp 73-74).
  9. Henry C. Taylor collection, New York. 312 grains; no tang.

CONDITION OF THIS PIECE

Direct comparisons have been made between the present example, no. 1, and nos. 2 and 9 above, in which these specimens have been placed side by side. The present example is by far the best of the three; it must also, obviously, be in better condition than the "somewhat battered" copy noted above as no. 4. There is no previous description of this piece, nor any record of it changing hands, so that it is to be presumed that it was in the possession of its previous owners, the Earls of Caledon, from the time when the family rose to wealth and power in the last quarter of the eighteenth century until its public sale in 1967. Its condition is, in fact, unsurpassable: the engraving is sharp and brilliant, the disc of silver is smooth and level, and there is no trace of any rubbing or wear.

Drake's voyage round the world was the greatest feat of Elizabethan seamanship and marked an unmistakable step forward in English overseas expansion. 11 It resulted in the exploration and investigation not only of the Strait of Magellan and of the East Indies but in considerable discovery of the west coast of North America (notably in the present state of California, now part of the United States) This map provides one of the earliest records of the names both of California and of Virginia. For reasons analogous to those explaining the nature of the map by Nicola van Sypea 12 it is also an immediate derivative of the great wall-map of the world, presented to Queen Elizabeth probably by Drake, hung in the Palace of Whitehall, but since lost. The Silver Map combines in one piece a fine example of the cartography of the great Age of Discovery and a jewel of the Renaissance silversmith's art. The specimen here described is the only one to bear the date of its issue and the name of its maker. Of all known examples it must be accounted by far the most important and most valuable.

1. John Stow, A Survay of London (London, 1598), p. 146.

2. Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus (20 vols., Glasgow, 1905-7), XIII, p. 3.

3. Ibid. , XIII, p. 4. "Master Brigges" was Henry Briggs, the famous cartographer, who improved and publicized Gerard Mercator's map projection.

4. Henry R. Wagner, Sir Francis Drake's Voyage around the world , pp. 97-98, 408-412.

5. H. Averdunk and J. Müller-Reinhard, Gerhard Mercator und die Geographen unter seinen Nachkommen (Gotha, 1914), pp. 161-162.

6. For the world map by Michael Mercator, see the reproduction in Les Frontières entre le Brésil et la Guyane française (Paris, 1899), Atlas, no. 39.

7. R. E. Kirk (ed.), Returns of aliens in...London from the reign of Henry VIII to that of James I , Part II (Huguenot Society of London, no. 10, Aberdeen, 1902), p. 424.

8. Public Record Office, London: E 179 146/300. Owing to damage to the vellum, the name after "Baptista" is now only sufficiently legible to rule out the possibility that it is "Boazio."

9. Wagner, op. cit. , pp. 406-412.

10. Miller Christy, The Silver Map of the World (London, 1900), pp. 44-45; the Marquess of Milford Haven (Prince Louis of Battenberg), British Naval Medals (London, 1919), p. 1; A. M. Hind, Engraving in England , II, pp. 276-277.

11. One of the few points upon which two scholars viewing Drake against his background agree: Sir Julian Corbett, Drake and the Tudor Navy (2 vols., London, 1898); Kenneth R. Andrews, Drake's voyages: their contribution to English maritime expansion in the reign of Elizabeth (London, 1967).

12. Cf. No. 48.


58a.

MERCATOR, MICHAEL. World Map on silver, bearing the track of Drake's 1577-1580 circumnavigation of the earth. 68 mm. diameter, with small tang, unpierced, projecting at the North Pole. Weight, 410 grains Troy.

(London, Michael Mercator, 1589).

See illus. pp. 105, 180

A second copy of the Silver Map, without the cartouche bearing the engraver's name and the date. This is the usual state of this map, as known by all other examples. 1

The map is enclosed in an oval container of pressed horn, with silver mounting, bearing on its cover the Drake coat of arms, with Sir Francis' motto: "Sic parvis magna." This type of box was noticed by Miller Christy in his study of the Silver Map: he shows that they were being made by one John O'Brisset (or Obrisset) in 1713, in the period when such a process was fashionable. 2 The arms, here stamped in tortoiseshell softened by heat, are the ones approved for Drake, but never in fact used by him, although adopted by his successors at Buckland Abbey. 3

1. Cf. No. 58.

2. Miller Christy, The Silver Map of Drake's Voyage (London, 1900), pp. 6-7.

3. [George W. Marshall], "The Arms of Sir Francis Drake," in: The Genealogist , I (1877), pp. 209-211; also The Herald and Genealogist , VIII, pp. 307-313, 476-483.


59.

PASSE, CRISPIN VAN DE, THE ELDER, AND MATTHIAS QUAD. Effigies Regum ac Principum, eorum scillicet, quorum vis et potentia in re nautica seu marina prae ceteris spectabilis est...adiecte sunt et imagines praestantissimorum ac maxim illustrium heroum, quorum virtus et solertia in expeditionibus nauticis praecipue claruit. 6 leaves of text. Engraved title with figure of Neptune, and 18 portraits; added to this copy are four plates of ships, and 2 plates of the celestial hemispheres. Folio. Half vellum.

Cologne, 1598.

See illus. pp. 38, 43

FIRST EDITION. This series of portraits, one of the finest works of de Passe in this genre, is of considerable American interest, as it includes engravings of the great navigators of the Renaissance period, such as Columbus, Magellan, Vespucci, and Laudonnière. The portrait of Drake is of especial interest: it is a close copy of the smaller Hondius Drake portrait which in its first state exists in only two copies (Royal Geographical Society, and Huntington Library). 1 It depicts him in bust, with a shield, and with a two-hemisphere terrestrial map displaying the track of his circumnavigation. The portrait of Thomas Cavendish is also very interesting; this is after the Hondius engraving which was issued with his smaller Drake portrait. It also exists only in two copies (Royal Geographical Society; Ryksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam). It has a two-hemisphere map with the track of Cavendish's circumnavigation. 2

The epigrammatic verses in Latin beneath each portrait in this series were written by Matthias Quad, the scholar-cartographer, as stated on the title. Quad also wrote the 12 pages of text, which is interesting from several points of view. He dearly states that the Hondius map of the Drake and Cavendish voyages was published at Amsterdam. Hind had surmised this, though he lists it among the engravings of Hondius' English period. 3 Quad mentions Cavendish's command of a ship in Sir Richard Grenville's voyage to Virginia in 1585, and states that he himself being then in London, saw the two Virginia Indians whom Grenville brought back. 4

Certain copies of this work, including the present one, have some added plates bound in. These are not signed by de Passe (as are the title and 18 portraits), and are not included among his work in Hollstein's authoritative list; nor are they mentioned on the title, nor in Quad's text, which refers only to the portraits. The work is therefore complete as collated above.

Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts , XV, p. 284, no. 850; Hind, Engraving in England , I, 281, no. (1); Sabin 58995 (wrong collation).

1. See the description of the discovery of the R.G.S. example in a contemporary map collection: Geographical Journal , LXXV (1930), p. 1 and plate.

2. A.M. Hind, Engraving in England , I, pp. 157-158, nos. 1 and 2.

3. Hind, I, p. 173, no. 21.

4. Cf. D. B. Quinn (ed.), The Roanoke Voyages, 1584-1590 , I, pp. 14, 16, 116, 137, 174-175, 178-179, etc.


60.

BURGHLEY, WILLIAM CECIL, LORD. Portrait, in oil colors, on a wood panel. 585 x 485 mm. Framed.

England, second half of the 16th century.

See illus. p. 47

A portrait of the great Lord Burghley in middle age. He was Queen Elizabeth's secretary from 1558 to 1572 and Lord Treasurer from 1572 to his death in 1598, this portrait being evidently from the latter period. It has been examined by experts, and found to be clearly of Burghley's era, and in fine condition. The inscription "William Lo: Bur-leighe Lorde Tr?r of Englande" is genuine and contemporary.

A portrait exists in St. John's College, Cambridge (Burghley's alma mater) which closely resembles the present one, though it is somewhat extended to the right and below; the left hand is shown holding gloves, and there is a column and window right, with Burghley's arms on the column. The features of the St. John's portrait have, however, a somewhat idealized and quasi-hieratic aspect which shows that it is more remote from the original than this one, if in fact the present panel is not itself the original. This is an excellent example of one of the only two basic types of portrait known of Elizabeth's greatest minister.

See reproduction of the St. John's College portrait in Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth , 1960; James L. Caw, "The portraits of the Cecils," in: (T. C. and E. C. Jack, publishers; also editors?) William Cecil, Lord Burghley (London, 1904), pp. 91-105.

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