Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth

“All so far, and most after, agreeth with Lopez Vaz his  tale, taken from his pocket by my Lord Cumberland’s mariners at the river Plate, in the year 1586.  But note here his  vainglory and falsehood, or else fear of the Spaniard.

     “First, lest it should be seen how great an advantage the Spaniards had, he maketh no mention of the English calivers, nor those two pieces of ordnance which were in the pinnace.

“Second, he saith nothing of the flight of the Cimaroons: though it was evidently to be gathered from that which he himself saith, that of less than seventy English were slain eleven, and of the negroes but five.  And while of the  English seven were taken alive, yet of the negroes none. And why, but because the rascals ran?

“Thirdly, it is a thing incredible, and out of experience, that eleven English should be slain and seven taken, wit loss only of two Spaniards killed. “Search now, and see (for I will not speak of mine own small doings), in all those memorable voyages, which the worthy and learned Mr. Hakluyt hath so painfully collected, and  which are to my old age next only to my Bible, whether in all the fights which we have endured with the Spaniards,  their loss, even in victory, hath not far exceeded ours. For we are both bigger of body and fiercer of spirit, being even to the poorest of us (thanks so the care of our  illustrious princes), the best fed men of Europe, the most trained to feats of strength and use of weapons, and put our  trust also not in any Virgin or saints, dead rags and bones, painted idols which have no breath in their mouths, or St. Bartholomew medals and such devil’s remembrancers; but in the only true God and our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom whosoever trusteth, one of them shall chase a thousand.  So I hold, having had good experience; and say, if they have done it once, let them do it again, and kill their eleven to  our two, with any weapon they will, save paper bullets blown  out of Fame’s lying trumpet.  Yet I have no quarrel with the  poor Portugal; for I doubt not but friend Lopez Vaz had  looking over his shoulder as he wrote some mighty black  velvet Don, with a name as long as that Don Bernaldino Delgadillo de Avellaneda who set forth lately his  vainglorious libel of lies concerning the last and fatal voyage of my dear friends Sir F. Drake and Sir John Hawkins,  who rest in peace, having finished their labors, as would God I rested.  To whose shameless and unspeakable lying my good friend Mr. Henry Savile of this county did most pithily  and wittily reply, stripping the ass out of his lion’s skin;  and Sir Thomas Baskerville, general of the fleet, by my advice, send him a cartel of defiance, offering to meet him  with choice of weapons, in any indifferent kingdom of equal distance from this realm; which challenge he hath prudently  put in his pipe, or rather rolled it up for one of his Spanish cigarros, and smoked it, and I doubt not, found it foul in the mouth.”

3

Strange as it may seem, this distich is Spenser’s own; and the other hexameters are all authentic.

4

“The Shepherd’s Calendar.”

5

This letter was a few years since in the possession of Mr. Pomeroy Gilbert, fort-major at Dartmouth, a descendant of the admiral’s.

6

The Raleigh, the largest ship of the squadron, was of only 200 tons burden; The Golden Hind, Hayes’ ship, which returned safe, of 40; and The Squirrel (whereof more hereafter), of 10 tons!  In such cockboats did these old heroes brave the unknown seas.

7

Fuller, p. 398.

8

“Some natural tears she shed, but dried them soon”

9

This noble monument of Drake’s piety and public spirit still remains in full use.

10

 Humboldt says that there is a path from Caravellada to St. Jago, between the peaks, used by smugglers.  This is probably the “unknowen way of the Indians,” which Preston used.

11

The crew of the Tobie, cast away on the Barbary coast a few years after, “began with heavy hearts to sing the twelfth Psalm, ‘Help, Lord, for good and godly men,’ etc. Howbeit, ere we had finished four verses, the waves of the sea had stopped the breaths of most.”

12

Two-toed sloths.