The name of Sir Francis Drake is one of the brightest ornaments of Hakluyt’s collection; and a Society, which undertakes to continue and complete the labours of the latter, cannot certainly be better employed than in publishing documents illustrating the life and achievements of that distinguished seaman.

In conformity with this view, the two original pieces which follow have been selected for publication; both brief but full of life, and the first of them, in particular, very racy and characteristic.

The value of Maynarde’s paper (additional MSS., No. 5209, in the library of the British Museum), lies in the writer’s intimacy with Sir Francis Drake, whom he accompanied in the unfortunate expedition which is the subject of the following narrative, and in the shrewdness of his remarks, clothed occasionally in the quaintest language. It cannot be denied that it tends to dispel much of the romance which has hitherto coloured so brilliantly the history of the naval hero. But truth is thereby a gainer. Romance elevates the hero at the expense of human nature, and sacrifices the many for the glory of one. It may not be without advantage to learn, from the example of one so justly celebrated as Drake, what sordid motives may be cloaked under the pretence of national glory, and how mistrustfully we ought to listen to the professedly generous instigators of war and rapine.

The Spanish paper, Relacion de lo Sucedido, etc., (additional MSS. No. 13,964, British Museum), which has the form of an official report, or dispatch, is extremely interesting, inasmuch as it allows us to see, in immediate juxtaposition and direct contrast, the accounts of the affair at Puerto Rico, as given by the two belligerent parties.

These papers are here reproduced from the originals without change or emendation; so that their defects, whether attributable to negligence or ignorance, may be taken into consideration in estimating their intrinsic worth.

The superficial inaccuracies of Maynarde’s paper are not a few; his constant misspelling of proper names, as Corasaw for CuraÇoa, St. Tomarta for Sta. Martha, would seem to prove him illiterate. It is still more important, that, through oversight and omission, he states the number of the forces, who marched from Nombre de Dios to attack Panama, to be fifty, instead of seven hundred and fifty.

It is amusing to observe the variance between the Spanish and English accounts of the same action, both written in good faith. The Spaniards had but seventy guns, and yet the English reckoned 5160 pieces of artillery playing on them. This tremendous fire would appear from the English account to have done no great harm, while the Spaniards allege that they killed four hundred of the enemy, besides wounding many more.

But this is not the place for a critical examination of the following pages. The conflicting statements and opinions respecting the closing scene of Drake’s eventful life, are amply detailed in Mr. Barrow’s justly popular volume. Here it will be sufficient to observe that Maynarde’s keen and natural comments on his commanders, proceed from one who, in regard to Drake, certainly writes in a friendly spirit, and from whom the truth was wrung by the circumstances of his situation.

W. D. C.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE
HIS VOYAGE,
1595:

BY
THOMAS MAYNARDE.