Chapter II: Part 2

A Resolution of the Land-Captains, what course they think most expedient to be taken. Given at Carthagena, the 27th of February, 1585.

WHEREAS it hath pleased the General to demand the opinions of his captains what course they think most expedient to be now undertaken, the land-captains being assembled by themselves together, and having advised hereupon, do in three points deliver the same.

THE FIRST, touching the keeping of the town against the force of the enemy, either that which is present, or that which may come out of Spain, is answered thus:--

'We hold opinion, that with this troop of men which we have presently with us in land service, being victualled and munitioned, we may well keep the town, albeit that of men able to answer present service we have not above 700. The residue, being some 150 men, by reason of their hurts and sickness, are altogether unable to stand us in any stead: wherefore hereupon the sea-captains are likewise to give their resolution, how they will undertake the safety and service of the ships upon the arrival of any Spanish fleet.'

THE SECOND point we make to be this, whether it be meet to go presently homeward, or else to continue further trial of our fortune in undertaking such like enterprises as we have done already, and thereby to seek after that bountiful mass of treasure for recompense of our travails, which was generally expected at our coming forth of England: wherein we answer:--

'That it is well known how both we and the soldiers are entered into this action as voluntary men, without any impress or gage from her Majesty or anybody else. And forasmuch as we have hitherto discharged the parts of honest men, so that now by the great blessing and favour of our good God there have been taken three such notable towns, wherein by the estimation of all men would have been found some very great treasures, knowing that Santiago was the chief city of all the islands and traffics thereabouts, St. Domingo the chief city of Hispaniola, and the head government not only of that island, but also of Cuba, and of all the islands about it, as also of such inhabitations of the firm land, as were next unto it, and a place that is both magnificently built and entertaineth great trades of merchandise; and now lastly the city of Carthagena, which cannot be denied to be one of the chief places of most especial importance to the Spaniard of all the cities which be on this side of the West India: we do therefore consider, that since all these cities, with their goods and prisoners taken in them, and the ransoms of the said cities, being all put together, are found far short to satisfy that expectation which by the generality of the enterprisers was first conceived; and being further advised of the slenderness of our strength, whereunto we be now reduced, as well in respect of the small number of able bodies, as also not a little in regard of the slack disposition of the greater part of those which remain, very many of the better minds and men being either consumed by death or weakened by sickness and hurts; and lastly, since that as yet there is not laid down to our knowledge any such enterprise as may seem convenient to be undertaken with such few as we are presently able to make, and withal of such certain likelihood, as with God's good success which it may please him to bestow upon us, the same may promise to yield us any sufficient contentment: we do therefore conclude hereupon, that it is better to hold sure as we may the honour already gotten, and with the same to return towards our gracious sovereign and country, from whence, if it shall please her Majesty to set us forth again with her orderly means and entertainment, we are most ready and willing to go through with anything that the uttermost of our strength and endeavour shall be able to reach unto. But therewithal we do advise and protest that it is far from our thoughts, either to refuse, or so much as to seem to be weary of anything which for the present shall be further required or directed to be done by us from our General.'

THE THIRD and last point is concerning the ransom of this city of Carthagena, for the which, before it was touched with any fire, there was made an offer of some 27,000 or 28,000 pounds sterling:--

'Thus much we utter herein as our opinions, agreeing, so it be done in good sort, to accept this offer aforesaid, rather than to break off by standing still upon our demands of 100,000 pounds; which seems a matter impossible to be performed for the present by them. And to say truth, we may now with much honour and reputation better be satisfied with that sum offered by them at the first, if they will now be contented to give it, than we might at that time with a great deal more; inasmuch as we have taken our full pleasure, both in the uttermost sacking and spoiling of all their household goods and merchandise, as also in that we have consumed and ruined a great part of their town with fire. And thus much further is considered herein by us; that as there be in the voyage a great many poor men, who have willingly adventured their lives and travails, and divers amongst them having spent their apparel and such other little provisions as their small means might have given them leave to prepare, which being done upon such good and allowable intention as this action hath always carried with it (meaning, against the Spaniard, our greatest and most dangerous enemy), so surely we cannot but have an inward regard, so far as may lie in us, to help them in all good sort towards the satisfaction of this their expectation; and by procuring them some little benefit to encourage them, and to nourish this ready and willing disposition of theirs, both in them and in others by their example, against any other time of like occasion. But because it may be supposed that herein we forget not the private benefit of ourselves, and are thereby the rather moved to incline ourselves to this composition, we do therefore think good for the clearing ourselves of all such suspicion, to declare hereby, that what part or portion soever it be of this ransom or composition for Carthagena which should come unto us, we do freely give and bestow the same wholly upon the poor men who have remained with us in the voyage (meaning as well the sailor as the soldier), wishing with all our hearts it were such or so much as might see a sufficient reward for their painful endeavour. And for the firm confirmation thereof, we have thought meet to subsign these presents with our own hands in the place and time aforesaid.

'Captain Christopher Charlie, Lieutenant-General; Captain Goring, Captain Sampson, Captain Powell, etc.'

But while we were yet there, it happened one day that our watch called the sentinel, upon the church-steeple, had discovered in the sea a couple of small barks or boats, making in with the harbour of Carthagena. Whereupon Captain Moon and Captain Varney, with John Grant, the master of the Tiger, and some other seamen, embarked themselves in a couple of small pinnaces, to take them before they should come nigh the shore, at the mouth of the harbour, lest by some straggling Spaniards from the land, they might be warned by signs from coming in. Which fell out accordingly, notwithstanding all the diligence that our men could use: for the Spanish boats, upon the sight of our pinnaces coming towards them, ran themselves ashore, and so their men presently hid themselves in bushes hard by the sea-side, amongst some others that had called them by signs thither. Our men presently without any due regard had to the quality of the place, and seeing no man of the Spaniards to shew themselves, boarded the Spanish barks or boats, and so standing all open in them, were suddenly shot at by a troop of Spaniards out of the bushes; by which volley of shot there were slain Captain Varney, which died presently, and Captain Moon, who died some few days after, besides some four or five others that were hurt: and so our folks returned without their purpose, not having any sufficient number of soldiers with them to fight on shore. For those men they carried were all mariners to row, few of them armed, because they made account with their ordnance to have taken the barks well enough at sea; which they might full easily have done, without any loss at all, if they had come in time to the harbour mouth, before the Spaniards' boats had gotten so near the shore.

During our abode in this place, as also at St. Domingo, there passed divers courtesies between us and the Spaniards, as feasting, and using them with all kindness and favour; so as amongst others there came to see the General the governor of Carthagena, with the bishop of the same, and divers other gentlemen of the better sort. This town of Carthagena we touched in the out parts, and consumed much with fire, as we had done St. Domingo, upon discontentments, and for want of agreeing with us in their first treaties touching their ransom; which at the last was concluded between us should be 110,000 ducats for that which was yet standing, the ducat valued at five shillings sixpence sterling.

This town, though not half so big as St. Domingo, gives, as you see, a far greater ransom, being in very deed of far more importance, by reason of the excellency of the harbour, and the situation thereof to serve the trade of Nombre de Dios and other places, and is inhabited with far more richer merchants. The other is chiefly inhabited with lawyers and brave gentlemen, being the chief or highest appeal of their suits in law of all the islands about it and of the mainland coast next unto it. And it is of no such account as Carthagena, for these and some like reasons which I could give you, over long to be now written.

The warning which this town received of our coming towards them from St. Domingo, by the space of 20 days before our arrival here, was cause that they had both fortified and every way prepared for their best defence. As also that they had carried and conveyed away all their treasure and principal substance.

The ransom of 110,000 ducats thus concluded on, as is aforesaid, the same being written, and expressing for nothing more than the town of Carthagena, upon the payment of the said ransom we left the said town and drew some part of our soldiers into the priory or abbey, standing a quarter of an English mile below the town upon the harbour water-side, the same being walled with a wall of stone; which we told the Spaniards was yet ours, and not redeemed by their composition. Whereupon they, finding the defect of their contract, were contented to enter into another ransom for all places, but specially for the said house, as also the blockhouse or castle, which is upon the mouth of the inner harbour. And when we asked as much for the one as for the other, they yielded to give a thousand crowns for the abbey, leaving us to take our pleasure upon the blockhouse, which they said they were not able to ransom, having stretched themselves to the uttermost of their powers; and therefore the said blockhouse was by us undermined, and so with gunpowder blown up in pieces. While this latter contract was in making, our whole fleet of ships fell down towards the harbour-mouth, where they anchored the third time and employed their men in fetching of fresh water aboard the ships for our voyage homewards, which water was had in a great well that is in the island by the harbour-mouth. Which island is a very pleasant place as hath been seen, having in it many sorts of goodly and very pleasant fruits, as the orange-trees and others, being set orderly in walks of great length together. Insomuch as the whole island, being some two or three miles about, is cast into grounds of gardening and orchards.

After six weeks' abode in this place, we put to sea the last of March; where, after two or three days, a great Ship which we had taken at St. Domingo, and thereupon was called The New Year's Gift, fell into a great leak, being laden with ordnance, hides, and other spoils, and in the night she lost the company of our fleet. Which being missed the next morning by the General, he cast about with the whole fleet, fearing some great mischance to be happened unto her, as in very deed it so fell out; for her leak was so great that her men were all tired with pumping. But at the last, having found her, and the bark Talbot in her company, which stayed by great hap with her, they were ready to take their men out of her for the saving of them. And so the General, being fully advertised of their great extremity, made sail directly back again to Carthagena with the whole fleet; where, having staid eight or ten days more about the unlading of this ship and the bestowing thereof and her men into other ships, we departed once again to sea, directing our course toward the Cape St. Anthony, being the westermost part of Cuba, where we arrived the 27th of April. But because fresh water could not presently be found, we weighed anchor and departed, thinking in few days to recover the Matanzas, a place to the eastward of Havana.

After we had sailed some fourteen days we were brought to Cape St. Anthony again through lack of favourable wind; but then our scarcity was grown such as need make us look a little better for water, which we found in sufficient quantity, being indeed, as I judge, none other than rain-water newly fallen and gathered up by making pits in a plot of marish ground some three hundred paces from the seaside.

I do wrong if I should forget the good example of the General at this place, who, to encourage others, and to hasten the getting of fresh water aboard the ships, took no less pain himself than the meanest; as also at St. Domingo, Carthagena, and all other places, having always so vigilant a care and foresight in the good ordering of his fleet, accompanying them, as it is said, with such wonderful travail of body, as doubtless had he been the meanest person, as he was the chiefest, he had yet deserved the first place of honour; and no less happy do we account him for being associated with Master Carlile, his Lieutenant-General, by whose experience, prudent counsel, and gallant performance he achieved so many and happy enterprises of the war, by whom also he was very greatly assisted in setting down the needful orders, laws, and course of justice, and the due administration of the same upon all occasions.

After three days spent in watering our ships, we departed now the second time from this Cape of St. Anthony the 13th of May. And proceeding about the Cape of Florida, we never touched anywhere; but coasting alongst Florida, and keeping the shore still in sight, the 28th of May, early in the morning, we descried on the shore a place built like a beacon, which was indeed a scaffold upon four long masts raised on end for men to discover to the seaward, being in the latitude of thirty degrees, or very near thereunto. Our pinnaces manned and coming to the shore, we marched up alongst the river-side to see what place the enemy held there; for none amongst us had any knowledge thereof at all.

Here the General took occasion to march with the companies himself in person, the Lieutenant-General having the vant-guard; and, going a mile up, or somewhat more, by the river-side, we might discern on the other side of the river over against us a fort which newly had been built by the Spaniards; and some mile, or thereabout, above the fort was a little town or village without walls, built of wooden houses, as the plot doth plainly shew. We forthwith prepared to have ordnance for the battery; and one piece was a little before the evening planted, and the first shot being made by the Lieutenant-General himself at their ensign, strake through the ensign, as we afterwards understood by a Frenchman which came unto us from them. One shot more was then made, which struck the foot of the fort wall, which was all massive timber of great trees like masts. The Lieutenant-General was determined to pass the river this night with four companies, and there to lodge himself entrenched as near the fort as that he might play with his muskets and smallest shot upon any that should appear, and so afterwards to bring and plant the battery with him; but the help of mariners for that sudden to make trenches could not be had, which was the cause that this determination was remitted until the next night.

In the night the Lieutenant-General took a little rowing skiff and half a dozen well armed, as Captain Morgan and Captain Sampson, with some others, beside the rowers, and went to view what guard the enemy kept, as also to take knowledge of the ground. And albeit he went as covertly as might be, yet the enemy, taking the alarm, grew fearful that the whole force was approaching to the assault, and therefore with all speed abandoned the place after the shooting of some of their pieces. They thus gone, and he being returned unto us again, but nothing knowing of their flight from their fort, forthwith came a Frenchman, [Nicolas Borgoignon] being a fifer (who had been prisoner with them) in a little boat, playing on his fife the tune of the Prince of Orange his song. And being called unto by the guard, he told them before he put foot out of the boat what he was himself, and how the Spaniards were gone from the fort; offering either to remain in hands there, or else to return to the place with them that would go. [The 'Prince of Orange's Song' was a popular ditty in praise of William Prince of Orange (assassinated 1584), the leader of the Dutch Protestant insurgents.]

Upon this intelligence the General, the Lieutenant-General, with some of the captains in one skiff and the Vice-Admiral with some others in his skiff, and two or three pinnaces furnished of soldiers with them, put presently over towards the fort, giving order for the rest of the pinnaces to follow. And in our approach some of the enemy, bolder than the rest, having stayed behind their company, shot off two pieces of ordnance at us; but on shore we went, and entered the place without finding any man there.

When the day appeared, we found it built all of timber, the walls being none other than whole masts or bodies of trees set upright and close together in manner of a pale, without any ditch as yet made, but wholly intended with some more time. For they had not as yet finished all their work, having begun the same some three or four months before; so as, to say the truth, they had no reason to keep it, being subject both to fire and easy assault.

The platform whereon the ordnance lay was whole bodies of long pine-trees, whereof there is great plenty, laid across one on another and some little earth amongst. There were in it thirteen or fourteen great pieces of brass ordnance and a chest unbroken up, having in it the value of some two thousand pounds sterling, by estimation, of the king's treasure, to pay the soldiers of that place, who were a hundred and fifty men.

The fort thus won, which they called St. John's Fort, and the day opened, we assayed to go to the town, but could not by reason of some rivers and broken ground which was between the two places. And therefore being enforced to embark again into our pinnaces, we went thither upon the great main river, which is called, as also the town, by the name of St. Augustine. At our approaching to land, there were some that began to shew themselves, and to bestow some few shot upon us, but presently withdrew themselves. And in their running thus away, the Sergeant-Major finding one of their horses ready saddled and bridled, took the same to follow the chase; and so overgoing all his company, was by one laid behind a bush shot through the head; and falling down therewith, was by the same and two or three more, stabbed in three or four places of his body with swords and daggers, before any could come near to his rescue. His death was much lamented, being in very deed an honest wise gentleman, and soldier of good experience, and of as great courage as any man might be.

In this place called St. Augustine we understood the king did keep, as is before said, 150 soldiers, and at another place some dozen leagues beyond to the northwards, called St. Helena, he did there likewise keep 150 more, serving there for no other purpose than to keep all other nations from inhabiting any part of all that coast; the government whereof was committed to one Pedro Melendez, marquis, nephew to that Melendez the Admiral, who had overthrown Master John Hawkins in the Bay of Mexico some 17 or 18 years ago. This governor had charge of both places, but was at this time in this place, and one of the first that left the same.

Here it was resolved in full assembly of captains, to undertake the enterprise of St. Helena, and from thence to seek out the inhabitation of our English countrymen in Virginia, distant from thence some six degrees northward. When we came thwart of St. Helena, the shoals appearing dangerous, and we having no pilot to undertake the entry, it was thought meetest to go hence alongst. For the Admiral had been the same night in four fathom and a half, three leagues from the shore; and yet we understood, by the help of a known pilot, there may and do go in ships of greater burden and draught than any we had in our fleet. We passed thus along the coast hard aboard the shore, which is shallow for a league or two from the shore, and the same is low and broken land for the most part. The ninth of June upon sight of one special great fire (which are very ordinary all alongst this coast, even from the Cape of Florida hither) the General sent his skiff to the shore, where they found some of our English countrymen that had been sent thither the year before by Sir Walter Raleigh, and brought them aboard; by whose direction we proceeded along to the place which they make their port. But some of our ships being of great draught, unable to enter, anchored without the harbour in a wild road at sea, about two miles from shore. From whence the General wrote letters to Master Ralph Lane, being governor of those English in Virginia, and then at his fort about six leagues from the road in an island which they called Roanoac; wherein especially he shewed how ready he was to supply his necessities and wants, which he understood of by those he had first talked withal.

The morrow after, Master Lane himself and some of his company coming unto him, with the consent of his captains he gave them the choice of two offers, that is to say: either he would leave a ship, a pinnace, and certain boats with sufficient masters and mariners, together furnished with a month's victual, to stay and make further discovery of the country and coasts, and so much victual likewise as might be sufficient for the bringing of them all (being an hundred and three persons) into England, if they thought good after such time, with any other thing they would desire, and that he might be able to spare: or else, if they thought they had made sufficient discovery already, and did desire to return into England, he would give them passage. But they, as it seemed, being desirous to stay, accepted very thankfully and with great gladness that which was offered first. Whereupon the ship being appointed and received into charge by some of their own company sent into her by Master Lane, before they had received from the rest of the fleet the provision appointed them, there arose a great storm (which they said was extraordinary and very strange) that lasted three days together, and put all our fleet in great danger to be driven from their anchoring upon the coast; for we brake many cables, and lost many anchors; and some of our fleet which had lost all, of which number was the ship appointed for Master Lane and his company, were driven to put to sea in great danger, in avoiding the coast, and could never see us again until we met in England. Many also of our small pinnaces and boats were lost in this storm.

Notwithstanding, after all this, the General offered them, with consent of his captains, another ship with some provisions, although not such a one for their turns as might have been spared them before, this being unable to be brought into their harbour: or else, if they would, to give them passage into England, although he knew he should perform it with greater difficulty than he might have done before. But Master Lane, with those of the chiefest of his company which he had then with him, considering what should be best for them to do, made request unto the General under their hands, that they might have passage for England: the which being granted, and the rest sent for out of the country and shipped, we departed from that coast the 18th of June. And so, God be thanked, both they and we in good safety arrived at Portsmouth the 28th of July, 1586, to the great glory of God, and to no small honour to our Prince, our country, and ourselves. The total value of that which was got in this voyage is esteemed at three score thousand pounds, whereof the companies which have travailed in the voyage were to have twenty thousand pounds, the adventurers the other forty. Of which twenty thousand pounds (as I can judge) will redound some six pounds to the single share. We lost some 750 men in the voyage; above three parts of them only by sickness. The men of name that died and were slain in this voyage, which I can presently call to remembrance, are these:--Captain Powell, Captain Varney, Captain Moon, Captain Fortescue, Captain Biggs, Captain Cecil, Captain Hannam, Captain Greenfield; Thomas Tucker, a lieutenant; Alexander Starkey, a lieutenant; Master Escot, a lieutenant; Master Waterhouse, a lieutenant; Master George Candish, Master Nicholas Winter, Master Alexander Carlile, Master Robert Alexander, Master Scroope, Master James Dyer, Master Peter Duke. With some other, whom for haste I cannot suddenly think on.

The ordnance gotten of all sorts, brass and iron, were about two hundred and forty pieces, whereof the two hundred and some more were brass, and were thus found and gotten:--At Santiago some two or three and fifty pieces. In St. Domingo about four score, whereof was very much great ordnance, as whole cannon, demi-cannon, culverins, and such like. In Carthagena some sixty and three pieces, and good store likewise of the greater sort. In the Fort of St. Augustine were fourteen pieces. The rest was iron ordnance, of which the most part was gotten at St. Domingo, the rest at Carthagena.