[XXIII‑16] Lopez Vaz, in Hakluyt, Voy., iii. 770, states that five or seven merchants were slain, and that the town was set on fire, property being destroyed to the value of more than 200,000 ducats. If this did occur it was doubtless the work of the cimarrones, but there is no mention of it in other authorities.
[XXIII‑17] In Burton's English Heroe, 70, and in Life and Voy. of Drake, 57, it is stated that they sat up to the waist in water and that each wave drenched them up to the arm-pits. To steer and sail a raft under such circumstances, even if they escaped being washed overboard, was certainly a remarkable feat of navigation.
[XXIII‑18] There is some confusion in the narrative of the old chroniclers at this point. In Clark's Life of Drake, 20, it is related that a 'frigot' which sailed with the expedition to the rio Francisco, was ordered to lie off the mouth of the river, while on account of shoal water the men ascended the stream in pinnaces; but for what purpose the voyage on the raft, if this were the case, and why leave the vessel in so exposed a position? In Burton's English Heroe, 66, it is stated that the ship was left at (sent back to) the Cabezas, and, page 71, that when Drake fell in with his pinnaces his men 'sayled back to their Frigot and from thence directly to their Ships;' but according to this authority both ships and 'frigot' were already at the Cabezas, where they lay secure from the Spanish cruisers.
[XXIII‑19] Drake made many other captures, the recital of which would be wearisome to the reader. According to Burton more than 200 vessels of from 10 to 120 tons traded at that time between Cartagena and Nombre de Dios. Most of these, he tells us, the English captured, and some of them twice or thrice. Clark makes no mention of this; but the author of Voy. Hist. round World, i. 44, states that the English took more than 100 vessels of all sizes.
[XXIII‑20] Hakluyt's Voy., iii. 526-28.
[XXIII‑21] During the voyage Drake touched at the bay which still bears his name under the Punta de los Reyes on the coast of California. Here he spent five weeks, smoked native tobacco with the Indians, and took possession of the country, calling it New Albion.
[XXIII‑22] 'Which was Monday in the iust and ordinary reckoning of those that had stayed at home in one place or countrie, but in our computation was the Lords day or Sonday.' Drake's World Encompassed, 162.
[XXIII‑23] The vessel was afterward broken up, and a chair, made from some of the timber, was presented to the university library of Oxford by Charles II. Here the poet Cowley sat enthroned and drank a cup of wine, taking occasion to deliver himself thereupon of some vile verse, concluding with the lines (addressed to the chair):
'The Streights of Time too narrow are for thee,
Launch forth into an undiscovered Sea,