Sec. I have done, I have done, sir; will you lead, Master Bramble? Ha, ha, ha!
Pe. Captain Seagull, charge a boat.
Omnes. A boat, a boat, a boat!
[Exeunt all but Drawer.
Dr. Y’are in a proper taking indeed, to take a boat, especially at this time of night, and against tide and tempest. They say yet, “drunken men never take harm.” This night will try the truth of that proverb. 208
[Exit.
[66] This date is too early. The first colony was established (by Sir Richard Grenville) in 1585; see Hakluyt’s Voyages (ed. 1600), iii. 254. These colonists stayed only a year in Virginia. A second batch was sent out in 1587.
[67] “Only a few ... than we do here.”—This is one of the passages that gave offence and procured the author’s imprisonment. It is found only in a few copies. Englishmen were disgusted at the favours lavished by James on the needy Scots who swarmed southwards “with pride and hungry hopes completely arm’d.” See Jesse’s Court of England under the Stuarts, ed. 1855, i. 52-3.
[68] “Besides ... good as a feast.”—This passage is omitted in the copies that contain the cancelled passage about the Scots.
[69] A spot on the Thames below Rotherhithe.