Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 1 of 2

by Robert Grant Watson

1575.

In the course of the five years during which Drake reposed upon his laurels, before undertaking his voyage round the world, John Oxenham, who had been one of his companions in his late expedition, set out in a vessel of one hundred and forty tons’ burden, with twenty seamen, for the Isthmus of Darien. Having learnt at Porto Bello that a convoy of muleteers was expected from Panamá, he marched to meet them, proceeding over the mountains to a small river which falls into the Southern Sea. Building a pinnace, he then dropped down into the Bay of Panamá and proceeded to the Pearl Islands, where he took possession of a small barque from the port of Quito (probably Guayaquil), in which he found sixty pounds’ weight of gold. Six days later he was still further enriched by the plunder of a barque from Lima, bearing a hundred pounds’ weight of silver in bars.

Unfortunately for the daring Oxenham, he was not contented with silver and gold, but delayed on the island for fifteen days in search of pearls. During this time, as he might have foreseen, intelligence of his presence reached the Spaniards; and Captain Ortega was despatched with four barques in search of him. The Spaniard learned that Oxenham had gone up the river, and astutely traced his course by the quantity of fowls’ feathers floating down the stream. After four days’ pursuit, Oxenham’s pinnace was descried; but the Englishmen, all save six, had left her, taking the treasure with them. The treasure, however, was soon afterwards discovered, and with this Ortega was about to depart, when Oxenham came down upon him with about two hundred Symerons. The Spaniards, who were eighty in number, had the better of the fight, killing eleven of the English, together with some Indians, with very slight loss on their own side.

Oxenham now endeavoured to make the best of his way to his ship; but information of its presence had been sent to Nombre de Dios, and his vessel had been carried a prize to that port. Meanwhile a party of a hundred and fifty men were scouring the mountains in search of the English. On their being found, some were made prisoners and others fled; but in the end all were conveyed to Panamá, where the fearless rover, not being able to produce any power or commission from the Queen, was sentenced, as were his companions, to suffer the death of a pirate. All of the party were then executed, with the exception of Oxenham, his master, his pilot, and five boys, who were sent to Lima. There the boys were pardoned, but the three men suffered the fate to which they had been condemned.

1577.

To return to Drake: that famous captain set out from Plymouth in a squadron, manned by one hundred and sixty-three seamen, on the 13th of September 1577, and sailed to the coast of Barbary for refreshments. He commenced his depredations by seizing three Spanish fishing-boats; he likewise captured three caravels. From Cape Blanco he proceeded to the Cape de Verdes, and thence stood for the Island of St. Iago, where he captured a Portuguese ship. Near the equator his vessels were becalmed for three weeks, and for fifty-five days Drake saw no land before arriving on the coast of Brazil.

The expedition touched in the river Plate, but merely remained a short time, when it proceeded to the southward, and anchored in a bay in forty-seven degrees S. latitude. Two of his ships were now missing, but one of them was here found by a vessel sent in search of them. In these parts our countrymen first became acquainted with the race who derive the name by which they are known to us from the height of Pentagones, or five cubits, equal to seven and a half feet, with which Magellan credited them. Mr. Fletcher, who accompanied Drake, states that these people were of large stature, but he does not ascribe to them gigantic proportions. At a later period, Commodore Byron described one of these Patagonians as a frightful colossus of not less than seven feet. He was no doubt an exception. They are in fact a tall race, but not more so than well-grown Englishmen. Writing only the other day, Lady Florence Dixie states that a tall Patagonian was of precisely the same height as her husband, namely, six feet two inches, and there is no reason to suppose that the race has physically degenerated since Magellan’s time.

1578.

On the 20th of June Drake’s whole force anchored in Fort St. Julian, where two of his men were shot by the natives. One of the objects which attracted attention was a gibbet which had been set up by Magellan seventy years before. At this place Mr. John Doughty was put on his trial for conspiring to raise a mutiny in the fleet, and, being found guilty by a jury, was condemned to be beheaded. The fleet was now reduced to the “Pelican,” which name was soon changed to the “Golden Hind,” the “Elizabeth,” and the “Marigold,” with which on the 20th of August Drake arrived at the entrance of the Straits of Magellan. On one side he observed an island “burning aloft in the air in a wonderful sort without intermission.”

On the 6th of September, having passed the strait, Drake entered the Pacific, which term must have seemed to him rather a misnomer, since he found it rough and turbulent above measure, a tempest carrying his ships a hundred leagues to the westward and separating them. It may be observed that this was the second occasion on which the Straits of Magellan had been passed. Near the western outlet, Drake landed on an island which he named after Queen Elizabeth.