There is a greater discrepancy between the Famous Voyage and the World Encompassed, as to the furthest limit of Drake’s expedition to the north of the equator, than, as already shown, in regard to the southern limit. We have here, unfortunately, no independent narrative to appeal to in support of either statement, as the Portuguese pilot was dismissed by Drake at Guatulco, and did not accompany him further. Hakluyt himself does not follow the same version of the story in the two editions of his narrative. In the Famous Voyage, as interpolated in the edition of 1589, he gives 55⅓° south, as the furthest limit southward; but in the edition of 1600, he gives 57⅓°; in a similar manner we find 42° north, as the highest northern limit mentioned in the edition of 1589, whilst in that of 1600 it is extended to 43°. Hakluyt thus seems to have found that his earlier information was not to be implicitly relied upon, but we have no clew to the fresh sources to which he had at a later period found access. The World Encompassed, on the other hand, continues Drake’s course up to the 48th parallel of north latitude. The two narratives, however, do not appear to be altogether irreconcileable. In the Famous Voyage, as amended in the edition of 1600, we have this statement:—“We therefore set sail, and sayled (in longitude) 600 leagues at least for a good winde, and thus much we sayled from the 16 of April till the 3 of June. The 5 day of June, being in 43 degrees towards the pole arcticke, we found the ayre so colde that our men, being greevously pinched with the same, complained of the extremitie thereof, and the further we went, the more the cold increased upon us. Whereupon we thought it best for that time to seek the land, and did so, finding it not mountainous, but low plaine land, till we came within 38 degrees towards the line. In which height it pleased God to send us into a faire and good baye, with a good winde to enter the same.”
It will be seen from this account, that it was in the 43d, or, as in the earlier edition of 1589, the 42d parallel of north lat., that the cold was first felt so intensely by Drake’s crew, and that the further they went, the more the cold increased upon them; so that from the latter passage it may be inferred that they did not discontinue their course at once as soon as they reached the 43d parallel.
It appears, likewise, that Drake, from the nature of the wind, was obliged to gain a considerable offing, before he could stand towards the northward: 600 leagues in longitude, according to the first edition (the second edition omitting the words ‘in longitude,’) which does not differ much from the World Encompassed. The latter states—“From Guatulco, or Aquatulco, we departed the day following, viz., April 16, setting our course directly into the sea, whereupon we sailed 500 leagues in longitude to get a wind: and between that and June 3, 1400 leagues in all, till we came into 42 degrees of latitude, where the night following we found such an alternation of heat into extreme and nipping cold, that our men in general did grievously complain thereof.”
The cold seems to have increased to that extremity that, in sailing two degrees further north, the ropes and tackling of the ship were quite stiffened. The crew became much disheartened, but Drake encouraged them, so that they resolved to endure the uttermost. On the 5th of June they were forced by contrary winds to run into an ill-sheltered bay, where they were enveloped in thick fogs, and the cold becoming still more severe, “commanded them to the southward whether they would or no.” “From the height of 48 degrees, in which now we were, to 38, we found the land by coasting along it to be but low and reasonable plain: every hill, (whereof we saw many, but none very high,) though it were in June, and the sun in his nearest approach to them, being covered with snow. In 38° 30′ we fell in with a convenient and fit harbour, and June 17th came to anchor therein, where we continued until the 23d day of July following.”
The writer of this account, in another paragraph, confirms the above statement by saying, “add to this, that though we searched the coast diligently, even unto 48°, yet we found not the land to trend so much as one point in any place towards the East, but rather running on continually north-west, as if it went directly into Asia.”
Mr. Greenhow is disposed to reject the statement of the World Encompassed, for two reasons: first, because it is improbable that a vessel like Drake’s could have sailed through six degrees of latitude from the 3d to the 5th of June; secondly, because it is impossible that such intense cold could be experienced in that part of the Pacific in the month of June, as is implied by the circumstances narrated, and therefore they must be “direct falsehoods.”
The first objection has certainly some reason in it; but in rejecting the World Encompassed, Mr. Greenhow adopts the Famous Voyage as the true narrative, so that it becomes necessary to see whether Hakluyt’s account is not exposed to objections equally grave.
Hakluyt agrees with the author of the World Encompassed, in dating Drake’s arrival at a convenient harbour on June 17,—(Hakluyt gives this date in vol. iii., p. 524,)—so that Drake would have consumed twelve days in running back three and a half degrees, according to one version of the Famous Voyage, and four and a half degrees according to the other, before a wind which was so violent that he could not continue to beat against it. There is no doubt about the situation of the port where Drake took shelter, at least within half a degree, that it was either the Port de la Bodega, in 38° 28′, as some have with good reason supposed, (Maurelle’s Journal, p. 526, in Barrington’s Miscellanies,) or the Port de los Reyes, situated between La Bodega and Port San Francisco, in about 38°, as the Spaniards assert; and there is no difference in the two stories in respect to the interval which elapsed after Drake turned back, until he reached the port. There is, therefore, the improbability of Drake’s vessel, according to Hakluyt, making so little way in so long a time before a wind, to be set off against the improbability of its making, according to the World Encompassed, so much way in so short a time on a wind, the wind blowing undoubtedly all this time very violently from the north-west. Many persons may be disposed to think that the two improbabilities balance each other.
In respect to the intense cold, it must be remembered that the Famous Voyage, equally with the World Encompassed, refers to the great extremity of the cold as the cause of Drake’s drawing back again till he reached 38°. There can, therefore, be no doubt that Drake did turn back on account of his men being unable to bear up against the cold, after having so lately come out of the extreme heat of the tropics. Is it more probable that this intense cold should have been experienced in the higher or the lower latitude? for the intense cold must be admitted to be a fact. Drake seems to have been exposed to one of those severe winds termed Northers, which in the early part of the summer, bring down the atmosphere, even at New Orleans and Mexico, to the temperature of winter; but without seeking to account for the cold, as that would be foreign to the present inquiry, the fact, to whatever extent it be admitted, would rather support the statement that Drake reached the 48th parallel, than that he was constrained to turn back at the lower latitude of 43°.
It may likewise be observed that the description of the coast, “as trending continually north-westward, as if it went directly into Asia,” would correspond with the 48th parallel, but be altogether at variance with the 43d; and it is admitted by all, that Drake’s object was to discover a passage from the western to the eastern coast of North America. His therefore finding the land not to trend so much as one point to the east, but, on the contrary, to the westward, whilst it fully accounts for his changing his course, determines also where he decided to return. It should not be forgotten that the statement in the World Encompassed, that the coast trended to the westward in 48°, was in contradiction of the popular opinion regarding the supposed Straits of Anian, and if it were not the fact, the author hazarded, without an adequate object, the rejection of this part of his narrative, and unavoidably detracted from his own character for veracity.