We have, however, two cotemporaries of Sir Francis Drake, who confirm the statement of the World Encompassed. One of these has been strangely overlooked by Mr. Greenhow; namely, Stow the annalist, who, under the year 1580, gives an account of the return of Master Francis Drake to England, from his voyage round the world. “He passed,” he says, “forth northward, till he came to the latitude of forty-seven, thinking to have come that way home, but being constrained by fogs and cold winds to forsake his purpose, came backward to the line ward the tenth of June, 1579, and stayed in the latitude of thirty-eight, to grave and trim his ship, until the five-and-twenty of July.” This is evidently an account derived from sources quite distinct from those of either of the other two narratives. It occurs as early as 1592, in an edition of the Annals which is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, so that it was circulated two years at least before Drake’s death.
The other authority is that of one of the most celebrated navigators of Drake’s age, John Davis, of Sandrug by Dartmouth, who was the author of a work entitled “The World’s Hydrographical Discovery.” It was “imprinted at London, by Thomas Dawson, dwelling at the Three Cranes in the Vine-tree, in 1595,” and may be found most readily in the 4th volume of the last edition of Hakluyt’s Voyages. After giving some account of the dangers which Drake had surmounted in passing through the Straits of Magellan, which Davis had himself sailed through three times, he proceeds to say, that “after Sir Francis Drake was entered into the South Seas, he coasted all the western shores of America, until he came into the septentrional latitude of forty-eight degrees, being on the back side of Newfoundland.” Now Davis is certainly entitled to respectful attention, from his high character as a navigator. He had made three voyages in search of a north-west passage, and had given his name to Davis’ Straits, as the discoverer of them; he had likewise been the companion of Cavendish in his last voyage into the South Seas, in 1591-93, when, having separated from Cavendish, he discovered the Falkland islands. He was therefore highly competent to form a correct judgment of the value of the accounts which he had received respecting Drake’s voyage, nor was he likely, as a rival in the career of maritime discovery, to exaggerate the extent of it. We find him, on this occasion, deliberately adopting the account that Drake reached that portion of the north-west coast of America, which corresponded to Newfoundland on the north-east coast, or, as he distinctly says, the septentrional latitude of 48 degrees.
Davis, however, is not the only naval authority of that period who adopted this view, for Sir William Monson, who was admiral in the reign of Elizabeth and James I., and served in expeditions against the Spaniards under Drake, in his introduction to Sir Francis Drake’s voyage round the world, praises him because “lastly and principally that after so many miseries and extremities he endured, and almost two years spent in unpractised seas, when reason would have bid him sought home for his rest, he left his known course, and ventured upon an unknown sea in forty-eight degrees, which sea or passage we know had been often attempted by our seas, but never discovered.” And in his brief review of Sir F. Drake’s voyage round the world, he says: “From the 16th of April to the 5th of June he sailed without seeing land, and arrived in forty-eight degrees, thinking to find a passage into our seas, which land he named Albion.” (Sir W. Monson’s Naval Tracts, in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages, vol. iii., pp. 367, 368.)
Mr. Greenhow (p. 75) says, that Davis’s assertion carries with it its own refutation, “as it is nowhere else pretended that Drake saw any part of the west coast of America between the 17th degree of latitude and the 38th.” But surely Davis might use the expression, “coasted all the western shores of America,” without being supposed to pretend that Drake kept in sight of the coast all the way. The objection seems to be rather verbal than substantial. Again, Sir W. Monson is charged by the same author with inconsistency, because he speaks of C. Mendocino as the “furthest land discovered,” and the “furthermost known land.” But Sir W. Monson is on this occasion discussing the probable advantages of a north-west passage as a saving of distance, and he is speaking of C. Mendocino, as the “furthermost known part of America,” i. e., the furthermost headland from which a course might be measured to the Moluccas, and he is likewise referring especially to the voyage of Francisco Gali, so that this objection is more specious than solid. It should likewise not be forgotten, that in the most approved maps of that day, in the last edition of Ortelius, for example, and in that of Hondius, which is given in Purchas’s Pilgrims, C. Mendocino is the northernmost point of land of North America. It may also not be amiss to remark, that in the map which Mr. Hallam (in his Literature of Europe, vol. ii., c. viii., § v.) justly pronounces to be the best map of the sixteenth century, and which is one of uncommon rarity, Cabo Mendocino is the last headland marked upon the north-west coast of America, in about 43° north latitude. This map is found with a few copies of the edition of Hakluyt of 1589: in other copies, indeed, there is the usual inferior map, in which C. Mendocino is placed between 50° and 60°. The work, however, in which it has been examined for the present purpose, is Hakluyt’s edition of 1600, in which it is sometimes found with Sir F. Drake’s voyage traced out upon it: but in the copy in the Bodleian Library, no such voyage is observed; whilst the line of coast is continued above C. Mendocino and marked, in large letters, “Nova Albion.” Thus Hakluyt himself, in adopting this map as “a true hydrographical description of so much of the world as hath been hitherto discovered and is common to our knowledge,” has so far admitted that Nova Albion extended beyond the furthest land discovered by the Spaniards. On the other hand, Camden, in his life of Elizabeth, first published in 1615, adopts the version of the story which Hakluyt had put forth in his earliest edition of the Famous Voyage, making the southern limit 55° south, and the northern 42° north, which Hakluyt has himself rejected in his later edition. There can be little doubt that Camden’s account bears internal evidence of having been copied in the main from Hakluyt. Purchas, as we may gather from his work, merely followed Hakluyt.
In addition to these, Mr. Greenhow enumerates several comparatively recent authors as adopting Hakluyt’s opinion. Of these, perhaps Dr. Johnson has the greatest renown. He published a life of Drake in parts, in five numbers of the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1740-41. It was, however, amongst his earliest contributions, when he was little more than thirty years of age, and therefore is not entitled to all the weight which the opinion of Dr. Johnson at a later period of life might carry with it. But as it is, the passage, as it stands at present, seems to involve a clerical error. “From Guatulco, which lies in 15° 40′, they stood out to sea, and without approaching any land, sailed forward till on the night following the 3d of June, being then in the latitude of 38°, they were suddenly benumbed with such cold blasts that they were scarcely able to handle the ropes. This cold increased upon them, as they proceeded, to such a degree that the sailors were discouraged from mounting upon deck; nor were the effects of the climate to be imputed to the warmth of the regions to which they had been lately accustomed, for the ropes were stiff with frost, and the meat could scarcely be conveyed warm to the table. On June 17th they came to anchor in 38° 30′.”
In the original paper, as published in the Gentleman’s Magazine for January, 1741, Dr. Johnson writes 38° in numbers as the parallel of latitude where the cold was felt so acutely. This would be in a far lower latitude than what any of the accounts of Drake’s own time gives; so that it may for that reason alone be suspected to be an error of the press, more particularly as Drake is made ultimately to anchor in 38° 30′, a higher latitude than that in which his crew were benumbed with the cold. We must either suppose that Dr. Johnson entirely misunderstood the narrative, and intentionally represented Drake as continuing his voyage northward in spite of the cold, and anchoring in a higher latitude than where his men were so much discouraged by its severity, or that there is a typographical error in the figures. The latter seems to be the more probable alternative; and if, in order to correct this error, we may reasonably have recourse to the authority from which he derived his information as to the latitude of the port where Drake cast anchor, it is to the World Encompassed, and not to the Famous Voyage, that we must refer; for it is the World Encompassed which gives us 38° 30′ as the latitude of the convenient and fit harbour, whereas the Famous Voyage sends Drake into a fair and good bay in 38°.
The dispute between Spain and Great Britain respecting the fur trade on the north-west coast of America having awakened the attention of the European powers to the value of discoveries in that quarter, a French expedition was in consequence despatched in 1790, under Captain Etienne Marchand, who, after examining some parts of the north-west coast of America, concluded the circumnavigation of the globe in 1792. Fleurieu, the French hydrographer, published a full account of Marchand’s Voyage, to which he prefaced an introduction, read before the French Institute in July, 1797. In this introduction he reviews briefly the course of maritime discovery in these parts, and states his opinion, without any qualification, that Sir Francis Drake made the land on the north-west coast of America in the latitude of 48 degrees, which no Spanish navigator had yet reached. Mr. Greenhow (p. 223) speaks highly of Fleurieu’s work, though he considers him to have been careless in the examination of his authorities. He observes, that “his devotion to his own country, and his contempt for the Spaniards and their government, led him frequently to make assertions and observations at variance with truth and justice.” It may be added, that at the time when he composed his introduction, the relations of France and Great Britain were not of a kind to dispose him to favour unduly the claims of British navigators.
The same train of events which terminated in the Nootka Convention, led to a Spanish expedition under Galiano and Valdés, of which an account was published, by order of the king of Spain, at Madrid, in 1802. The introduction to it comprises a review of all the Spanish voyages of discovery along the north-west coast, in the course of which it is observed, that, from want of sufficient information in Spanish history, certain foreign writers had undervalued the merit of Cabrillo, by assigning to Drake the discovery of the coast between 38° and 48°; whereas, thirty-six years before Drake’s appearance on that coast, Cabrillo had discovered it between 38° and 43°. A note appended to this passage states:—“The true glory which the English navigator may claim for himself is the having discovered the portion of coast comprehended between the parallels of 43° and 48°; to which, consequently, the denomination of New Albion ought to be limited, without interfering with the discoveries of preceding navigators.” (Relacion del Viage hecho por las Goletas Sutil y Mexicana en el año de 1792. Introduccion, pp. xxxv. xxxvi.)
To the same purport, Alexander von Humboldt, in his Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, says:—“D’après des données historiques certaines, la dénomination de Nouvelle Albion devrait être restreinte à la partie de la côte qui s’étend depuis les 43° aux 48°, ou du Cap de Martin de Aguilar, à l’entrée de Juan de Fuca,” (l. iii., c. viii.) And in another passage: “On trouve que Francisco Gali côtoya une partie de l’Archipel du Prince de Galles ou celui du Roi George (en 1582.) Sir Francis Drake, en 1578, n’était parvenu que jusqu’aux 48° de latitude au nord du cap Grenville, dans la Nouvelle Georgie.”
The question of the northern limits of Drake’s expedition has been rather fully entered into on this occasion, because it is apprehended that Drake’s visit constituted a discovery of that portion of the coast which was to the north of the furthest headland which Ferrelo reached in 1543, whether that headland were Cape Mendocino, or Cape Blanco; and because Mr. Greenhow, in the preface to the second edition of his History of Oregon and California, observes, that in the accounts and views there presented of Drake’s visit to the north-west coast, all who had criticised his work were silent, or carefully omitted to notice the principal arguments adduced by the author. We may conclude with observing, that on reviewing the evidence it will be seen, that in favour of the higher latitude of 48° we have a well authenticated account drawn up by the nephew of Sir Francis Drake himself, from the notes of several persons who went the voyage, confirmed by independent statements in two contemporary writers, Stow the annalist, and Davis the navigator, and supported by the authority of Sir W. Monson, who served with Drake in the Spanish wars after his return; and on this side we find ranked the influential judgment of the ablest modern writers who have given their attention to the subject, such as the distinguished French hydrographer Fleurieu, the able author of the Introduction to the Voyage of the Sutil and Mexicana, published by the authority of the king of Spain, and the learned and laborious Alexander von Humboldt. On the opposite side stands Hakluyt, and Hakluyt alone; for Camden and Purchas both followed Hakluyt implicitly, and though they may be considered to approve, they do not in any way confirm his account; while Hakluyt himself has nowhere disclosed his sources of information, and by the variation of the two editions of his work in the two most important facts of the whole voyage, namely, the extreme limits southward and northward respectively of Drake’s expedition, he has indirectly made evident the doubtful character of the information on which he relied, and has himself abandoned the version of the story, which Camden and the author of the Vie de Drach, have adopted upon his authority.