Imprinted at London by Richard Jones.
The destruction, capture, &c. of Portuguese
Carracks, by English seamen.
1592-1594 A.D.
R. Hakluyt. Voyages, III.,
194, Ed. 1600.
In the Third Volume of this Series will be found the fullest and most exact description in our language of the annual Fleets, usually consisting of five Carracks, that went from Lisbon to Goa and back; written by Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, a Dutchman, who made that Voyage in the years 1582-1592. The following events occurred after Linschoten reached Lisbon, on 2nd January 1592 [III. 470].
Some additional particulars from a very rare tract, The Seaman's Triumph, London, 1592, 4to, are given in the footnotes.
A true Report of the honourable Service at sea performed by Sir John Burrough Knight, Lieutenant General of the Fleet prepared by the Honourable Sir Walter Ralegh Knight, Lord Warden of the Stanneries of Cornwall and Devon. Wherein, chiefly, the Santa Clara of Biscay, a ship of 600 tons, was taken: and the two East Indian Carracks, the Santa Cruz and the Madre de Dios, were forced; the one burnt, the other taken and brought into Dartmouth the 7th of September 1592.
Sir Walter Ralegh, upon Commission received from Her Majesty for an Expedition to be made to the West Indies, slacked not his uttermost diligence to make full provision of all things necessary: as, both in his choice of good ships, and [of] sufficient men to perform the action, evidently appeared. For [of] his ships, which were in number fourteen or fifteen, those two of Her Majesty's, the Garland and the Foresight, were the chiefest. The rest [were] either his own, or his good friends', or [belonged to] Adventurers of London. For the Gentlemen his consorts and Officers, to give them their right, they were so well qualited in courage, experience, and discretion as the greatest Prince might repute himself happy to be served with their like.