JEFFERYS’ SKETCH.
So soon as this discovery was known in England, Captain Burney claimed it as Drake’s bay; in America, Davidson, in the Coast Pilot, and Mr. Greenhow give the same decision.
Probably the early maps must be taken as the best and decisive authorities.
The reader has before him Dudley’s two maps. Of these, Dudley says that California was drawn by an English pilot. In his text describing the shore, he goes no further than Cape St. Lucas, and then crosses to California, which suggests that he is following Cavendish, who took this course, and who was Dudley’s near kinsman. On the margin in the manuscript of Dudley’s map at Munich, he calls Drake’s bay “Porto bonissimo,” “the best of harbors,”—an expression which certainly does not belong to Jack’s Bay. In both maps, also, it is represented as the southern of the two deep bays, of which the northern appears to correspond to Bodega Bay, and the southern to San Francisco Bay. On the larger of the two maps Drake’s bay is placed in the same relation to Monterey as is held by San Francisco.
DUDLEY’S CARTA PRIMA.
[This is a section from a marginal map on the “Carta Prima” of Dudley’s Arcano del Mare, vol. i. lib. 2, p.19. Key:—
1. C. Arboledo.
2. Ensa Larga.
3. Po. di Don Gasper.
4. R. Salado.
5. Po. dell Nuovo Albion scoperto dal Drago Cno. Inglese.
6. Enseada
7. Po. di Anonaebo.
8. Po. di Moneerei.
9. C. S. Barbera.
10. C. S. Agostino.
11. Quivira Ro.
12. Nuova Albione.—Ed.]
In the curious “new map” mentioned by Shakespeare in “Twelfth Night,”[160] the spot where Drake landed is indicated. The names, as one reads southward from the parallel of 40°, are C. Roxo, Sierra de los Pescadores,—Tierra de Paxaros R. Grande, which seems to be Drake’s harbor,—Rio Hermoso, C. Frio, Sierra Nevada, C. Blanco, Cicuic, Playa, Tiguer. Cicuic and Tiguer are evidently borrowed from Ciceyé and Tiguex of Coronado’s narrative. The same position is given to Tiguex in Hondius’s map. Of this the scale is so small that Drake’s Bay could not be determined from it, were it not for the issuing of the dotted line showing his homeward track.
The Spanish geographers are at work on this subject, with full understanding of the points involved in the problem. It will not be long, probably, before the question is decided. This writer does not hesitate to say that he believes it will prove that Drake repaired his ship in San Francisco Bay, and that this bay took its name not indirectly from Francis of Assisi, but from the bold English explorer who had struck terror to all the western coast of New Spain.[161]