The Oregon Territory, Its History and Discovery. Travers Twiss
states that the edition of Hakluyt which contained the Famous Voyage “ne parut à Londres qu’en 1600.” What he says, however, of the author, is comprised in a short note to this effect:—“Le gentilhomme Picard, (employé sur l’escadre de Drake,) auteur de cette relation, en ayant remis une copie au Baron de St. Simon, Seigneur de Courtomer, celui-ci engagea François de Louvencourt, Seigneur de Vauchelles, à en faire un extrait en Français sous le titre de ‘le Voyage Curieux faict autour du Monde par François Drach, Amiral d’Angleterre,’ qui fut imprimé chez Gesselin, Paris, 1627, en 8vo.”
It might be supposed from this statement, that the work of M. de Louvencourt would disclose the name of the gentleman of Picardy, who had been the companion of Drake; but on referring to the edition just cited of the French translation, the only allusion to Drake’s companion which is to be found in the work, occurs in a few words forming part of the dedication to M. de St. Simon:—“Or, Monsieur, je le vous dédie, parceque c’est vous que m’aviez donné, m’ayant fait entendre, que vous l’aviez eu d’un de vos sujets de Courtomer, qui a fait le même voyage avec ce seigneur.” Nothing further can safely he inferred from this, than that M. de St. Simon received the English copy, which M. de Louvencourt made use of, from one of his vassals who had accompanied Drake in his expedition; but whether this Picard subject of the lord of Courtomer was the author of the narrative, does not appear from the meagre dedication, which seems to have been the basis upon which Fleurieu’s statement was founded.
Fleurieu refers to the Famous Voyage as printed in duodecimo, in London, in the year 1600. This edition, however, cannot be traced in the catalogue of the British Museum or the Bodleian Library, nor does Watt refer to it in his Bibliotheca Britannica: but Fleurieu may have had authority for his statement, though the size of the edition is at least suspicious. Even the French translation of 1627, of which there was an earlier edition in 1613, apparently unknown to Fleurieu, is in 8vo, and an English edition of the Famous Voyage, slightly modified, which was published in London in 1752, and may be found in the British Museum, is a very mean pamphlet, though in 8vo. The separate editions likewise of Drake’s other voyages which are to be met with in public libraries are in small quarto, so that there would be no argument from analogy in favor of an edition in 12mo. The fact, however, of its having disappeared, might perhaps be urged as a sign of the insignificance of the edition.
It is very immaterial, even if Fleurieu has hazarded a hasty statement in respect to there having been a separate edition of the Famous Voyage as early as 1600. Thus much, at least, is certain, that Fleurieu is incorrect in stating that the edition of Hakluyt, in which it was inserted, did not appear before 1600; for a careful comparison between the French translation, and the respective English editions of 1589 and 1600, furnishes conclusive evidence that M. de Louvencourt’s translation was made from the narrative in the edition of 1589. Two examples will suffice. The edition of 1589 gives 55⅓ degrees of southern latitude, and 42 degrees of northern latitude, as the extreme limits of Drake’s voyage towards the two poles, which the French translation follows; whilst the edition of 1600 gives 57⅓ degrees of southern latitude, and 43 degrees of northern latitude, as the southern and northern extremes. There can therefore be little doubt that the work, which M. de Louvencourt translated, was the narrative about which Hakluyt himself had taken no ordinary pains: and which he printed separately from his general collection of voyages, so that it might be circulated privately, though he incorporated it into the work after it was completed.
So far, indeed, are we from finding any good authority for attributing the authorship of the Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake to Francis Pretty, one of his crew, as unhesitatingly advanced by Mr. Greenhow, that, on the contrary there is the strongest negative evidence that it was not written by a person of that name, unless we are prepared to admit that there were two individuals of that name, the one a native of Picardy, and vassal of the Sieur de Courtomer, the other an English gentleman, “of Ey in Suffolke;” the one a companion of Drake, in his voyage round the world in 1577–80, the other a companion of Cavendish, in his voyage round the world in 1586–88; the one the author of the Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, the other the writer of the Admirable and Prosperous Voyage of the Worshipful Master Thomas Candish.
Hakluyt, in his edition of 1589, gave merely “The Worthy and Famous Voyage of Master Thomas Candishe, made round about the Globe of the Earth in the space of two yeeres, and lesse than two months, begon in the yeere 1586,” which is subscribed at the end, “written by N. H.;” but in his edition of 1600, he published a fuller and more complete narrative, entitled, “The Admirable and Prosperous Voyage of the Worshipfull Master Thomas Candish, of Frimley, in the Countie of Suffolke, Esquire, into the South Sea, and from thence round about the circumference of the whole earth; begun in the yeere of our Lord 1586, and finished 1588. Written by Master Francis Pretty, lately of Ey, in Suffolke, a gentleman employed in the same action.” The author, in the course of the narrative, styles himself Francis Pretie, and says that he was one of the crew of the “Hugh Gallant, a barke of 40 tunnes,” which, with the Desire, of 120, and the Content, of 60 tons, made up Cavendish’s small fleet. This Suffolk gentleman, for several reasons, could not be the same individual as the Picard vassal of the lord of Courtomer, nor is it probable that he ever formed part of the crew of Drake’s vessel in the Famous Voyage, as he no where alludes to the circumstance, when he speaks of places which Drake visited, nor even when he describes the hull of a small bark, pointed out to them by a Spaniard, whom they had lately taken on board, in the narrowest part of the Straits of Magellan, “which we judged to be a bark called the John Thomas.” Now it is contrary to all probability that the writer of this passage should have been one of Drake’s crew, for the vessel, whose hull was seen on this occasion, was the Marigold, a bark of 50 tons, which had formed one of Drake’s fleet of five vessels, and had been commanded by Captain John Thomas, which fact would have been known to one of Drake’s companions, who could never have committed so gross a blunder as to confound the name of the ship with the name of the captain. That the circumstances of the loss of the Marigold made no slight impression upon the minds of Drake’s companions, is shown from its being alluded to in all the narratives of Nuño da Silva, Cliffe, and Fletcher, without exception.
Drake had succeeded in passing the Straits of Magellan with three of his vessels: the Golden Hind, his own ship; the Elizabeth, commanded by Captain Winter; and the Marigold, by Captain Thomas. On the 30th of September, 1578, the Marigold parted from them in a gale of wind, and was wrecked in the Straits. On the 7th of October the Elizabeth likewise parted company from the Admiral; she, however, succeeded in making her way back through the Straits, and arrived safe at Ilfracombe on the 7th of June, 1579. It is singular that, in all the three accounts, which are known to be written by companions of Drake, the separation of the Marigold, as well as of the Elizabeth, is alluded to; whereas, in the Famous Voyage, there is no allusion to the loss of the Marigold, but only to the separation of the Elizabeth, whose safe arrival in England made the fact notorious. If Hakluyt wrote the Famous Voyage, the general notoriety of the separate return of the Elizabeth would account for his not overlooking that circumstance, whilst he omitted all allusion to the Marigold, about which his information would be comparatively imperfect. If one of Drake’s own crew was the author, it is difficult to suppose that he would have carefully alluded to “their losing sight of their consort, in which Mr. Winter was,” who did not perish, and should omit all mention of the loss of the Marigold, which is spoken of in the World Encompassed “as the sorrowful separation of the Marigold from us, in which was Captain John Thomas, with many others of our dear friends.”
The course of this inquiry seems to justify the following conclusions: that the “Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake” is, strictly speaking, an anonymous work; that it is very improbable that it was compiled by one of Drake’s crew; on the contrary, Hakluyt’s own preface to his edition of 1589, seems to warrant us in supposing that he had himself been employed in preparing the narrative, which he printed separately from the rest of his work, but subsequently inserted into it. Hakluyt had most probably procured information from original sources, but he had certainly not access, in 1589, to what he subsequently considered to be more trustworthy sources, for he made various alterations in his narrative, in his edition of 1600. There is assuredly not the slightest ground for attributing it to Francis Pretty; and if M. Eyriés was the originator of this mistake, he must undoubtedly have confounded the Famous Voyage of Drake with the Famous Voyage