Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/143

 1578.J VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. willed every man the next Sunday following- to prepare himself to receive the communion as Christian brethren and friends ought to do, which was done in very rever- end sort ; and so with good contentment every man went about his business.' 1 i The perils of the voyage were now about to com- mence. No Englishman had as yet passed Magellan's Straits. Cape Horn was unknown. Tierra del Fuego was supposed to be part of a solid continent which stretched unbroken to the Antarctic Pole. A single narrow channel was the only access to the Pacific then believed to exist. There were no charts, no records of past experi- ences. It was known that Magellan had gone through, but that was all. It was the wildest and coldest season of the year, and the vessels in which the attempt was to be made were mere cockleshells. They were taken on 1 ' There wanted not some,' says Camden, ' who gave out that Drake had a charge from Leicester to make away Doughty hy any colour what- soever, for that he had reported abroad that the Earl of Essex was made away by the cunning practices of Leicester.' The infamous charac- ter of Leicester gave occasion and presumptive credibility to many dark suggestions about him. Mendoza however, who inquired minutely into every particular of Drake's royage, mentions the execution and the causes of it, making no allusion to the favourite, but saying merely that the men were terrified by the storms near Cape Horn ; and that there was a mutiny of which Doughty was the leader. He adds, on the authority of "Winter, that Drake himself was the executioner : ' L la entrada del estrecho empeqaron a, tener grandes tormentos, que fue ocasion de amo- tiuarse los mas marineros, no queri- endo proseguir el viage. El Drake entendio ser la principal causa dello un gentilhombre ingles que iba CE su nao, y le prendio y pusd cargo, hacieudo jueces a los propios marine- ros, que le condenaron a muerte, y no queriendo ninguno darselo, fue el propio Drake el executor, cortandola por sus manos la cabe9a, y prosegui.6 su viage del estrecko.' Descifrada de Don Bernardino, 10 Junio, 1579 Pi-nancas