Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 15.djvu/350

 rauished with the suddaine ioy of this report as a man that hath escaped a great danger of the enemie, doth breake out into an insolent kinde of bragging of his valour at Sea, and heaping one lie vpon another, doth not cease vntill he hath drawen them into sequences, and so doth commende them vnto Peter the Doctor, as censor of his learned worke.

Secondly, the Generall doth write vnto the Doctor, that Francis Drake died for very griefe that he had lost so many barkes and men.

A thing very strange that the Generall or the Indian, whom hee doth vouch for his lie, should haue such speculation in the bodie of him whom they neuer saw, as to deliuer for truth vnto his countrie, the very cause or disease whereof hee died: and this second report of his is more grosse then the first.

For admit this precise affirming the cause of his death doth manifestly prooue that the Generall doth make no conscience to lie.

And as concerning the losse of any Barkes or men in our Nauie, by the valour of the Spaniard before Sir Francis Drake his death, we had none (one small pinnesse excepted) which we assuredly know was taken by chance, falling single into a fleete of fiue Frigats (of which was Generall Don Pedro Telio) neere vnto the Iland of Dominica, and not by the valour of Don Bernaldino: the which fiue Frigats of the kings afterwardes had the ill successe, for one of them we burnt in the harbour of S. Iuan de Puerto rico, and one other was sunke in the same harbour, and the other three were burnt amongst many other shippes at the taking of Cadiz. This I thinke in wise mens iudgements will seeme a silly cause to make a man sorrowe to death.

For true it is, sir Francis Drake died of the the fluxe which hee had growen vpon him eight dayes before his death, and yeelded vp his spirit like a Christian to his creatour quietly in his cabbin. And when the Generall shall suruey his losse, he shall finde it more then the losse of the English, and the most of his, destroyed by the bullet: but the death of Sir Francis Drake was of so great comfort vnto the Spaniard, that it was thought to be a sufficient amendes, although their whole fleete had bene vtterly lost.