Don Ulloa being sent to England, was confined at Fareham, a pleasant village at the bottom of Portsmouth harbour. 'And here,' says he, I must not omit the courtesy and generosity of captain Brett of the Sunderland, to all the prisoners of any rank, whom he not only admitted to his own table, but prevailed on the other officers to follow his good example; and who seemed to vie in civility towards us, and humanity towards the common men, sparing for nothing to alleviate our misfortunes."

Our author was committed to the care of Mr. Brookes, commissary for French prisoners, and paints his gratitude to him and to Mr. Rickman who acted in the same capacity for the Spaniards, in the most glowing colours. By the assistance of these gentlemen he was enabled to present a petition to the duke of Bedford, then first lord of tlfe admiralty, to obtain his papers; and the answer returned was honourable to Englishmen---they gave Ulloa to understand, that they were not at war with the arts and sciences, or their professors; that the British cultivated them, and that it was the glory of its ministers and great men to encourage and protect them. Soon after our author obtained permission to repair to London, that he might renew his solicitations with greater ease and effect. Here he met with the most distinguished attention from the great and the learned; and acknowledges his sense of the kindnesses he received in a manner that shews he deserved them.

His papers having been examined by Mr. Folkes, president of the Royal Society, who made a very favourable report, they were immediately delivered up to him; and as a more illustrious testimony of esteem, he was admitted into the Royal Society, as a reward for what he had done in the service of mankind, by contributing to the improvement of

science.

Don Ulloa, in summing up the favours brilliant testimony to the national credit:

received, gives this Actions like these,' says he, convinced me of the sincerity of the English, their benevolence, and disinterested complaisance. I observed the tempers, customs, government, and police of this praise-wor

thy nation, which, in its œconomical conduct, and social virtues, may serve as a pattern to the rest of the world.'

Being next presented with his liberty, which had been granted him on his first solicitation, our author embarked at Falmouth in the packet boat, and reached Madrid on the 26th of July, 1746.

Soon after his arrival, his sovereign ordered his papers to be published under his own patronage: and, from the authentic memoirs with which he favoured the world, the preceding pages have been compiled. We wish it always fell to our lot to record labours so meritorious, and to select from materials so interesting and correct.

THE

VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES

OF

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.

THIS celebrated English navigator, and brave naval officer, was the son of Edmund Drake, a clergyman, and was born at a village near Tavistock in Devonshire, in the year 1545. He was the eldest son of twelve brethren, and the father being distressed by so large a family, captain Hawkins, his mother's relation (afterwards the famous admiral Sir John Hawkins) kindly took him under his patronage, and gave him an education suitable to the sea service. Through the interest of his patron, at the age of eighteen, he was made purser of a ship trading to the bay of Biscay. At twenty, he made a voyage to Guinea; at the age of twenty-two, he was appointed captain of the Judith; and, in that capacity, he was in the harbour of St. Juan de Ulloa, in the gulf of Mexico; where he behaved very gallantly in the glorious action under Sir John Hawkins; and returned to England with a rising reputation, but totally destitute, having lost the little property he had acquired in his former station, by this unfortunate expedition, in consequence of the treachery of the Spaniards.

Soon after this, he conceived a design of making reprisals on the king of Spain; which, according to some, was put into his head by the chaplain of the ship; and, indeed, the case was clear in sea-divinity, says Dr. Campbell, that the subjects of the king of Spain had undone Mr. Drake, and therefore he was at liberty to take the best satisfaction he could on them in return.' This doctrine, however roughly preached, VOL. I.--(9)

2 B

was very taking in England; and, therefore, no sooner did he publish his design, than he had numbers of volunteers ready to accompany him, though not actuated by the same motives, and without any such pretence to colour their proceedings as he had.

In 1570, he made his first voyage with two ships, the Dragon and the Swan; and the next year, in the Swan alone: from which last expedition he returned safe, if not rich. Though we have no particular account of these two voyages, or what Drake performed in them, yet nothing is clearer than that captain Drake had two points in view. The one was, to inform himself perfectly of the situation and strength of some places of the Spanish West Indies; the other, to convince his countrymen, that, notwithstanding what had happened to captain Hawkins, in his last voyage, it was a thing very practicable to sail into these parts, and return in safety. For it is to be observed, that Hawkins and Drake separated in the West Indies; and that the former finding it impossible to bring all the crew home to England, had set part of them, with their own consent, ashore in the bay of Mexico; and, indeed, few of these finding their way home, the terror of such a captivity as they were known to endure had disheartened our seamen. But captain Drake, in these two voyages, having very wisely avoided coming to blows with the Spaniards, and bringing home sufficient returns to satisfy his owners, dissipated these apprehensions, and established his own character: so that, at his return from his second voyage, he found it no difficult matter to raise such a force as might enable him to perform what he had long meditated in his own mind, which otherwise he would never have been able to. effect.

Without loss of time, therefore, he laid the plan of a more important design; which he put in execution on the 25th of March, 1572: for, on that day, he sailed from Plymouth, in a ship called the Pascha, burden 70 tons; and his brother, John Drake, in the Swan, of 25 tons; their whole strength consisting of only 73 men and boys. But they were all provided with ammunition and provisions, and in case of an acci

dent happening to either of the ships, or an occasion presenting of approaching nearer to any place, than the ships could lie, they had three pinnaces on board, framed and fitted in such a dextrous manner, that they could easily be put together, by the ships' carpenters, when wanted.

The wind continuing favourable, they entered, June the 29th, between Guadaloupe and Dominica, and on the 6th of July saw the high-land of Santa Martha; then continuing their course, after having been becalmed for some time, they arrived at port Pheasant, so named by Drake in a former voyage, to the east of Nombre de Dios. Here he proposed to build his pinnaces, and was going ashore with a few men unarmed, but, discovering a smoke at a distance, ordered the other boat to follow him with a greater force. Then marching towards the fire, which was in the top of a high tree, he found a plate of lead nailed to another high tree, with an inscription engraved upon it by one Garret, an Englishman, who had left that place but five days before, and had taken this method of informing him that the Spaniards had been advertised of his intention to anchor at that place, and that it therefore would be prudent to make a very short stay there.

But Drake knowing how convenient this place was for his designs, and considering that the hazard and waste of time which could not be avoided in seeking another station, was equivalent to any other danger which was to be apprehended by the Spaniards, determined to follow his first resolution; only, for his greater security, he ordered a kind of palisade, or fortification, to be made, by felling large trees, and laying the trunks and branches one upon another by the side of the river.

On July 20, having built their pinnaces, and being joined by one captain Rawse, who happened to touch at the same place with a bark of 50 men, they set sail towards Nombre de Dois; and, taking two frigates at the island of Pines, were informed, by the negroes which they found in them, that the inhabitants of that place were in expectation of some soldiers, which the governor of Panama had promised, to defend thein from the Symerons, or fugitive negroes, who, having escaped