Page 34 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

lx INTRODUCTION.
goods of your Maiesties, in the Island of Vtias. Of the state that
I had in the end of the last yeere, I sent relation to your Maics-
tie, inserting a declaration of one Thomas, an English man, of
the goods that in the said Island hee and his companions had,
i a doubt that the four Englishmen were some of Lancaster’s
I and for this onely I will make a summarie relation of the case,
and the state of the Suite, by the which will appeare, that out of
England went three Shippes for the India orientall of Portugal/,
•i
which tooke three Portugall Shippes, subiects to your Maiestie,
whereof one of them came from the Citie of Goa, and from the
Captaine they tooke a great rich stone, which he said he carried
for your Maiestie, the proportion whereof went in the said Re­
lation. They had in them also many bagges of Royalls of eight
i;
and foure, for the pay of the Souldiers, which your Maiestie hath
1 in Garrison, in a Castle Frontire of the said India ; and the said
t to your Maiesties subiects : and by sicknes of the English-men,
English-men rob’d them of it, and much more goods appertaining
remained only foure, which in a boat put all the goods they
r,\. could, which they had robbed from your Maiestie and your
S subiects, and with it chanced to a Riuer in the Island of Vtias,1
f three leagues from this Island: where they tooke out their goods
on land, where their Boat was sunke and lost: so they remained
on th’ Island, with only one small Boat made of boords, which
I • they had taken from certaine Fisher-men, at the head of Saint
John of this Island : with the which they came for water hither,
and left one George, an English-man, one of the foure that arriued
in the said Island of Vtias.
The letter then goes on to narrate how this George,
being found by six Spaniards (named), told them of the
treasures ; whereupon these six resolved to murder the
English and steal the goods. They succeeded in killing
Richard, Daniel, and George ; but Thomas managed to
escape to the mainland of Puerto Rico on a log, and on
his information the murderers were arrested, tried, and
sentenced.
SJ •
m Now it is evident that these four men could not possibly
Fi have formed part of any of the crews of Wood’s ships.
fii The latter captured (as far as we know) only two Portu­
guese vessels, bound from Goa to Bengal to load rice.
:■!
Moreover, we have seen that the last of the three ships
i:l from Puerto Rico. It can scarcely be Mona (see footnote, infra).
1 I cannot identify this island, described as being three leagues
f;
U
INTRODUCTION. Ixi
foundered in the Bay of Bengal : any survivors, therefore,
could scarcely be heard of next in an island off Puerto
I Rico. But all the details given in this letter prove beyond
crew. The narratives of the voyage of the Edward Bona-
venture describe the capture and looting of two out of three
Portuguese ships encountered by her,bound from India for
Malacca (the “Castle Frontire” referred to above), one of
which was from Goa j1 and also mention the frightful
of disease among the ship’s company ; while
ravages
Edmund Barker, one of the narrators, after chronicling the
i stay of the two French ships, in which were the remnant of
Lancaster’s company, off San Domingo from February to
April, 1594, says:—“In this, meane while, there came a
shippe of Newhaven to the place where we were, whereby
we had intelligence of our seuen men, which wee left be-
hinde vs at the Isle of Mona,2 which was, that two of them
brake their neckes with ventring to take foules vpon the
cliffes ; other three were slaine by the Spaniards, which
came from Saint Domingo, vpon knowledge given by our
men which went away in the Edward; the other two this
of Newhaven had with him in his shippe, which
man
escaped the Spaniards bloodie hands.” The discrepancies
here are not of great importance ;3 and it is curious that
Purchas should have so blundered respecting the identity
of the men, and thus misled all subsequent writers.4
1 According to Barker, however, she had no real gems on board,
but only “false and counterfeit stones nor could the English find
any “roials of plate,” as they expected (Voyages of Sir James Lancaster,
p. 14).
2 Mona is a small island between Puerto Rico and San Domingo.
3 It will be noticed that Barker does not account for Thomas : per­
haps he was one of the two reported to have broken their necks while
1 bird-catching. No dates are given in Alcasar de Villa Senor’s letter
in connection with the incidents he mentions : but it is clear that
they were spread over several years.
4 One of the latest being Sir Wm. Hunter (see his History of
British India, vol. i, p. 234). It is not surprising that Thomas Astley,