it is stated that Drake left Mexican waters with the idea of crossing the Pacific to the Malucos islands, en route for the Cape of Good Hope, and chose "a northerly route to get a wind, after the Spanish fashion," yet there is good reason to believe that he was really in search of the Northwest Passage. During the month of May, 1579, he was sailing along the Californian coast. At the beginning of June he was off Cape Blanco in Oregon. And there he turned south again. Here is the description of his movements, taken from the "Famous Voyage": "The 5 day of June, being in 43 degrees toward the pole Arctike, we found the ayre so colde, that our men being grievously pinched with the same, complained of the extremetie thereof, and the further we went, the more the colde increased upon us. Whereupon we thought it best for that time to seeke the land, and did so, finding it not mountainous, but low plaine land, till we came within 38 degrees toward the line. In which height it pleased God to send us into a faire and good Baye, with a good wind to enter the same.” There is no doubt that they rounded Port Reyes and came to anchor in what is known as Drake's Bay. The difficult item to explain in the narration is the extraordinary severity of the June weather off the coast of Oregon. That hardened seamen like his crew should have found the cold insupportable in these waters at this mild season of the year is incredible, unless the climate has changed entirely during the intervening centuries. Either they went much further north, or he is "hedging." Notwithstanding the silence of the narration in regard to his intentions of making such a search, it is fairly well established that he followed this will-o'-thewisp. Maybe he disliked to confess that he had been foiled in a cherished project. Moreover, the confession might be supposed to lessen the glory of the great enterprise which he carried to completion, by making it the result of accident rather than of deliberate intention. The reason he alleges for taking the course he did-that he had in view a northern Spanish route when he left Guatulco-does not bear scrutiny, inasmuch as the Spaniards did not adopt such a route until nearly ten years later. Indeed, between 1580 and 1583, the Mexican and Philippine authorities were actually in search of a more southerly route than that taken by Urdaneta and Legazpi in the final conquest of the Philippines in 1563. At that time Urdaneta returned almost directly across the Pacific and approached land first in Southern California, sighting the hills of the now famous summer resort of Santa Catalina. The navigator despatched by the Governor of the Philippines to find a more southerly route, Captain Juan Roquillo de Castillo, did not get further than New Guinea. In 1584, however, Francisco de Gali, sent by the Viceroy of New Spain, Contreras, to discover a better route, struck the Japanese current or Kuro Siwo, "a very hollow water and stream running out of the north and northwest," and this became thereafter the established course of trans-Pacific navigation.* On the other hand it would have been strange had not Drake paid particular attention to the possibility of a Northwest passage. Its existence was believed in firmly during the sixteenth century; indeed, as early as 1500 a Portuguese navigator (Caspar Cortereal) asserted that he had discovered such a passage. In 1542 Ferrelo seems to have mistaken the drift from the Columbia river for the outflow coming from such a passage; and in 1561 Urdaneta, in a memorial to King Philip, referred to the rumor that the French had discovered a westward route between Labrador and the land north of it.2 Cartographers believed that Labrador lay right across from the northern coast of China. Drake must have made a bold attempt to find it, going north much further than the 43 degrees, and have turned back in disgust. There is some discrepancy between different narratives on this point. In Fletcher's "The World Encompassed of Francis Drake," published in London in 1628, it is stated at pp. 111-2 that the southern route, back by the way they came, was definitely abandoned after the capture of the Cacafuego; but that the other route, "the passage there was to be found about the northern parts of America from the South Sea into our own ocean,' offered “a nearer cut and better passage home." Besides, the discovery of its navigability would be a "good and notable service to their country." The third alternative by the Cape of Good Hope necessitated a long and tedious. voyage, "which would hardly agree with our good liking; we being so long from home already. We therefore all of us willingly hearkened and consented to our General's advice, which was, first to seek out some convenient place wherein to trim our ship, and store ourselves with wood and water and other provisions as we could get, and thenceforward to hasten on our intended journey for the discovery of the said passage, through which we might with joy return to our longed homes." They accordingly set forward on March 7 from the place where they were, off Cape San Francisco, 1 degree north of the line, and "shaped their course towards the Iland of Caines, with which we fell March 16." It was not until April 15 that they put in at the harbor of Guatulco in Mexico. "From Guatulco we departed the day following, viz., April 16, setting our course directly into the sea, whereon we sailed *Consult Richman, "California Under Spain and Mexico," Chap. II., and Appendix, p. 371. 2. Richman, page 18. 500 leagues in longitude to get a wind; and between that and June 3, 1400 leagues in all, till we came into 42 degrees of North latitude, where in the night following we found such alteration of heat, into extreme and nipping cold, that our men did grievously complain thereof." The ropes of their ship became stiff with cold, and they seemed to be "rather in the frozen zone than any way so near to the sun." They proceeded two degrees further north, and then put into shore, being forced thither by contrary winds. They were now in the height of 48 deg." and resolved to give up the enterprise. The "extremity of the cold would not permit us to go further North; and the winds being directly bent against us, having once gotten us under sail again, commanded us to the southward whether we would or no. It was under these conditions, creeping along the coast, where every hill, and none of them was very high, was covered with snow, "although it were June," that they finally found a suitable anchorage at Drake's Bay. The Hondius Map of the World, of date 1613 A. D., with Drake's course outlined, which is prefixed to a reprint of this booklet,*, is fairly correct as far as South America is concerned, but from Cape San Francisco, instead of showing marking a deflection to the island of Canno, and indicating the call that was made at the harbor of Guatulco, the line keeps free of the land till past the fortieth parallel. The Straits of Anian are relegated to the Arctic circle. Shepherd's Atlas makes Drake call not only at Panama, as I have already stated, but also at Acapulco, places that he was anxious to avoid, and then carries the line no further than Drake's Bay. The cold weather still continued during the six weeks they spent in and around the bay. Fletcher complains of the icy north and northwest winds which blew constantly. "Hence comes," he adds, "the general squalidness and barrenness of the country; hence comes it that in the midst of their summer the snow hardly departs from their very doors, but is never taken away from their hills at all; hence come these thick mists and stinking fogs, which increase so much the more by how much higher the pole is raised." *Consult "The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, Being his next Voyage to that to Nombre de Dios, collated with an unpublished manuscript of Francis Fletcher, Chaplain to the Expedition. With Appendices illustrative of the same Voyage and Introduction, W. S. W. Vaux, Esq., M. A., London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, MDCCCLIV." This volume contains a reprint of the original seventeenth publication. "The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, Being his next Voyage to that to Nombre de Dios formerly imprinted; Carefully collected out of the Notes of Master Francis Fletcher, Preacher in this employment, and divers others of his followers in the same; Offered now at last to publique view, both for the honour of the actor, but especially for the stirring up of heroick spirits, to benefit their Countrie and eternize their names by like noble attempts. London: Printed for Nicholas Bourne, and are to be sold at his shop at the Royal Exchange 1628. There is no indication whatever that Drake or his men discovered the wonderful bay of San Francisco, near as they were to it. They even made expeditions into the interior, but its glorious proportions never revealed themselves to their eyes. They shivered as if they had been, in the words of one of them, "at Wardhouse, in 72 deg. of North latitude." This man declared he had been there at the end of summer and had not suffered nearly so much. The natives were kindly, and regretted their departure, which took place on July 23. As they passed the Farallones, which they called the Islands of St. James, they laid in a plentiful supply of seals and birds. Then followed a long unbroken ocean voyage of sixty-eight days into another hemisphere. DRAKE'S BAY. Portus Nove Fœda corporum laceratione & crebris in montibus sacrificiis hujus Nova Albionis portus incolæ Draci jam bis coronati decessum deflent. The above side map is taken from Hondius's map, of date 1595, now in the British Museum. It will be noticed that the coast takes a southwestward trend in this map,-absent in the more recent map, -so as to suggest an enclosed bay with narrowed entrance, but that in other respects the bays are similar. There is absolutely no suggestion of San Francisco Bay or the Golden Gate in the Hondius map. |