Gates of forreigne Lords then to tarry the good leisure of their own Magistrates Nor doe they beare so quietly the losse of some parcell confiscated abroad as the greater detriment which they suffer by some prowling Vice Admirall Customer or publique minister at their returne Whether this proceed from the Reverence which men yeild unto their proper Governour I will not here define or whether excesse of trouble in following their causes far from home or whether from despaire of such redresse as may be expected in their owne Country in the hoped reformations of disorders or whether from their more unwillingnesse to disturbe the Domesticall then the forreigne quiet by loud exclamations or whether perhaps their not daring to mutter against the Injustice of their owne Rulers though it were shamefull for feare of faring worse and of being punished for Scandalum Magnatum As slanderers of men in authority wheresoever it comes As there can be but one Allegeance so men are apt to serve no more then they needs must According to that of the Slave in an old Comoedie Non sum servus publicus my Master bought me for himself and I am not every mans man And this opinion there is no Prince unwilling to mainetaine in his owne Subjects Yea such as are most Rigorous to their owne Doe never find it safe to be better unto strangers because it were a matter of dangerous Consequence that the People should thinke all other Nations to be in better case then themselves The breife is Oppression in many places weares the Robes of Justice which Domineering over the naturalls may not spare strangers And strangers will not endure it but cry out unto their owne Lords for releife by the Sword Wherefore the Motive of Revenging Injuries is very strong though it meerly consist in the will of man without any inforcement of nature Yet the more to quicken it there is usually concurrent therewith A hopefull expectation of gaine For of the amends recovered Little or nothing returns to those that had suffered the wrong but commonly all runs into the Princes Coffers Such examples as was that of our late Queen Elizabeth of most famous memory are very rare Her Majestie when the goods of our English Merchants were attached by the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands And by King Philip in Spaine arrested Likewise the goods of the Low dutch here in England that amounted unto a greater value Neither was she contented that her Subjects should right themselves as well as they could upon the Spaniards by Sea But having brought King Philip within foure or five years to better reason though not so far as to Restitution She satisfied her owne Merchants to the full for all their losses out of the Dutchmens goods and gave back to the Duke what was remayning This among many thousand of her Royall Actions that made her glorious in all Nations though it caused even strangers in their speech and writing to extoll her Princely Justice to the skies yet served it not as a President for others of lesse vertue to follow It were more costly to take patterne from those Acts which gave Immortall renowne to that great Queen then to imitate the thirsty dealing of that Spanish Duke in the self same busines who kept all to his owne use or his Masters Restoring to the poore Dutch Merchants not one penny It falls out many times indeed that a Prince is driven to spend far more of his treasure in punishing by War the wrongers of his people Then the losse of his People did amount unto In such cases it is reason that he satisfy himself and let the people whereto commonly they are apt rest contented with the sweetnesse of revenge But when victory makes large amends for all it Royally becomes a Prince to satisfy those for whose satisfaction he undertooke the Warre For besides the purpose it were now to teach how victory should be used or the gaines thereof Communicated to the generall content This being only brought into shew that the profit thereby gotten is a stirring provocation to the redresse of Injuries by the sword As for the redresse of Injuries done unto Princes themselves it may conveniently though not alwayes for it were miserable injustice to deny leave to Princes of mainetaining their owne honour be referred unto the third motive of Arbitrary Warres which is meere Ambition This is and ever hath been that true cause of more Wars then have troubled the world upon all other occasions whatsoever though it least partake of nature or urgent necessity of State I call not here alone by the name of Ambition that vaine glorious humour which openly professeth to be none other and vaunts it selfe as an imperiall vertue for the examples are not many of that kind But where occasion of Warre is greedily sought or being very slight is gladly entertained for that increase of Dominion is hoped thereby we should rather impute the Warre to the scope at which it aimeth then to any idle cause pretended The Romans feared lest they of of Carthage by winning Messana should soone get the mastery over all Sicilie And have a faire entrance at pleasure into Italy Which to prevent they made a Warre upon the Carthaginians this feare I call Ambition Had they not trusted in their own Armes hoping thereby to enlarge their empire but being weaker and more afraid indeed they would have feared lesse For Colour of this Warre they tooke the Mamertines A Crewe of Theeves and cut throats into their protection Whom being their associats they must needs defend But had not their Ambition been mightier then their Justice they would have endeavoured to punish these Mamertines and not to protect them Innumerable are the like examples Know ye not said Ahab that Ramoth Gilead is ours He knew this before and was quiet enough till opinion of his forces made him looke into his right And of this nature though some worse then other in degree are claims of old forgotten tribute or of some acknowledgements due perhaps to the Ancestors of a vanquished King And long after challenged by the Heirs of the Conqueror broken titles to Kingdomes or Provinces Mainetenance of friends and Partizans pretenced wrongs and indeed whatsoever it pleased him to alleadge that thinketh his owne sword sharpest But of old time perhaps before Helen of Greece was borne Women have been the common Argument of these Tragedies As of late Ages in our parts of the world since the names of Guelf and Ghibeline were heard The right of St. Peter that is the Popes Revenews and Authority This last and other of the same kind I know not how patiently they will endure to be ranged among Ambitions quarrels For the Warre that hath such foundation will not only be reputed free from worldly Ambition Just and honourable But holy and meritorious having thereto belonging Pardon of Sins Release from Purgatory And the promises of the life to come As may be seen in the
he imposed the like penance upon England Also when our King Edward the First made Warre upon the Scots word came from Rome that he should surcease for that the Kingdome of Scotland belonged unto the Popes Chappell A great oversight it was of St. Peter that he did not accurse Nero and all heathen Princes whereby the Popes Chappell might have gotten all that the Devill offered and our Saviour refused Yet what need was there of such a banne Since Fryar Vincent of Valnarda could tell Atatalipa King of Peru That all the Kingdomes of the Earth were the Popes who had bestowed more then halfe thereof upon the King of Spaine If the Pope will have it so it must be so otherwise I should have interpreted that place in Genesis Increase and multiply and fill the Earth As spoken to Noah and his Children not as directed only to Tubal Homer and Phatto the supposed Fathers of the old Iberians Gothes and Moores of whom the Spanish blood is compounded But of such impudent presumption in disposing of countryes farre remote And whereto the sword must acquire a better title the mischiefe is not presently discerned It were well if his Holinesse had not loved to set the world in an uproare by nourishing of War among those that respected him as a Common Father His dispensing with oaths taken for agreement between one King and another or between Kings and Subjects doe speake no better of him For by what right was it That Fardinand of Arragon won the Kingdome of Navar why did not the Confederacie that was between Lewis the Twelfth of France and the Venetians hinder that King from warring upon Venice why did not the like between England and France hinder our King Henry the eighth for warring upon the same King Lewis Was it not the Pope who did set on the French to the end that himself might get Ravenna from the Venetians Why was it not the same Pope who afterwards upon desire to drive the French out of Italie excommunicated Lewis and his adherents By vertue of which Excommunication Fardinand of Arragon seized upon Navarr And served not the same Warrant to set our Henry upon the back of France But this was not our Kings fault more then all the peoples We might with shame confesse it if other Countries had not been as blindly superstitious as our Fathers That a Barque of Apples blessed by the Pope and sent hither for presents unto those that would be forward in the War upon France made all our English hasty to take Armes in such sort as the Italians wondred and laughed to see our men no lesse greedy of those Apples then Eve was of the forbidden fruit for which they were to hazard their lives in an unjust War Few ages have wanted such and more grievous examples of the Popes tumultuous disposition but these were amongst the last that fell out before his unholinesse was detected Now for his dispensing betweene Kings and their Subjects we need not seeke instances far from home He absolved our King Iohn of an oath given to his Barons and people The Barons and people he afterwards discharged of their alleageance to King Iohn King Henry the third had appeased this Land how wisely I say not by taking such an oath as his Father had done swearing as he was a Knight A Christian and a King But in a Sermon at Paules People were taught how little was to be reposed on such assurance the Popes dispensation being there openly read which pronounced that Oath voyde Good cause why For that King had the patience to live like neither Knight nor King But as the Popes Tenant and Rent-gatherer of England But when the same King adventured to murmure the Pope could threaten to teach him his duty with a vengeance And make him know what it was to winch and play the Fredericke Thus we see what hath been his Custome to oppresse Kings by their people And the people by their Kings yet this was for serving his owne turne Wherein had our King Henry the sixt offended him which King Pope Iulius would after for a little money have made a Saint Neverthelesse the Popes absolving of Rich Duke of Yorke from that honest oath which he had given by mediation of all the Land to that good King occasioned both the Dukes and the Kings ruine And therewithal those long and cruell Wars betweene the Houses of Lancaster and Yorke and brought all England into an horrible Combustion What he meant by this I know not unlesse to verifie the Proverbe Omnia Romae venalia I will not urge the dispensation whereby the Pope released King Philip the second of Spaine from the solemne Oath by which he was bound to maintaine the priviledges of the Netherlands though this Papall indulgence hath scarce as yet left working And been the cause of so many hundred thousands slaine for this last forty years in the Netherlands Neither will I urge the Pope encouraging of Henry the second and his sons to the last of them against the French Protestants the cause of the first three Civill Warres And lastly of the Leavyings of Byrons in which there hath perished no lesse number then in the Low-Countryes For our Country it affords an example of fresh memory since we should have had as furious Warre as ever both upon us and amongst us in the daies of our late famous Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth if Pope Pius his Bull Could have gored as well as it could Bellow Therefore it were not amisse to answer by a Herald the next Pontificall attempt of like nature rather sending defiance as to an enemy then publishing answers as to one that had here to doe though in deed he had never here to doe by any lawfull power either in Civill or Ecclesiasticall businesse after such time as Brittaine was won from the Romane Empire For howsoever it were ordered in some of the first holy generall Councills that the Bishop of Rome should be Patriarch over these quarters yea or it were supposed that the forged Canons by which he now challengeth more then precedency and primacie had also been made indeed yet could this little help his claime in Kingdomes that hold not of the Empire For those right holy Fathers as in matters of Faith they did not make truth But religiously expounded it so in matters of Ecclesiasticall Government they did not create provinces for themselves But ordered the Countries which they then had They were assemblies of all the Bishops in the Romane world and with the Romane dominion only they medled Requisite it is that the faith which they taught should be imbraced in all Countryes As it ought likewise to be entertained if the same had been in like sort illustrated not by them but by a generall Councill of all Bishops in the great Kingdome of the Abissines which is thought to have been Christian even in those daies But it was not requisite nor is that the Bishops of Abissines or of India
of any names except to supply such men as are wanting by death or sicknesse upon good testimonie under the hands of the Master the Boat swayne the Master Gunner the Purser and other Officers of the ship For it neerly concerns them to looke well thereunto having daily use of them Of Arms and Munition IT were a course very Comfortable defensive and honourable that there were for al his Majesties ships a proportion of Swords Targets of proof Moryons and Curatts of proofe allowed and set downe for every ship according to his burthen as a thing both Warlike and used in the King of Spains ships the want whereof as it is a great discouragement to men if they come to any neere fight or landing so would the use thereof be a great annoyance and terrifying to the enemy And herein should his Majesty need to be at no extra-ordinary expence For the abating of the superfluous great pieces in every Ship with their allowance for Powder Match and Shot would supply the cost of this provision in very ample manner Of Captains to serve in his Majesties Ships AT al such times as his Majest ships are imployed in service it were very convenient that such Gentlemen as are his Majesties owne sworne servants should be preferred to the charge of his Majesties Ships Choice being made of men of valour and Capacitie rather then to imploy other mens men And that other of his Majesties servants should be dispersed privately in those services to gaine experience and to make themselves able to take charge By the which means his Majestie should ever have Gentlemen of good accompt his owne servants Captains of his owne Ships instead of pettie Companions and other mens servants who are often imployed being indeed a great indignity to his Majesty to his shipping and to his owne Gentlemen For that in times past it hath been reputed a great grace to any man of the best sort to have the Charge of the Princes ship cōmitted unto him and by this means there would ever be true report made unto the Pr. what proceedings are used in the service which these meaner sort of Captains dare not doe for feare of displeasing the Lords their Masters by whom they are preferred or being of an inferiour quality have no good accesse to the Presence of the Prince whereby to have fit opportunity to make relation accordingly But now forasmuch as I doubt not but that some contrary spirits may or will object this as a sufficient reason to infirme all those points that I have have formerly spoken of and say unto me why should his Majesty and the State bee troubled with this needlesse Charge of keeping and maintaining so great a Navy in such exquisite perfection and readinesse the times being now peaceable and little use of Armes or Ships of Warre either at home or abroad but all safe and secure aswell by the uniting of the two Nations as by the peace which we hold with Spaine and all other Christian Princes To this I answer that this indeed may stand at the first sight for a prettie superficiall argument to bleare our eys and lull us asleep in security and make us negligent and carelesse of those causes from whence the effects of peace grows and by the vertue whereof it must be maintained But we must not flatter and deceive our selves to thinke that this Calme and Concord proceeds either from a setled immutable tranquillity in the world which is full of alterations and various humours or from the good affections of our late enemies who have tasted too many disgraces repulses and losses by our forces and shipping to wish our State so much felicity as a happy and peaceable government if otherwise they had power to hinder it And therefore though the sword be put into the Sheath we must not suffer it there to rust or stick so fast as that we shall not be able to draw it readily when need requires For albeit our enemies have of late years sought peace with us yet yet hath it proceeded out of the former tryall of our forces in times of war and Enmity And therefore we may well say of them as Anneus Pretor of the Latines said of the Roman Ambassadours who seemed curious and carefull to have the League maintained betweene them which the Roman estate was not accustomed to seeke at their neighbours hands and thereupon saith this Anneus unde haec illis tanta modestia nisi ex cognitione virium nostrarum suarum For with the like consideration and respect have our late enemies sought to renew the ancient friendship and peace with us And well we may be assured that if those powerfull means whereby we reduced them to that modesty and curtesie as to seeke us were utterly laid aside and neglected so as we could not againe upon occasion readily assume the use and benefit of them as we have done those proud mastering spirits finding us at such advantage would be more ready and willing to shake us by the ears as enemies then to take us by the hands as friends And therefore far be it from our hearts to trust more to that friendship of strangers that is but dissembled upon policy and necessity then to the strength of our owne forces which hath been experienced with so happy successe I confesse that peace is a great blessing of God and blessed are the Peacemakers and therefore doubtlesse blessed are those means whereby peace is gained and maintained For well we know that God worketh all things here amongst us mediatly by a secondary means The which meanes of our defence and safety being shipping and Sea-Forces are to be esteemed as his guifts and then only availeable and beneficiall when he withall vouchsafeth his grace to use them aright FINIS Sir Walter Rawleigh his Apologie IF ill successe of this Enterprise of mine had bin without Example I should have needed a large discourse and many arguments for my Justification But if the atempts of the greatest Princes of Europe both among themselves and against the great Turk are in all moderne Histories left to every eye to peruse It is not so strange that my selfe being but a private man and drawing after me the chaines and Fetters whereunto I have been thirteen yeares tyed in the Tower being unpardoned and in disgrace with my Soveraigne Lord have by other mens errours failed in the attempt I undertooke For if that Charles the Fifth returned with unexampled losse I will not say dishonour from Algire in Africa If King Sebastian lost himselfe and his Army in Barbary If the invincible Fleet and forces of Spaine in Eighty Eight were beaten home by the Lord Charles Howard Admirall of England If Mr. Strozzi the Count Brizack the Count of Vinnnoso and others with the Fleet of fifty eight sayle and six thousand Souldiers encountered with far lesse numbers could not defend the Terceres Leaving to speake of a world of other attempts furnished by
come to us and now I purpose God willing without delay to visit the Myne which is not eight miles from the towne sooner I could not goe by reason of the murmurings the discords and vexations wherewith the Serjeant Major is perpetually tormented and tyred having no man to assist him but my selfe only things are now in some reasonable order and so soone as I have made tryall of the Myne I will seeke to come to your Lordship by the way of the River To goe and to search the Channels that if it be possible our Ships may shorten their course for Trinidado when time serves by those passages I have sent your Lordship a parcell of scattered papers I reserve a Carte Loade one roule of Tobacco one Tortoyse and some Oranges and Limmons praying God to give you strength and health of body and a mind armed against all extreamities I rest ever to be commanded this 8. of January 1617. Your Lordships KEYMIS Now it seemes that the death of my Son fearing also as he told me when he came to Trinidado that I was either dead of my first sicknesse or that the news of my Sonnes death would have hastened my end made him resolve not to open the Myne to the which he added for excuse and I thinke it was true that the Spaniards being gone off in a whole body lay in the Woods betweene the Myne and their passage that it was impossible except they had bin beaten out of the Country to passe up the Woody and Craggy Hills without the losse of those Commanders which should have lead them who had they been slaine the rest would easily enough have bin cut in pieces in their retreate for being in possession of the towne which they guarded with the greatest part of three Companies they had yet their handfull to defend themselves from fireing and the daily and nightly Alarums wherewith they were vexed He also gave forth the excuse that it was impossible to lodge any Companies at the Myne for want of Victuall which from the towne they were not able to carry up the mountaine their Companies being divided He therefore as he told me thought it a greater error to discover it to the Spaniards themselves neither being able to worke it nor possesse it then to excuse himselfe to the Company said that he could not find it all which his fancies when I received and before divers of the Gentlemen disavowed his ignorance for I told him That a blind man might find it by the marks which himself had set down under his hand and that I told him that his care of loosing so many men in passing through the Woods was but fained for after my Sonne was slaine I knew that he had no care at all of any man surviving and therefore had he brought to the King but one hundred weight of the oare though with the losse of one hundred men He had given his Majesty satisfaction preserved my reputation and given our Nation encouragement to have returned this next yeare with greater force and to have held the Country for his Majesty to whom it belonged and of which himselfe had given the testimony that besides the excellent ayre pleasantnesse healthfulnesse and riches it hath plenty of Corne Fruits Fish Fowle wild and tame Beeves Horses Sheepe Hogs Deeres Coneys Hares Tortoyses Armadiles Wanaes Oyles Hony Wax Potatoes Suger Canes Medicaments Balsamum Simples Gums and what not but seeing he had followed his owne advice and not mine I should be forced to leave him arguments with the which if he could satisfy his Majesty and the State I should be glad of it though for my part he must excuse me to justify it that he if it had pleased him though with some losse of men might have gone dâ—â—ectly to the place with that he seemed greatly discontent and so he continued divers dayes afterward he came to me in my Cabbin and shewed me a Letter which he had written to the Earl of Arundell to whom he excused himself for not discovering of the Myne using the same arguments and many others which he had done before and prayed me to allow of his Apology but I told him that he had undone me by his obstinacy and that I would not favour or collour in any sort his former folly He then asked me whether that were my resolution I answered that it was he then replyed in these words I know not then Sir what course to take and went out of my Cabbin into his own in which he was no sooner entred but I heard a Pistoll goe off I sent up not suspecting any such thing as the killing of himselfe to know who shot a Pistoll Keymis himself made answer lying on his Bed that he had shot it off because it had been long charged with which I was satisfied some half houre after this the Boy going into his Cabbin found him dead having a long knife thrust under his left pap through his heart and his Pistoll lying by him with which it appeared that he had shot himselfe but the Bullet lighting upon a rib had but broken the rib and went no further Now he that knew Keymis did also know that he was of that obstinate resolution and a man so far from caring to please or satisfie any man but my selfe as no mans opinion from the greatest to the least could have perswaded him to have laid violent hands on himselfe neither would he have done it when he did it could he have said unto me that he was ignorant of the Place and knew no such Myne for what cause had I then to to have rejected his excuses or to have laid his obstinacy to his charge thus much I have added because there are some Puppies which have given it out that Keymis slew himselfe because he had seduced so many Gentlemen and others with an imaginary Myne but as his Letter to me the 8. of Ianuary proves that he was then resolved to open it and to take off all these kinds of objections Let Captaine Charls Parker Captaine George Ralegh and Captaine King all living and in England be put to their oaths whether or no Keymis did not confesse to them comming down the River at a place where they cast anker that he could from that place have gone to the Myne in two hours I say then that if the opening of the Myne had bin at that time to any purpose or had they had had any victualls left then to bring them away or had they not been hastned by seeing the King of Spaines Letters before they came to my hands which I am assured Keymis had seene who delivered them to me whereof one of them was dated at Madrill the 17 of March before I left the River of Thames and with it three other dispatches with a Commission for the strengthning of Orrenoque with 150 Souldiers which should have come downe the River from the new Kingdome of Granada and one other 150 from Puerto Rico with
Kings and Princes If Sir Francis Drake Sir Iohn Hawkins and Sir Thomas Baskervile men for their experience and valour as Eminent as England had any strengthned with divers of her Majesties ships and fild with Souldiers at will could not possesse themselves of the Treasure they sought for which in their view was imbarked in certaine Frigotts at Puerto Rico yet afterward they were repulsed with fifty Negroes upon the Mountains of Vasques Numius or Sierra de Capira in their passage towards Panania If Sir Iohn Norris though not by any fault of his failed in the attempts of Lysbone and returned with the losse by sicknesse and otherwise of eight thousand men What wonder is it but that mine which is the last being followed with a company of Voluntiers who for the most part had neither seen the Sea nor the Warres who some forty Gentlemen excepted had we the very scumme of the World Drunkards Blasphemers and such others as their Fathers Brothers and freinds thought it an exceeding good gaine to be discharged of them with the hazard of some thirty forty or fifty pounds knowing they could not have liv'd a whole yeare so cheape at home I say what wonder is it if I have failed where I could neither be present my selfe nor had any of the Commanders whom I most trusted living or in state to supply my place Now where it was bruted both before my departure out of England and by the most men beleived that I meant nothing lesse then to go to Guiana but that being once at liberty and in mine owne power having made my way with some Forraigne Prince I would turne Pyratt and utterly forsake my Countrey My being at Guiana my returning into England unpardoned and my not takeing the spoile of the Subj of any Christian Prince hath I doubt not detroyed that Opinion But this is not all for it hath been given out by an hypocritticall Theife who was the first Master of my shipp And by an ungratefull Youth which waited upon me in my Cabbin though of honourable worthy Parents and by others That I carryed with me out of England twenty two thousand peices of twenty two shillings the peice and thererefore needed not or cared not to discover any Mine in Guiana nor make any other attempt elsewhere Which Report being carried secretly from one to an other in my ship and so spread through all the ships in the Fleet which staid with me at Trenidado while our Land-Forces were in Guiana had like to have been my utter overthrow in a most miserable fashion For it was consulted when I had taken my Barge and gone a shoare either to discover or otherwise as I often did That my ship should have set saile and left me there where either I must have suffered Famine been eaten with wilde beasts or have fallen into the hands of the Spaniards and been flayed alive as others of the English which came thither but to trade only had formerly been To this Report of Riches I make this Protestation That if it can be prooved either now or hereafter that I had in the world either in my keeping or in my power either directly or indirectly in trust or otherwise above one hundred peices when I departed London of which I had left forty five peices with my wife and fifty five I carried with me I acknowledge my selfe for a Reprobate a Villaine a Traitor to the King and the most unworthy man that doth live or ever hath liv'd upon the earth Now where the Captaines that left me in the Indies and Captaine Baily that ran away from me at Cancerota have to excuse themselves objected for the first That I lingered at Plimouth when I might have gone thence and lost a faire Wind and time of the yeare or to that effect It is strange that men of fashion and Gentlemen should so grosly bely their owne knowledge And that had not I lived nor returnd to have made answer to this Faction yet all that know us in Plimouth and all that we had to deale withall knew the contrary For after I had stayed at the Isle of Wight divers daies the Thunder Commanded by Sir Warram St. Leger by the negligence of her Master was at Lee in the Thames and after I arrived at Plimouth Captaine Pennington was not come then to the Isle of Wight and being arrived there and not able to redeeme his Bread from the Bakers he rode back to LONDON to intreat help from my wife to pay for it who having not so much money to serve his turne she wrote to Mr. Wood of Portsmouth and gave him her word for thirty pounds which shee soone after payd him without which as Pennington himselfe protested to my wife he had not bin able to have gone the journey Sir Iohn Ferne I found there without all hope of being able to proceed having nor men nor mony and in great want of other provision insomuch as I furnished him by my Cozen Herbert with a hundred pounds having supplied himselfe in Wales with a hundred pounds before his coming to Plimouth and procured him a third hundred pound from the worthy and honest Deane of Exeter Doctor Sutcliffe Captaine Whitney whome I also stayed for had a third part of his victualls to provide insomuch as having no mony to help him withall I sold my Plate in Plimouth to supply him Baily I left at the Isle of Wight whose arrivall I also attended here some ten or twelve daies as I remember and what should move Baily only to leave me as he did at the Canaries from whence he might have departed with my love and leave and at his returne to do me all the wrong he could devise I cannot conceive he seemed to me from the begining not to want any thing he only desired of me some Ordnance and some iron-bound Caske and I gave it him I never gave him ill language nor offered him the least unkindnesse to my knowledge It is true that I refused him a French Shallop which he tooke in the Bay of Portingall outward bound and yet after I had bought her of the French and paid fifty Crownes ready mony for her if Baily had then desired her he might have had her But to take any thing from the French or from any other nation I meant it not True it is that as many things succeeded both against Reason and our best endeavours So it is most commonly true that men are the cause of their owne misery as I was of mine when I undertooke my late enterprise without a pardon for all my Company having heard it avowed in England before they went that the Commission I had was granted to a man who was Non Ens in law so hath the want thereof taken from me both Armes and Actions Which gives boldnesse to every petty Companion to spread Rumours to my Defamation and the wounding of my Reputation in all places where I cannot be present to make them Knaves and