give commonly a willing eare And in this case I think it was that the great Cardinall Francis de Amiens who governed Spaine in the minority of Charls the fift hearing tell that 8000. Spaniards were lost in the enterprise of Algier under Don Diego de Vera made light of the matter Affirming that Spaine stood in need of such evacuation forreigne Warre serving as King Fardinard had been wont to say like a potion of Rubarbe to wash away Choler from the body of the Realme Certainly among all Kingdomes of the earth we shall scarce find any that stands in lesse need then Spaine of having the veines opened by an enemies sword The many Colonies which it sends abroad so well preserving it from swelling humors Yet is not that Country thereby dispeopled but mainteineth still growing upon it like a tree from whose plants to fil a whole Orchard have bin taken as many as it can well nourish And to say what I think if our King Edward the third had prospered in his French Wars and peopled with English the Towns which he won As he began at Calice driving out the French the Kings his Successors holding the same course would by this time have filled all France with our Nation without any notable emptying of this Island The like may be affirmed upon like suspition of the French in Italy or almost of any others as having been verified by the Saxons in England and Arabians in Barbarie What is then become of so huge a multitude as would have over spread a great part of the Continent surely they dyed not of old age nor went out of the world by the ordinary wayes of nature But famine and contagious diseases the sword the halter and a thousand mischiefs have Consumed them Yea many of them perhaps were never borne for they that want means to nourish Children will abstaine from marriage or which is all one they cast away their bodies upon rich old women or otherwise make unequall or unhealthy Matches for gaine or because of poverty they thinke it a blessing which in nature is a curse to have their wives barren Were it not thus Arithmeticall progression might easily demonstrate how fast mankind would increase in multitude overpassing as miraculous though indeed naturall that example of the Israelites who were multiplyed in 215. yeares from seaventie unto 600000. able men Hence we may observe that the very propagation of our kind hath with it a strong insensive even of those daily Wars which afflict the earth And that Princes excusing their drawing the sword by devised pretences of necessity speake often more truly then they are aware there being indeed a great necessity though not apparent as not extending to the generality but resting upon private heads Wherefore other cause of Warre meerly naturall there is none then want of roome upon the earth which pinching a whole nation begets the remedilesse Warre vexing only some number of particulars It draws on the Arbitrary But unto the kindling of Arbitrary Warre there are many other motives The most honest of these is feare of harme and prevention of danger This is just and taught by nature which labours more strongly in removing evill then in pursuite of what is requisite unto her good Neverthelesse because Warre cannot be without mutuall violence It is manifest that allegation of danger and feare servâ—s only to excuse the suffering part the wrong doer being carried by his owne will So the Warre thus caused proceeds from nature not altogether but in part A second motive is Revenge of injury susteined This might be avoided if all men could be honest otherwise not For Princes must give protection to their Subjects and adherents when worthy occasion shall require it else will they be held unworthy and unsufficient then which there can be to them no greater perill Wherefore Caesar in all deliberations where difficulties and dangers threatned on the one side and the opinion that there should be in him Parum Praesidii little safeguard for his friends was doubted on the other side alwayes chose rather to venture uâ—on extreamities then to have it thought that he was a weake protector Yea by such maintenance of their dependants Many Noblemen in all formes of Government and in every mans memory have kept themselves in greatnesse with little help of any other vertue Neither have meere Tyrants been altogether carelesse to mainetaine free from oppression of strangers those Subjects of theirs whom themselves have most basely esteemed and used as no better then slaves For there is no master that can expect good service from his bondslaves if he suffer them to be beaten and daily ill intreated by other men To remedy this it were needfull that Justice should every where bee duly ministred aswell to strangers as to Denizons But contrariewise we find that in many Countreys as Muscovie and the like the Laws or the Administration of them are so far from giving satisfaction as they fill the generall voice with complaint and exclamation Sir Thomas Moore said whether more pleasantly or truely I know not that a trick of Law had no lesse power then the wheele of fortune to lift men up or cast them downe Certainly with more patience men are wont to endure the losses that befell them by meere casualty then the damages which they susteine by means of injustice Because these are accompanied with sense of indignity whereof the other are free when Robbers break open a mans house and spoile it they tell the owner plainly that money they want and money they must have But when a Judge corrupted by reward hatred favour or any other passion takes both house and Land from the rightfull owner And bestowes them upon some friend of his owne or of his favorite He saies that the rules of Justice will have it so that it is the voice of the Law the Ordinance of God himselfe And what else doth he herein then by a kind of Circumlocution tell his humble suppliants that he holds themselves Idiots or base wretches not able to get releife must it not astonish and vex withall any man of a free spirit when he sees none other difference betweene the Judge and the Theefe then in the manner of performing their exploits as if the whole being of Justice consisted in point of formality In such case an honest Subject will either seeke remedy by ordinary courses or awaite his time untill God shall place better men in office and call the oppressors to account But a stranger wil not so he hath nothing to do with the affairs of Barbary neither concerns it him what officer be placed or displaced in Taradante or whether Mulisidian himself can contemne the Kingdome his Ship and goods are unjustly taken from him and therefore he will seeke leave to right himselfe if he can and returne the injury ten fold upon the whole Nation from which he received it Truth it is that men are sooner weary to dance attendance at 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
been able to be siege any place of theirs to which he must have transported his armies by his Gallies The Genowaies were also exceeding powerfull by Sea and held many places in the East and contended often with the Venetians for superiority destroying each other in a long continued Sea Warre Yea the Genowaies were the most famous Mercenaries of all Europe both by Sea and Land for many years The French assisted themselves by Land with the Crosbowers of Genoa against the English namely at the Battaile of Cressie The French had 12000 Crosbowers Genowaies by Sea With their great ships called the Carrecks of Genoa they alwayes strengthned their Fleets against the English But after Mahomet the second had taken Constantinople they lost Caffa and all Taurica Chersonesus with the whole Trade of the Euxine Sea and although they sent many supplies by the Hellespont yet having often felt the smart of the Turks Cannon they began to slack their succours and were soone after supplanted yet doe the Venetians to this day well mainetaine their estate by their Sea forces and a great losse it is to the Christian Common-weale in generall that they are lesse then they were And a precipitate Counsell it was of those Christian Kings their Neighbours when they joined in League against them seeing they then were and they yet are the strongest Rampiers of Europe against the Turks But the Genowaies have now but a few Gallyes being altogether degenerate and become Merchants of mony and the Spanish Kings bankers But all the States and Kingdomes of the world have changed forme and pollicy The Empire it selfe which gave light to all principallities like a Pharo's or high Tower to Seamen is now sunck downe to the levell of the soyle The greatnesse which it gave to the Church of Rome as before proved was it which made it selfe little in hast And therefore truely said Imperium amore Religionis seipsum Exhausisse The Empire being also elective and not successive The Emperors in being made profit of their owne times and sold from the Empire many Signiories depending on it and at so easy a rate as Lucca freed it self for ten thousand Crownes and Florence for six thousand Crowns The rest the Popes then the Hauses and lastly the Turks have in effect ruined And in which severall Inundations many pieces have been recovered by other Princes and States As Basill Zurick and Bearne by the Switzers omitting many others Metz Tholouse Verdum by the French Groigne Aix la Chapple Zuphen Deuenter Newengen in Gilderland Wesell Antwerpe And many other places by the Spaniards and by the States Dantzick and other townes of importance by the Polack Insomuch as it is now become the most confused estate of the world Consisting of an Empire in title with territory who can ordaine nothing of importance but by a dyet or assembly of the Estates of many free Princes Ecclesiasticall and Temporall in effect of equall force divers in Religion and faction and of free Cities and Hanstownes whom the Princes doe not more desire to Command then they scorne to obey Notwithstanding being by farre lesse then they were in number and lesse in force and Reputation as they are not greatly able to offend others so have they enough to doe being seated farre asunder to defend themselves of whom hereafter more particularly The Cassilians in the meane while are growne great and by mistaking esteemed the greatest Having by Marriage Conquest practize and purchase devowred all Kingdomes within Spaine with Naples Sicilie Millaine and the Netherlands And many places belonging to the Empire and the Princes thereof Besides the Indies East and West The Islands of the West Ocean and many places in Barbary Guiena Congo and else where France hath also enlarged it self by the one half and reduced Normandy Brittaine and Aquitaine withall that the English had on that side the Sea together with Languedocke Foix Armignac Beerne and Dolphine For this Kingdome of great Brittaine it hath had by his Majesty a strong addition The posterne by which we were so often heretofore entered and surprised is now made up and we shall not hereafter need the double face of Ianus to looke North and South at once But there is no stare growne in hast but that of the united provinces and especially in their Sea forces and by a contrary way to that of France or Spaine the latter by Invasion the former by oppression For I my self may remember when one ship of her Majesties would have made forty Hollanders strike sayle and to come to Anchor They did not then dispute De mari libero but readily acknowledg'd the English to be Domini maris Brittanici That we are lesse powerfull then we were I doe hardly beleive it For although we have not at this time 135 ships belonging to the subjects of 500 tuns each ship as it is said we had in the 24. yeare of Queen Elizabeth at which time also upon a generall view and muster there were found in England of all men fit to beare armes eleaven hundred and seaventy two thousand yet are our Merchants ships now farre more warlike and better appointed then they were and the Navy Royall double as strong as then it was For these were the ships of her Majesties Navy at that time 1. The Triumph 2. The Eliz Ionas 3. The white Beare 4. The Phill and Mary 5. The Bonaventure 6. The Golden Lion 7. The Victory 8. The Revenge 9. The Hope 10. The Mary Rose 11. The Dreadnaught 12. The Minion 13. The Swiftsure To which there hath been added 14. The Antelope 15. The Foresight 16. The Swallow 17. The Handmaide 18. The Gennett 19. The Barque of Bullen 20. The Ayde 21. The Achates 22. The Falcon. 23. The Tyger 24. The Bull. We have not therefore lesse force then we had the fashion and furnishing of our Ships Considered For there are in England at this time 400. saile of Merchants fit for the Wars which the Spaniards would call Gallions to which we may adde 200 saile of Crumsters or hoyes of Newcastle which each of them will beare six Demiculverins and foure Sakers needing no other addition of building then a slight spar Decke fore and afte as the Seamen call it which is a slight Decke throughout the 200 which may be chosen out of 400 by reason of their ready staying and turning by reason of their windwardnesse and by reason of their drawing of little water And they are of extreame vantage neere the shoare And in all Bayes and Rivers to turne in and out These I say alone well manned and well Conducted would trouble the greatest Prince of Europe to encounter in our Seas For they stay and turne so readily As ordering them into small squadrons three of them at once may give their broad sides upon any one great ship or upon any Angle or side of an enemies Fleet They shall be able to continue a perpetuall volley of Demiculverins without intermission And either sinck
what it will let not them deceive themselves in believing that they can make themselves masters of the Sea For certainly the shipping of England with the great squadron of his Majesties Navy Royall are able in despight of any Prince or State in Europe to Command the great and large Field of the Ocean But as I shall never thinke him a Lover of this Land or of the King that shall perswade his Majesty from imbracing the amity of the States of the united Provinces For his Majesty is no lesse safe by them then they invincible by him So I would wish them Because after my duty to mine owne Soveraigne and the love of my Country I honour them most That they remember and consider it that seeing their passage and Repassage lyes through the Brittish Seas that there is no Port in France from Callice to Flushing that can receive their ships that many times outward by Westerly winds and ordinarily homewards not only from the East Indies but from the Straits and from Spaine all Southerly winds the Brises of our Clymate thrust them of necessity into the Kings ports how much his Majesties favour doth concerne them for if as themselves confesse in their last treaty of Truce with the Spaniards They subsist by their trades the disturbance of their trades which England can only disturbe will also disturbe their subsistance The rest I will omit because I can never doubt either their gratitudes or their wisdomes For our New-castle trade from which I have digressed I refer the Reader to the Author of the trades increase a Gentleman to me unknowne But so far as I can judge he hath many things very considerable in that short treaty of his yea both considerable and praise worthy and among the rest the advise which he hath given for the maintenance of our Hoyes and Carvills of Newcastle which may serve us besides the breeding of Marriners for good ships of Warre and of exceeding advantage and certainly I cannot but admire why the Impositions of five shillings should any way dishearten them seeing there is but one Company in England upon whose trade any new payment are layd But that they on whom it is laid raise profit by it The Silkemen if they pay his Majesty twelve pence upon a yard of Sattin they not only raise that twelve pence but they impose twelve pence or two shillings more upon the subject so doe they upon all they sell of what kind soever as all other Retaylers doe of what quality or profession soever And seeing all the Maritimate provinces of France and Flanders all Holland and Zealand Embden and Breame c. Cannot want our New-castle or our Welsh Coales The Imposition cannot impoverish the transporter but that the buyer must make payment accordingly And if the Impositions laid on these things whereof this Kingdome hath no necessary use as upon Silkes Velvets Gold and Silver Lace and cloaths of Gold and Silver Cut works Cambricks and a world of other trumperyes doth in nothing hinder their vent here But that they are more used then ever they were to the utter impoverishing of the Land in generall and of those Poppinjayes that value themselves by their out sides and by their Players coats Certainly the imposing upon Coales which other Nations cannot want can be no hinderance at all to the Newcastlemen but that they may raise it againe upon the French and other Nations as those Nations themselves doe which fetch them from us with their owne shipping For conclusion of this Chapter I say that it is exceeding lamentable that for any respect in the world seeing the preservation of the State and Monarchie doth surmount all other respects that strangers should be permitted to eat us out by exporting and importing both our owne Commodities and those of Forreigne Nations For it is no wonder we are overtopped in all the trades we have abroad and far off Seeing we have the grasse cut from under our feet in our fields and pastures FINIS A Discourse of the Originall and fundamentall cause of Naturall Customary Arbitrary Voluntary and necessary War with the misery of invasive Warre That Ecclesiasticall Prelates have alwayes been subject to Temporall Princes and that the Pope had never any lawfull power in England either in Civill or Ecclesiasticall businesse after such time as Brittaine was won from the Roman Empire THe ordinary Theme and Argument of History is War which may be defined the exercise of violence under Soveraigne Command against withstanders force Authority and resistance being the essentiall parts thereof violence limited by authority is sufficiently distinguisht from Robbery and the like outrages yet consisting in relation towards others It necessarily requires a supposition of resistance whereby the force of War becomes different from the violence inflicted upon Slaves or yeilding Malefactors as for Armes Discipline and whatsoever else belongeth to the making of War prosperous they are only considerable in degree of perfection since naked savages fighting disorderly with stones by appointment of their Commanders may truly and absolutely be said to War Neverthelesse it is true that as the Beasts are armed with fierce teeth pawes horns and other bodily instruments of much advantage against unweaponed men so hath reason taught man to strengthen his hand with such offensive Armes as no creature else can well avoid or possibly resist And it might seeme happy if the sword the Arrow the Gun with many terrible Engines of death could be wholly imployed in the exercise of that Lordly rule which the Lord of all hath given to mankind over the rest of living things But since in humane reason there hath no meanes been found of holding all mankind at peace within it self It is needfull that against the wit and subtilty of man we oppose not only the bruit force of our bodyes wherein many Beasts exceed us but helping our strength with art and wisdome strive to excell our enemies in those points wherein man is excellent over other Creatures The necessity of War which among humane Actions is the most lawlesse hath some kind of affinity and neere resemblances with the necessity of Law For there were no use at all either of War or of Law If every man had prudence to conceive how much of right were due both to and from himselfe and were withall so punctually just as to performe what he knew requisite and to rest contented with his owne But seeing that no conveyance of Land can be made so strong by any skill of Lawyers with multiplicity of clauses and provisoes That it may be secure from contentious Avarice and the malice of false seeming Justice It is not to bee wondered that the great Charter whereby God bestowed the whole earth upon Adam And confirmed it unto the Sons of Noah being as breife in word as large in effect hath bred much quarrell of interpretation Surely howsoever the Letter of that Donation may be unregarded by the most of men yet the sense
in vassallage unto themselves Now this could not satisfie the ambition of that See which gloried falsly to be the only See Apostolique For as the Reputation of the Romane Prelats grew up in those blind ages under the Westerne Emperours much faster then true piety could raise it in former times when better Learning had flourished So grew up in them withall a desire of amplifying their power that they might be as great in temporall forces as mens opinion have formed them in spirituall matters Immediately therefore upon the death of Charlemaine they began to neglect the Emperours consent in their Elections And finding in them that afterwards reigned of the house of France either too much patience or too much weakenesse they were bold within seaventy years to decree That in the Creation of Popes the Emperour should have nothing at all to doe Having obteined this It followed that they should make themselves Lord over the whole Clergie in all Kingdomes But the worke was great and could not be accomplished in hast for they were much disturbed at home by the People of Rome who seeing about Fifty Popes or rather as mainetainers of the Papacie would now have them called Monsters to succeed one another and attaine by the faction of Cut-throats and Strumpets St. Peters Chaire despised that hypocrisy which the world abroad did Reverence as holinesse Likewise the Empire falling from the line of Charles to the mighty house of Saxonie was so strongly upheld by the first Princes of that race as it greatly curbed the ambition of those aspiring Prelats Yet no impediment could alwaies be of force to withstand the violence of seeming sanctity The Polonians Hungarians and some other farre removed Nations had yeilded themselves in subjection more then meerely spirituall even to those Popes whom Italie knew to be detestable men As for the Romane Citizens they were chastised by the sword and taught to acknowledge the Pope their Lord though they knew not by what right Long it was indeed ere they could with much adoe be throughly tamed Because they knowing the Lewdnesse of their Prelate and his Court their devotion unto him the trade by which now they live was very small Because also they were the Popes domesticall forces against which no Prince doth happily contend But finally the Popes Armes prevailed or when his owne were too weake the Emperours and other friends were helping Contrariwise against Emperours and other Princes the sword of the people even of their owne Subjects hath been used by teaching all Christians in our Westerne world a false Lesson That it is lawfull and meritorious to rebell against Kings excommunicated and deposed by the Pope This curse was first laid upon the Emperour Henry the fourth by Pope Hildebrand or Gregory the seaventh It is true as I said before that Leo of Constantinople had felt the same though not in the same sort For Leo being excommunicated was not withall deposed only he suffered a revolt of some Italian Subjects And one may say That the Germane Empire deserved this plague Since the founder thereof had given countenance to the Popes Rebelling against their Soveraigns the Emperours of Constantinople Howsoever it were when Hildebrand had accursed and cast downe from his throne Henry the fourth there were none so hardy as to defend their Injured Lord against the Counterfeited name of St. Peter Wherefore he was faine to humble himselfe before Hildebrand upon whom he waited three daies beare footed in the Winter ere he could be admitted into his presence Neither yet could he otherwise get absolution then by submitting his estate unto the Popes good pleasure what was his fault He had refused to yeild up to the Pope the investiture of Bishops and Collation of Ecclesiasticall dignities within his dominions a right that had alwayes belonged to Princes untill that day It were superfluous to tell how grievously he was afflicted all his life after Notwithstanding this submission In breife the unappeasable rage of Hildebrand and his Successors never left persecuting him by raising one Rebellion after an other yea his owne Children against him till dispoyled of his Crowne he was faine to beg food of the Bishop of Spyers promising to earne it in a Church of his own building by doing there a Clarks duty for he could serve the Quire And not obteining this he pined away and dyed That Bishop of Spyers dealt herein perhaps rather fearfully then cruelly For he had to terrifie him the example of Vteilo Archhishop of Mentz chiefe Prelate among the Germans Who was condemned of heresie for having denyed that the Emperour might be deprived of his Crowne by the Popes authority If Princes therefore be carefull to exclude the doctrine of Hildebrand out of their dominions who can blame them of rigour This example of Henry though it would not be forgotten might have been omitted had it not been seconded with many of the same nature But this was neither one Popes fault nor one Princes destiny He must write a story of the Empire that means to tell of all their dealings in this kind As how they wrought upon Henry the fifth whom they had set up against his Father what horrible effusion of Blood they caused by their often thundering upon Fredericke And how they rested not untill they had made the Empire stand headlesse about seaventeene years These things moved Rodolph Earl of Habspurgh who was chosen Emperour after that long vacation to refuse the Ceremony of being Crowned at Rome though he were therero urged by the Electors For said he our Caesars have gone to Rome As the foolish Beasts in Aesops Fables went to the Lyons Den leaving very goodly footsteps of their journey thitherward but not the like of their returne The same opinion have most of the succeeding Emperours held all of them or almost all neglecting that Coronation Good cause why Since the Popes besides many Extortions which they practised about that Ceremony Arrogated thence unto themselves that the Empire was held of them in Homage And dealt they not after the same fashion with other Kingdomes What right had St. Peter to the Crowne of Sicily and of Naples The Romane Princes wonne those Lands from the Saracens who had formerly taken them from the Empire of Constantinople The same Romanes had also been mighty defenders of the Papacy in many dangers yet when time served the Pope tooke upon him as Lord Paramount of those Countryes to drive out one King and set up another with a Bloody confusion of all Italie retaining the Soveraignty to himself In France he had the daring to pronounce himselfe superiour unto the King in all matters both Spirituall and Temporall The Crowne of Poland he forced to hold of his Miter by imposing a subjection in way of penance For that the Polish King had caused one St. Stanislaus to be slaine For the death of St. Thomas Beckett and more strangely for a Refusall of an Archbishop of Canterbury whom his Holinesse had appointed
so many of my men ere I recovered the Indies The truth is that I came no nerer to Cape de Vert then Bravo which is one hundred and sixty Leagues off But had I taken it in my way falling upon the Coast or any other part of Guiana after the Raines there is as little danger of infection as in any other part of the World as our English that trade in those parts every yeare doe well know There are few places in England or in the world neere great Rivers which run through low grounds or neare Moorish or Marsh grounds but the People inhabiting neare are at some time of the yeare subject to Feavers witnes Woollwich in Kent and all down the Rivers on both sides other Infection there is not found either in the Indies or in Affrica Except it be when the Easterly wind or Breefes are kept off by some High Mountaines from the Vallies wherby the ayre wanting motion doth become exceeding unhealthfull as at Nomber de Dios and elsewhere But as good successe admitts no Examination so the contrary allows of no excuse how reasonable or just soever Sir Francis Drake Mr. Iohn Winter and Iohn Tomas when they past the Streights of Malegan meeting with a storme which drove Winter back which thrust Iohn Thomas upon the Islands to the South where he was cast away and Sir Francis nere a small Island upon which the Spaniards landed their cheins murderers from Baldivia and he found there Phillip an Indian who told him where he was and conducted him to Baldivia wher he took his first prize of Treasure and in that ship he found a Pylot called John Grege who guided him all that Coast in which he possest himselfe of the rest which Pylot because he should not rob him of his Reputation and knowledge in those parts desisting the intreaties and teares of all his Company he set him a shore upon the Island of Altegulors to be by them devoured After which passing by the East-Indies he returned into England and notwithstanding the peace between Us and Spaine he enjoyed the Riches he brought and was never so much as called to accompt for cutting off Douly his head at Porte St. Iulian having neither Marshall Law nor other Commission availeable Mr. Candish having past all the Coasts of Chyle and Peru and not gotten a farthing when he was without hope and ready to shape his course by the East homewards met a ship which came from the Phillippines at Calestorvia a thousand pounds to a Nutshell These two in these two Voyages were the Children of Fortune and much honored But when Sir Francis Drake in his last attempt might have landed at Cruces by the river of Chyagre within eight miles of Panama he notwithstanding set the Troups on land at Nomber de Dios and received the repulse aforesaid he dyed for sorrow The same successe had Candish in his last Passage towards the Streights I say that one and the same end they both had to wit Drake and Candish when Chance had left them to the tryall of their owne Vertues For the rest I leave to all worthy and indifferent men to judge by what neglect or errour of mine the Gold Mine in Guiana which I had formerly discovered was not found and enjoyed for after we had refreshed our selves in Galleana otherwise in the first discovery called Poet Howard where we tarried Captaine Hastins Captaine Pigott and Captaine Snedall and there recovered the most part of our sicke men I did Imbarque sixe Companies of fifty to each Company in five shipps to wit the Encounter Commanded by Captaine Whitney in the Confidence by Captaine Woollastone into two Flyboats of my owne Commanded by Captaine Samuell King and Captaine Robert Smith In a Carvill which Companies had for their Leaders Captaine Charles Parker Captaine North My Sonne Captaine Thornhurst Captaine Penjuglous Lievtenant and Captaine Chudlyes Lievtenant Prideux At the Tryangle Islands I imbarked the companies for Orrenoque between which and Calliana I lay a ground twenty four houres and if it had not been faire weather we had never come off the Coast having not above two Fathome and a halfe of water Eight Leagues off from whence I directed them for the River of Surniama the best part of all that Tract of land between the river Amazones and Orrenoque there I gave them order to trim their Boates and Barges and by the Indians of that place to understand the state of the Spaniards in Orrenoque and whither they had replanted or strengthened themselves upon the entrances or elsewhere and if they found any Indians there to send in the little flyboate or the Carvill into the river of Dissebecke where they should not faile to find Pilots for Orrenoque for with our great ships we durst not aproach the Coast we having been all of us a ground and in danger of leaving our Bands upon the shoules before wee recovered the Tryangle Islands as aforesaid The Biggest Shipp that could Enter the River was the Encounter who might be brought to eleven foote water upon the Bar we could never understand neither by Keymis who was the first of any Nation that had entered the maine mouth of Orrenoque nor by any of the Masters or Marriners of our Fleet which had traded there ten or twelve yeares for Tobaccho For the Chudley when she came nere the Entrance drawing but twelve foote found her selfe in danger and bore up for Trinidado Now whereas some of my friends have been unsatifised why I my selfe had not gone up with the Companies I sent I desire hereby to give them satisfaction that besides my want of health and strength and having not recovered my long and dangerous sicknesse but was againe fallen into a Relapse my ship Stoalde and layd a ground at seaventeene foote water 7 Leagues of the shore so as the Mr. nor any of my company durst adventure to come neare it much lesse to fall between the shoules on the south side of the Rivers side and sands on the North side called Puncto Anegado one of the most dangerous places in all the Indies It was therefore resolved by us all that the five greater ships should ride at Puncto Gallo in Trinidado and the five lesser should enter the River For if Whitney and Woollaston at eleven foote lay a ground three daies in passing up in what case had I been which drew seaventeene foote a heavier ship and charged with forty pieces of Ordnance besides this impossibility neither would my Sonn nor the rest of the Captaines and Gentlemen have adventured themselves the River having but one moneths Victualls and being thrust together a hundred of them in a smale Flyboate had not I assured them that I would stay for them at Trinidado and that no Force should drive me thence except I were suncke in the Sea or set on Fire by the Spanish Gallions for that they would have adventured themselves upon any other mans word or resolution it
the Governours to the King of Spaine of the eighth of Iuly he not only complaineth that the Guianians are in Armes against him but that ever those Indians which under their noses live doe in despight of all the Kings edicts trade with Los Flamnicos Engleses enemicos With the Flemish and English enemies never once naming the English Nations but with the Epitheton of an enemy But in truth the Spanish Ambassadour hath complained against me to no other end then to prevent my complaints against the Spaniards Who landing my men in a territory appertaining to the Crowne of England they were invaded and slaine before any violence offered to the Spaniards and I hope that the Ambassadour doth not esteeme us for so wretched and miserable a people as to offer our throats to their swords without any manner of resistance howsoever I have said it already and I will say it againe that if Guiana be not his Majesties the working of a Myne there and the taking of a towne there had been equally perillous for by doing the one I had rob'd the King of Spaine and bin a thiefe and by the other a disturber or breaker of the peace A Letter of Sir WALTER RAWLEIGH to my Lord Carevv touching Guiana BEcause I know not whether I shall live to come before the Lords I have for his Majesties satisfaction here set downe as much as I can say either for mine owne defence or against my selfe as things are now construed It is true that though I acquainted his Majesty with my intent to Land in Guiana yet I never made it knowne to his Majesty that the Spaniards had any footing there neither had I any authority by Patent to remove them from thence and therefore his Majesty had no interest in the attempt of Saint Thome by any foreknowledge in his Majesty But knowing his Majesties title to the Country to be best and most Christian because the naturall Lords did most willingly acknowledge Queene Elizabeth to be their Soveraigne who by me promised to defend them from the Spanish cruelty I made no doubt but I might enter the Land by force seeing the Spaniards had no other title but force the Popes donation excepted considering also that they had got a possession there divers yeares since my possession for the Crowne of England for were not Guiana his Majesties then might I aswell have bin questioned for a thiefe for taking the Gold out of the King of Spains Mynes as the Spaniards doe now call me a peace breaker for from any territory that belongs to the King of Spaine it is no more lawfull to take Gold then lawfull for the Spaniards to take Tinne out of Cornewall were this possession of theirs a sufficient Bar to his Majesties Right the Kings of Spain may as well call themselves Dukes of Brittaine because they held Blewet and fortified there and Kings of Ireland because they possessed Smereck and fortified there and so in other places That his Majesty was well resolved of his right there I make no kind of doubt because the English both under Master Charls Leigh and Master Harecourt had leave to plant and inhabite the Country The Orrenoque it selfe had long ere this had 5000. English in it I assure my selfe had not my employment at Cales the next yeare after my returne from Guiana and after that our journy to the Islands hindered me for those two years after with Tirones Rebellion made her Majesty unwilling that any great number of Ships or men should be taken out of England till that rebellion were ended and lastly her Majesties death my long imprisonment gave time to the Spaniards to set up a towne of sticks covered with leaves of trees upon the banke of Orronoque which they call St. Thome but they have neither reconciled nor Conquered any of the Cassiques or naturall Lords of the Country which Cassiques are still in armes against them as by the Governours Letter to the King of Spaine may appeare That by landing in Guiana there can be any breach of peace I thinke it under favour impossible for to breake peace where there is no peace it cannot be that the Spaniards give us no peace there it doth appeare by the Kings Letters to the Governour that they should put to death all those Spaniards and Indians that trade Con los Engleses Enemigos with English enemies yea those very Spaniards which we encountred at St. Thome did of late years murther six and thirty of Master Hales men of London and mine who landed without weapon upon the Spaniards faith to trade with them Master Thorne also in Tower-street in London besides many other English were in like sort murthered in Orrenoque the yeare before my deliverie out of the Tower Now if this kind of trade be peaceable there is then a peaceable trade in the Indies betweene us and the Spaniards but if this be cruell Warre and hatred and no peace then there is no peace broken by our attempt Againe how doth it stand with the greatnesse of the King of Spaine first to call us enemies when he did hope to cut us in pieces and then having failed to call us peace breakers for to be an enemy and a peace breaker in one and the same action is impossible But the King of Spaine in his Letters to the Governour of Guiana dated at Madrill the 29 of March before we left the Thames calls us Engleses enemigos English enemies If it had pleased the King of Spaine to have written to his Majest in seaven months time for we were so long in preparing and have made his Majesty know that our landing in Guiana would draw after it a breach of peace I presume to thinke that his Majesty would have staied our enterprise for the present This he might have done with lesse charge then to leavy three hundred souldiers and transport ten pieces of Ordnance from Portarico which souldiers added to the Garrison of St. Thome had they arrived before our comming had overthrowne all our raw companies and there would have followed no complaints For the maine point of landing neer St. Thome it is true that we were of opinion that we must have driven the Spaniards out of the towne before we could passe the thick woods upon the mountaines of the Myne which I confesse I did first resolve upon but better bethinking my selfe I reserved the taking of the towne to the goodnesse of the Myne which if they found to be so rich as it might perswade the leaving of the Garrison then to drive the Spaniards thence but to have burnt was never my intent neither could they give me any reason why they did it upon their returne I examined the Serjeant-Major and Keymis why they followed not my last directions for the triall of the Myne before the taking of the towne and they answered me that although they durst hardly goe to the Myne leaving a Garrison of Spaniards between them and their Boats yet