SIR FRANCIS DRAKE a.d. 



'585. 

 or at the least, to spare the ruining of their towne at 



our going away. The cause of this their unreasonable 



distrust (as I doe take it) was the fresh remembrance 



of the great wrongs they had done to old M. William 



Hawkins of Plimmouth, in the voyage he made 4. or 5. ^^^ treason of 



yeeres before, when as they did both breake their promise, ^ ^ Portug^U 



and murthered many of his men, whereof I judge you william 



have understood, & therefore it is needlesse to be re- Hawkins. 



peated. But since they came not at us, we left written 



in sundry places, as also in the spittle house, (which 



building was only appointed to be spared) the great 



discontentment & scorne we tooke at this their refraining 



to come unto us, as also at the rude maner of killing, 



& savage kind of handling the dead body of one of our 



boyes found by them stragling al alone, from whom they 



had taken his head and heart, and had stragled the other 



bowels about the place, in a most brutish and beastly 



maner. 



In revenge whereof at our departing we consumed 

 with fire all the houses, aswell in the countrey which 

 we saw, as in the towne of S. lago. 



From hence putting off to the West Indies, wee were 

 not many dayes at Sea, but there beganne among our 

 people such mortalitie, as in fewe dayes there were dead 

 above two or three hundred men. And until some 

 seven or eight dayes after our comming from S. lago, 

 there had not died any one man of sicknesse in all the 

 fleete : the sicknesse shewed not his infection wherewith 

 so many were stroken, untill we were departed thence, 

 and then seazed our people with extreme hot burning 

 and continuall agues, whereof very fewe escaped with life, 

 and yet those for the most part not without great 

 alteration and decay of their wittes and strength for a 

 long time after. In some that died were plainely shewed 

 the small spots, which are often found upon those that [III. 539.] 

 be infected with the plague: wee were not above 

 eighteene dayes in passage betweene the sight of Saint 

 lago aforesaid, and the Island of Dominica, being the 



109 



