DISCOVERY 



299 



rity to rule and govern all such persons and every of 

 them as shall be retained or go in the said voyage 

 according to such laws, rules, ordinances as by the said 

 Richard Grenville . . . shall for that purpose be 

 made ; straitly charging all our subjects that shall be 

 retained to go in the said voyage to be obedient unto 

 all the said laws . . . as . . . abovesaid, on pain not 

 only of our high indignation, but also of such pains 

 and executions as by the said laws ... be limited, 

 and on pain if they shall be found obstinately disobe- 

 dient, or forsake the said voyage, or flee from the said 

 governance . . . upon their return into any of our 

 dominions to be executed and put to pains of death 

 as open rebels by martial law without mercy, remission, 

 or favour. 



" And of our further special grace ... we give, 

 grant ... to our said . . . Richard Grenville full 

 power and authoritj- that it shall be lawful ... to 

 make and establish laws and ordinances and to limit 

 pains and penalties both pecuniary, corporal, and 

 capital, and of death, or otherwise howsoever, for the 

 governance of such as shall pass in the said voyage ; 

 together with power ... to rule and govern and 

 make ordinances by discretion as occasion shall fall 

 out, although such ordinances be not before expressly 

 written and declared. And ... it shall be lawful 

 to the said Richard Grenville ... all the said laws 

 and ordinances to use, practise, and execute ; and the 

 offenders thereof (according to the said laws and or- 

 dinances) to punish and correct : and all the persons 

 of the said company rebelliously or obstinately re- 

 sisting ... to punish with death or otherwise to 

 punish with pains of death, or otherwise correct without 

 other judicial proceedings but by the Law Martial 

 according to discretion. And all pains and executions 

 of death so to be done and inflicted shall be accompted 

 and judged lawfully done as by our special will and 

 commandment . . . and by force of our most high and 

 absolute prerogative Royal, and as upon rebels against 

 our Estate, Crown and Dignity. For so it is our will 

 and pleasure." 



Here, then, we find Elizabeth granting to the first 

 projector of the Pacific Exploration Scheme absolute 

 powers of Hfe and death over all who sailed with him. 

 And it requires no straining of the evidence to argue 

 that the authority granted to the first projector were 

 granted to the second. The actual letters patent 

 reissued to Drake have not been found ; and the 

 secrecy in which the great voyage was cloaked may 

 continue to balk the most careful search for them. 

 But the testimony of the victims in the dungeons 

 at Lima precludes the idea that what was furnished 

 to Grenville WcLS afterwards denied to Drake. 



But what was the document in the archives of 



Mexico that first attracted Mrs. Nuttall's attention 

 and led the way to her other discoveries ? It was an 

 examination of Drake's Portuguese pilot, Nuno da 

 Silva, as to all that he observed while in company 

 with the English. Many questions were propounded 

 to him, but none more eagerly by the Inquisitors 

 than this, " Did the corsair carry a warrant from his 

 Queen ? " 



In his reply Nuiio da Silva answered " that Francis 

 Drake and all his men said so, and that in Abra de 

 Islas, where they wintered, when he beheaded the said 

 English gentleman who was named Master Doughty, 

 the said Master Doughty challenged him to show 

 whence and by what power he could behead him, 

 and that then the said Francis Drake assembled all 

 his men without omitting a single one. Placing him- 

 self in a more elevated position than the others, he 

 took out some papers, kissed them, raised them to 

 his forehead, and read with a loud voice. After 

 reading them he showed them to the others and all 

 saw and inspected them. After the head had been 

 severed he took it in his hand, showed it, and then 

 cast it away, saying, ' Long live the Queen of England ! ' 

 All present said that those papers were his, and from 

 her, and that it was with her authority that he was 

 executing [Doughty] and making this voyage." 



Taken by itself, this piece of evidence is significantly 

 impartial ; taken in conjunction with what has already 

 been adduced, it may almost be called conclusive. 



There is further testimony, however, of a negative 

 kind which Drake's detractors generally overlook. 

 John Doughty, brother of Thomas (and melodramatic 

 villain of Mr. Parker's pageant-play), also accompanied 

 Drake round the world, was present at his brother's 

 trial and execution, and returned with a whole skin. 

 He was highly connected, had wealth at his command, 

 and the best legal advice was his for the asking. Is it 

 credible that Drake would have escaped the long arm 

 of the law if there had been no letters patent to 

 protect him ? 



When the Queen heard the story of the voyage in 

 full, with her lords and ladies she proceeded to Dept- 

 ford, where she went on board the Golden Hind. There, 

 in the presence of the foreign ambassadors, she con- 

 ferred on Drake the accolade. She may have had her 

 faults. She sometimes found it difficult to make up 

 her mind ; she sometimes favoured the undeserving. 

 She often treated her nobles like schoolboys ; and 

 swore at her Ministers with the relish of a fishwife. 

 But she never forgot the pride of her race, nor what her 

 throne required ; and neither flattery, adulation, nor 

 all the jewels of the Indies would have coaxed her to 

 tarnish the sword iijjier hand by conferring knighthood 

 on a murderer. j 



Is it, then, too nfuch to ask the grand jury of his 



