SIR FRANCIS DRAKE AND THE PLYMOUTH CORPORATION. 481 
To contradict a story so full and so intelligible as the Municipal 
Records thus set forth, the strongest testimony must be adduced. 
Let us see what is the value of the contemporary or quasi-con- 
temporary and traditional evidence upon which it is argued—-either 
that Drake gave the water to Plymouth ; or that to him the credit 
of the initiation and execution of the scheme is due. 
Contemporary evidence, 300 years since, is subject to the same 
rules as contemporary evidence now; and its value really depends 
upon the credibility of the witness and the opportunities he had of 
acquiring information. The mere fact that an account of an 
incident is written within a year or two of the occurrence, in itself 
gives the narrative no absolute value; but simply establishes a 
presumption that the writer might have had direct access to quali- 
fied informants. If he has his authority tenth or twentieth hand, 
for all practical purposes he may almost as well have lived a century 
or two after the event to which he is called to speak. What has 
been cited hitherto is the contemporary evidence of those who were 
themselves the witnesses and directors of the things recorded. 
The first contemporary writer in point of date who alludes to 
Drake and the water is Charles Fitz-Geffrey, born at Fowey, who 
in 1596, when he was twenty-one years of age, and resident at 
Oxford, wrote a poetical panegyric on Sir Francis Drake, dedicated 
to his widow, in which occur the following stanzas : 
Equall with Hercules in al, save vice 
DRAKE of his country hath deserved grace, 
Who by his industrie and quaint devise 
Enfore’d a river leave his former place, 
Teaching his streams to runne an uncouth race: 
How could a simple current him withstand, 
Who all the mightie Ocean did command ? 
Now Plymouth (great in nothing, save renowne, 
And therein greater far, because of DRAKE) 
Seemes to disdaine the title of a towne, 
And lookes that men for cittie should her take ; 
So proud her patron’s favour doth her make: 
As those whom prince’s patronage extold, 
Forget themselves, and what they were of old. 
Her now bright face, once loathsomly defilde, 
He purg’d and clensed with a wholesome river ; 
Her whom her sister-citties late reviled, 
Vp-brayding her with unsavory savor, 
Drake of this opproby doth now deliver: 
That if all Poet’s pens concealed his name, 
The water’s glide should still record the same.”’ 
