FX, 
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE AND THE PLYMOUTH CORPORATION. 485 
town by the skill and industrious labours of that ever to be 
remembered, with due respect and honourable regard, Sir Francis 
Drake, Knight, who, when it was a dry town, fetching their water 
and drying their clothes some mile thence, by a composition made 
with the magistracy, he brought in this fair stream of fresh water. 
The course thereof from the head is seven miles; but by indenting 
and circling through hills, dales, and waste bogs, but with greatest 
labour and cost through a mighty rock, generally supposed im- 
possible to be pierced, at least thirty. But in this his undaunted 
spirit and bounty (like another Hannibal making way through 
the impassable Alps) had won the victory, and finished it to 
the great and continual commodity of the town and his own 
commendation. * 
Here again, as with Fitz-Geffrey, we have fact and fiction ; but 
the lapse of forty years have made the latter show signs of growth. 
Westcote as a youth was contemporary with Drake, but had no 
direct connection with this part of the county, and no means, that 
we are aware, of personal acquaintance with the facts. He ex- 
ageerates the water difficulties of the inhabitants by saying that 
they had to fetch their water and dry their clothes—which one 
would have thought were dry enough already in Plymouth—a 
mile away; and he magnifies the work of constructing the leat 
by adding on the mere trifle of thirteen miles, and by assigning 
to Drake the role of Hannibal in taking it “ through a mighty rock 
generally supposed impossible to be pierced,” not to reckon “the 
hills, dales, and waste bogs.” Every one who knows the course of 
the leat will recognize the extravagance of this language, and will 
wonder what became of the “mighty rock,” which no one in 
modern times has ever been able to find save on paper. But it is 
very doubtful how far Westcote is to be regarded as in the fullest 
sense an original authority. In Risdon’s Survey of Devon, com- 
menced in 1605, and finished in 1630, we read :— 
The streets are kept clean by a stream of water running 
through them, to the no less profit than pleasure of the inhabitants, 
performed by the skill and industry of that ever to be remembered 
with praise Sir Francis Drake, Knight, and which formerly, for 
want thereof, stood much distress. Of this stream the head is 
distant 7 miles; but in its ambage by hills, and through dales, 
especially one main rock thought to be impenetrable, at last is 
become the travel of twenty miles. + 
* p. 378. + p. 203 ed. of Rees and Curtis. 
ae lee 
