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SIR FRANCIS DRAKE AND THE PLYMOUTH CORPORATION. 491 
called to contradict established facts. At the best it is hearsay, 
and for the most part of the loosest kind. I include under this 
head professedly historical statements which cannot be traced to 
any directly connected source, and which presumably are but the 
perpetuated reflex of traditional stories current when they were 
penned, 
The most important Drake tradition is that of ‘‘ The Fyshynge 
Feaste ”—its two toasts, “ The pious memory of Sir Francis Drake,” 
and ‘“‘May the descendants of him who brought us water [not 
gave, as it is sometimes misquoted] never want wine.” The whole 
value of this evidence depends upon its date. We may say at 
once, with absolute confidence, that the toasts are subsequent to 
the time of Drake, and that they originated when the old business- 
like water survey had degenerated into something like the modern 
formality and picnic. To me also it seems plain that they originated 
at a time when Drake was no longer a living memory, but a great 
name. I cannot believe that men who knew he left no descendants 
would stultify themselves so far as to wish good fortune to beings 
who never existed. It is replied to this, that in genealogical phrase 
a man’s blood successors, collateral or otherwise, are his descen- 
dants ; but I cannot help thinking that the ancient corporators of 
Plymouth would use the word in its every-day acceptation as men 
of common sense, and not in a merely technical application. Of 
course when a generation or two had passed the real fact would be 
overlooked. “The Fyshynge Feaste,” as we have it, originated 
about the end of the seventeenth century, when another Sir 
Francis Drake, great-grandson of Thomas Drake, was Recorder (he 
held office from 1697 to 1717), and exercised for some time 
dominant sway in the Corporation, obtaining in the former year a 
renewal of the old charter, taken away by Charles IT. in 1684, with 
a recasting of the Council. 
Here the Corporation Accounts do not help us. They give yearly 
the expenditure on Freedom Day, and sundry other stated times of 
public refreshment ; but they are absolutely silent as to a Fishing 
Feast, which must have been paid for—if the charge fell on the 
Corporate purse at all—out of the proceeds of the mills when they 
came in hand, then entered net, or included in the collations which 
commenced to be given to the Grand Juries towards the end of the 
seventeenth century. There are a few entries of visits to the head 
weir, but purely of a formal character ; ¢.g. 
