There are two accounts, professedly complete, of Drake's Voyage. The earliest of these first occurs in Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages, published in 1589, and is entitled "The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the South Sea, and there-hence about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the yeere of our Lord, 1577." It was re-published, by Hakluyt, with some alterations, in his subsequent edition of 1598-1600, and may be most readily referred to in the fourth volume of the reprint of this latter edition, published in 1811. The other account is intitled "The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, collected out of the notes of Mr. Francis Fletcher, Preacher in this employment, and compared with divers others' notes that went in the same Voyage." This work was first published in 1628, by Nicholas Bourne, and "sold at his shop at the Royal Exchange." It appears to have been compiled by Francis Drake, the nephew of the circumnavigator, as a dedication "to the truly noble Robert Earl of Warwick" is prefixed, with his name attached to it. It will be found most readily in the second volume of the Harleian collection of voyages. There are also to be found in Hakluyt's fourth volume, two independent, but unfortunately imperfect, narratives, one by Nuño da Silva, the Portuguese pilot, who was pressed by Sir F. Drake into his service at St. Jago, one of the Cape Verde islands, and discharged at Guatulco, where his account terminates; the other by Edward Cliffe, a mariner on board the ship Elizabeth, commanded by Mr. John Winter, one of Drake's squadron, which parted company from him on the west coast of South America, immediately after passing through the Straits of Magellan. The Elizabeth succeeded in re-passing the straits, and arrived safe at Ilfracombe on June 2d, 1579; and Mr. Cliffe's narrative, being confined to the voyage of his own ship, is consequently the least complete of all, in respect to Drake's adventures.
It is a disputed point, whether Drake, in his attempt to find a passage to the Atlantic, by the north of California, reached the latitude of 48° or 43°. The Famous Voyage, is the account, on which the advocates for the lower latitude of 43° rely. The World Encompassed, supported by Stow the annalist, and two independent naval authorities, cotemporaries of Sir F. Drake, is quoted in favour of the higher latitude of 48°. Before examining the interval evidence of the two accounts, it may be as well to consider the authority which is due to them from external circumstances, as Mr. Greenhow's account of the two works is calculated to mislead the judgment of the reader in this respect.