The great, indeed, primary and only authorities for Drake's adventures are, of course, Hakluyt, Vol. III; for the fate of the lost crews, _Purchas' Pilgrims_, Vol. III and Vol. I, Book II, and Vol. IV; and the _Hakluyt Society Proceedings_, 1854, which are really a reprint of _The World Encompassed_, by Francis Fletcher, the chaplain, in 1628, with the addition of documents contemporary with Fletcher's by unknown writers. The title-page of _The World Encompassed_ reads almost like an old ballad--"_for the stirring up of heroick spirits to benefit their countries, and eternize their names by like { 168} attempts_." Kohl and Davidson's _Reports of the Coast and Geodetic Survey_, 1884 and 1886, are also invaluable as establishing Drake's land-fall in California. Miller Christy's Silver Map of the World gives a splendid facsimile of the medal issued to commemorate Drake's return, of which the original is in the British Museum. Among biographers, Corbett's _Drake_, and Barrow's _Life of Sir Francis Drake_, give full details of his early and personal life, including, of course, his great services in the Armada.
Furious controversy has waged over Drake on two points: Did he murder Doughty? Did he go as far north on the west coast of America as 48 degrees? Hakluyt's account says 43 degrees; _The World Encompassed_, by Fletcher, the chaplain, says 48 degrees, though all accounts agree it was at 38 degrees he made harbor. I have not dealt with either dispute, stating the bare facts, leaving each reader to draw his own conclusions, though it seems to me a little foolish to contend that the claim of the 48th degree was an afterthought interpolated by the writer to stretch British possessions over a broader swath; for even two hundred years after the issue of the Silver Map of the World, when Cook was on this coast, so little was known of the west shores of America by Englishmen that men were still looking out for a Gamaland, or imaginary continent in the middle of the Pacific.
The words of the narrative bearing on America are: "We came to 42 degree of North latitude, where on the night following (June 3) we found such alterations of heat, into extreme and nipping cold, that our men in general did grievously complain thereof, some of them feeling their health much impaired thereby; neither was it that this chanced in the night alone, but the day following carried with it not only the markes, but the stings and force of the night. . .; besides that the pinching and biting air was nothing altered, the very ropes of our ship were stiffe, and the rain which fell was an unnatural congealed and frozen substance so that we seemed to be rather in the frozen Zone than any where so neere unto the sun or these hotter climates . . . it came to that extremity in sayling but two degrees farther to the northward in our course, that though seamen lack not good stomachs . . . it was a question whether hands should feed their mouths, or rather keepe from the pinching cold that did benumme them . . . our meate as soone as it was remooved from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen up, and our ropes and tackling in a few days were growne to that stiffnesse . . . yet would not our general be discouraged but as well by comfortable speeches, of the divine providence, and of God's loving care over his children, out of the Scriptures . . . the land in that part of America, beares farther out into the West than we before imagined, we were neerer on it than we were aware; yet the neerer still we came unto it, the more extremity of cold did sease upon us. The fifth day of June, we were forced by contrary windes to runne in with the shoare, which we then first descried, and to cast anchor in a bad bay, the best roade we could for the present meete with, where we were not without some danger by reason of the many extreme gusts and flawes that beate upon us, which if they ceased, and were still at any time . . . there followed most vile, thicke and stinking fogges against which the sea prevailed nothing { 169} . . . to go further North, the extremity of the cold would not permit us and the winds directly bent against us, having once gotten us under sayle againe, commanded us to the Southward whether we would or no.