Drake and Oxenham
Documents concerning English Voyages to the Spanish stain, 1569-1580. By I. A. Wright. (Hakluyt Society. 27s.) NEvmt. was there a more romantic discovery in neglected documents than that which Miss Irene Wright sets forth in her new volume for the Hakluyt Society. For, toiling in the archives of the Indies at Seville, she has found full confirma- tion of Francis Drake's first notable exploits on the Spanish Main—the attack on Nombre de Dios in 1572, and the capture of a Spanish treasure convoy outside that town in 1573—and, what is even more remarkable, the first authentic account of the fatal expedition of John Oxenham in 1576-77. The early English voyagers to Spanish America were intent on peaceful trade. But when the treacherous attack on John Hawkins, at San Juan de Linos in 1568, made it clear that Spain meant to monopolize the commerce of the Indies, an unofficial war was begun, and continued by various adventurers right up to the time of the Armada. Hakluyt's collections have made the English aspect of the strife familiar ; Kingsley's Westward Ho! has popularized the theme for every child. Now Miss Wright for the first time presents the Spanish side of the case and shows, in reports from the worried officials on the Isthmus, what a menace to the colonies these little bands of daring English sailors proved to be for some ten or twelve years. The English found useful allies in the large bodies of escaped slaves,- known as Cimarrones- or, as later in Jamaica, " maroons," and with them were emboldened to attack small Spanish outposts and hold towns to ransom, On the sea the English ships could usually hold their own, and they sent fast pianaces in shore and up the rivers to prey upon Spanish coasters and barges. Sometimes the English adventurers were joined by the French, who had long conducted an unoffi- cial war of their own against the Spanish Indies. Drake, it is made clear, could hardly have captured the treasure convoy but for the help of the French captain, Le Testu, who lost his life in the affray.
It is interesting to find that the narrative printed by Drake's nephew in 1626 and attributed to Drake himself, under the title of Sir Francis Drake Revived, is borne out in almost every detail by the Spanish documents. The daring night attack by a handful of men on Nombre de Dios, as recorded by Spanish eye-witnesses, was, as Drake says, a confused figlt in the market-place, and the English lost but one killed— their trumpeter. Drake was wounded, and his men carried him off to the ships. Then, too, there are detailed reports from the Spanish officers who hastened to the rescue of the mule-train attacked by Drake. One Diego Calderon, for example, reports :
" We went into the bush and killed the captain of the French, named Captain Tutila, and others of the corsairs and two of the einkarron,es, and captured another of the French corsairs who said his name was Jacques Laurens. He was executed. And we took from the corsairs a great part of the booty they had stolen, i.e., a great quantity of gold bricks and gold and silver bars."
Drake and his men had in fact buried the silver and taken as much of the gold as they could carry in their hurried retreat to the coast. The French captain, wounded in the attack, had to be left behind. The booty, according to another report, amounted to 80,000 pesos in gold—the peso being valued at 8s. 3d.—so that Drake could afford to retire, as he did, from the business of, privateering or piracy.
The Spanish documents concerning John Oxenham are of the greatest interest. They include his own depositions made at Vallano in 1577, and at Panama in 1578, and supersede the confused and partly inaccurate account by a Portuguese pilot that is printed by Hakluyt. Oxenham stated that he meant to trade with the cimarrones for gold and silver, but that his plans were upset by the loss of his merchandise and arms in a small " frigate " which the Spanish coastguard seized while he was up country. He and his fifty men were left dependent upon the negroes. To obtain food, he had to burn his ship— of about a hundred tons burden—and give the negroes the ironwork and nails. The negroes agreed to help him in raiding Spanish settlements, " provided he would kill all the Spaniards he captured and would give them what negroes he might get." Oxenham then built a launch and went to the Pearl Islands, near Panama ; he captured " the bark from Quito with all the gold and silver it carried,- and they killed- no person of those on board the Marrs.".-; The gold was valued. at over 100,000 pesos. Nothing is said of the engaging Spanish lady who, according to Sir Richard Hawkins, persuaded Oxenham to release a prisoner and thus was the means of setting the Colonial authorities on his track—the story of which Kingsley made good use in his novel. But Oxenham declared that his refusal to kill his captives angered- the negroes, who pointed' out that the Spaniards were thus able to track him and them' down. In any ease, the authorities on the. Istlumis made a great effort by sea and land. Pedro de Ortega came unawares upon Oxenham's men while " they were all eating on the river bank, off their guard," killed a dozen of them and recovered the treasure. This happened in April, 1577. Oxenham with a score of the survivors wandered about in the bush until October, when he and seven of his men were taken., Jacob Canoa, with eleven Englishmen, had left him and their fate is unknown. For the prisoners the Spaniards had no mercy. Thirteen were hanged at Panama, Oxenham and his three lieutenants were taken to Lima and there executed in 1580. The negroes looked in vain for more English adven- turers of Oxenham's type. But Spain was to have little peace in the Indies. Drake had already set.out on the world voyage, in the course of which he harried the Pacific coast of South America, and captured the Acapulco galleon. And this semi-official expedition was soon followed by open war, in which Spain's colonies and colonial trade were hound to suffer. Her attempt to monopolize the commerce of the New World was a fatal error, and the severe measures -taken against Oxenham and others merely strengthened the anti-Spanish sentiment that was to influence English policy for generations
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