confirm and strengthen the opinions of all nations as touching her great and princely actions. And where the south border of Guiana reacheth to the dominion and empire of the Amazons, those women shall hereby hear the name of a virgin, which is not only able to defend her own territories and her neighbours, but also to invade and conquer so great empires and so far removed.

To speak more at this time I fear would be but troublesome: I trust in God, this being true, will suffice, and that he which is King of all Kings, and Lord of Lords, will put it into her heart which is Lady of Ladies to possess it. If not, I will judge those men worthy to be kings thereof, that by her grace and leave will undertake it of themselves.

APPENDIX.

CAVENDISH'S LAST LETTER.

Written with his own hand to SIR TRISTRAM GORGES, his Executor.

MOST LOVING FRIEND,

THERE is nothing in this world that makes a truer trial of friendship, than at death to shew mindfulness of love and friendship, which now you shall make a perfect experience of: desiring you to hold my love as dear, dying poor, as if I had been most infinitely rich. The success of this most unfortunate action, the bitter torments thereof lie so heavy upon me, as with much pain am I able to write these few lines, much less to make discovery unto you of all the adverse haps that have befallen me in this voyage, the least whereof is my death: but because you shall not be ignorant of them, I have appointed some of the most sensiblest men that I left behind me to make discourse unto you of all these accidents. I have made a simple will, wherein I have made you sole and only disposer of all such little, as is left.

The Roebuck left me in the most desolate case that ever man was left in. What is become of her, I cannot imagine : if she be returned into England, it is a most admirable matter, but if she be at home, or any other of my goods whatsoever return into England, I have made you only possessor of them. And now to come to that villain that hath been the death of me, and the decay of this whole action, I mean

Davis, whose only treachery, in running from me, hath been an utter ruin of all; if any good return by him, as ever you love me, make such friends as he of all others may reap least gain. I assure myself you will be careful in all friendship of my last requests. My debts which be owing be not much, &c. But I, most unfortunate villain, was matched with the most abject-minded and mutinous company that ever was carried out of England by any man living; for I protest unto you that in going to the Straits of Magellan, after I was passed to the southward of the river of Plate, and had bidden the fury of storms which indeed I think to be such as worser might not be endured, I never made my course to the Straits-ward but I was in continual danger by my company, which never ceased to practise and mutiny against me. And having gotten the appointed place called Port Desire, I met with all my company, which had been there twenty days before me; and had not my most true friend been there (whom to name my heart bleeds, I mean my cousin Locke), I had been constrained either to suffer violence, or some other most disordered mishap. I came into this harbour with my boat, my ship riding without at sea; where I found the Roebuck, the Desire, and the Pinnace, all which complained unto me, that the tide ran so violently as they were not able to ride, but were driven aground, and wished me in anywise not to come in with my ship, for that if she should come on ground, she would be utterly cast away: which I knew to be most true.

And finding it to be no place for so great a ship without her utter ruin, I forthwith commanded them to make themselves ready to depart: they being fresh, and infinitely well relieved with seals and birds, which in that place did abound, and my company being grown weak and feeble with continual watching, pumping, and baling. For I must say truly unto you, there were never men that endured more extremities of the seas than my poor company had done. Such was the fury of the west-south-west and south-west

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winds, as we were driven from the shore four hundred leagues, and constrained to beat from fifty degrees to the southward into forty to the northward again, before we could recover near the shore. In which time we had a new shift of sails clean blown away, and our ship in danger to sink in the sea three times, which with extremity of men's labour we recovered. In this weakness we departed for the Straits, being from that harbour eight leagues; and in eighteen days we got the Straits, in which time the men in my ship were grown extremely weak. The other ship's company were in good case, by reason of their late relief.

And now we had been almost four months between the coast of Brazil and the Straits, being in distance not above six hundred leagues, which is commonly run in twenty or thirty days: but such was the adverseness of our fortunes that in coming thither we spent the summer, and found in the Straits the beginning of a most extreme winter, not durable for Christians. In despite of all storms and tempests, so long as we had ground to anchor in and tides to help us, we beat into the Straits some fifty leagues, having for the most part the winds contrary. At length, being forced by the extremity of storms and the narrowness of the Straits (being not able to turn windward no longer), we got into an harbour, where we rid from the eighteenth day of April till the tenth of May: in all which time we never had other then most furious contrary winds: and after that the month of May was come in, nothing but such flights of snow and extremities of frosts, as in all the time of my life I never saw any to be compared with them.

This extremity caused the weak men (in my ship only) to decay; for in seven or eight days, in this extremity there died forty men, and sickened seventy, so that there were not fifty men that were able to stand upon the hatches. I finding this miserable calamity to fall upon me, and found that besides the decay of my men, and expence of my victual, the snow and frost decayed our sails and tackle, and

the contagiousness of the place to be such, for extremity of frost and snow, as there was no long staying without the utter ruin of us all: what by these extremities, and the daily decay of my men, I was constrained forthwith to determine some course, and not (for all this extremity of weather) to tarry there any longer.

Upon this I assembled my company together, and shewed them that my intention was to go for China, and that there were two ways thither, the one through the Straits, the other by the way of Caput Bonae Spei; which course shewed them was as well known to me as the way I had undertaken. And although that fortune had denied us this passage, yet I doubted not but soon to recover to this Cape, where, I shewed them, I made no doubt but we should relieve ourselves, and perform to their contents our intended voyage. These persuasions, with many others which I used, seemed to content them for the present; but they were no sooner gone from me, but forthwith all manner of discontents were unripped amongst themselves, so that to go that way they plainly and resolutely determined never to give their willing consents. Some of the best and honestest sort, hearing this their resolution, wished them rather to put up a supplication to me, than thus privately among themselves to mutiny and murmur, which course might cause an utter ruin to fall upon them all affirming that they knew me to be so reasonable as I would not refuse to hear their petition. Upon this, they framed an humble supplication to me, as they termed it, the effect of which was that first, they protested to spend their lives most willingly for my sake, and that their love was such to me, as their chiefest care was for me; and they grieved very much to see me put on a resolution which, as they supposed, would be the end of my life, which was their greatest grief. And next, their own lives would immediately follow, both by reason of the length of the course, all of which they must perform without relief; and further, we had not left four months' victual, which might very well be spent in running a course not half so long. But if it