Note XXIII‑2 — Chapter XXIII · DRAKE AND OXENHAM'S EXPEDITIONS. 1572-1596.

The account given in Hakluyt's Voy., iii. 778-9, differs materially from that of other authorities. The story is told by a Portuguese, one Lopez Vaz, whose narrative the chronicles tells us 'was intercepted with the author thereof at the river of Plate, by Captaine Withrington and Captaine Christopher Lister, in the fleete set foorth by the right Honorable the Erle of Cumberland for the South sea in the yeere 1586.' He states that Drake landed with 150 men, and stationing 70 of them in the fort near Nombre de Dios, marched with the remainder into the town; that the inhabitants fled to the mountains, but that a party of 14 or 15 Spanish arquebusiers fired a volley upon the English, killing their trumpeter and wounding Drake in the leg. Hereupon, he says, the English retreated to the fort but found it abandoned; sounding the trumpet after the firing had ceased and the signal being unanswered, the men left in charge retreated to their boats, thinking that their comrades were either slain or captured. Drake and his followers then threw away their arms, and by swimming and wading made their way to the pinnaces. It is highly improbable that 80 English privateersmen, under the command of such a captain as Drake, would thus tamely beat a retreat before a handful of Spaniards.