Note 89 — SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN. (continued 3)

Sir Francis Drake, after his unsuccessful attempt on Porto-rico, pursued his voyage to Nombre-de-Dios, where, having landed his men, he attempted to pass forward to Panama with a view of plundering that place, or if he found such a scheme practicable, of keeping and fortifying it, but he met not with the same facility which had attended his first enterprises in those parts. The Spaniards had fortified the passes, and stationed troops in the woods, who so infested the English with continual alarms and skirmishes, that they were obliged to return without effecting anything. Drake himself, from the intemperance of the climate, the fatigues of his journey and the vexation of his disappointment, was seized with a distemper of which he soon after died. (See Hume's "Hist. of England," ann. 1597. Drake died on the 30th of December, 1596, old style, 9th of January, 1597, MS.,) and his body was disposed of in the manner mentioned by Champlain.