Note 10 — THE OBSERVATIONS OF SIR RICHARD HAWKINS, KNIGHT, IN HIS VOYAGE INTO THE SOUTH SEA.

This great caracke was taken, after a sharp engagement, by six ships, part of the expedition alluded to in note 1; which was dispatched expressly to the Azores, to lie in wait for the East India carackes. This expedition left under the command of Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir John Borrough. Sir Walter was, however, superseded by Sir Martin Forbisher. She was called the “Madre de Dios,” a seven-decked ship of one hundred and sixty-five feet from stem to stern, manned with six hundred men. The burthen of this caracke was sixteen hundred tons, and she carried thirty-two brass guns. Her cargo, besides jewels, which never came to light, was as follows: spices, drugs, silks, and calicoes, besides other wares, many in number, but less in value, as elephant’s teeth, china, cocoa-nuts, hides, ebony, and cloth made from rinds of trees. All which being appraised, was reckoned to amount to at least one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The carracke, or Carraca, was a large vessel of two masts, used in the India and Brazilian trade.