Sec. 2.

Disastrous result of the Voyage to Sir Thomas Candish.[64]

Various accounts of the disappointments and misfortunes of Sir Thomas Candish, in this disastrous voyage, are still preserved, but the most copious is contained in his own narrative, addressed to Sir Tristram Gorges, whom he constituted sole executor of his will. In this, Sir Thomas attributes his miscarriage to the cowardice and defection of one of his officers, in the following terms: - "The running away of the villain Davis was the death of me, and the decay of the whole action, and his treachery in deserting me the ruin of all."

[Footnote 64: This portion of the voyage is taken from the supplement in the Collection of Harris, to the circumnavigation of Sir Thomas Candish. - E.]

In this letter he complained also of mutinies, and that, by adverse winds at S W. and W.S.W. he had been driven 400 leagues from the shore, and from the latitude of 50 deg. to that of 40 deg. both S. He says also, that he was surprised by winter in the straits, and sore vexed by storms, having such frosts and snows in May as he had never before witnessed,[65] so that forty of his men died, and seventy more of them sickened, in the course of seven or eight days. Davis, as he says, deserted him in the Desire, in lat. 47 deg. S. The Roebuck continued along with him to lat. 36 deg. S. In consequence of transgressing his directions, Captain Barker was slain on land with twenty-five men, and the boat lost; and soon afterwards other twenty-five men met with a similar fate. Ten others were forsaken at Spiritu Santo, by the cowardice of the master of the Roebuck, who stole away, having six months provisions on board for 120 men, and only forty-seven men in his ship.

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