At
This Place Sarmiento Left A Garrison Of 400 Men And Thirty Women, With
Provisions For Eight Months, And Then Returned Into The Atlantic.
These
transactions took place in the years 1584, 5, and 6.
Sarmiento, after
several fruitless attempts to succour and relieve his colony, was taken
by an English vessel, and sent prisoner to London.
[Footnote 39: The Narrows of the Hope are eighteen leagues of Castile,
or about forty-eight English miles from Cape Virgin, the northern cape
at the eastern mouth of the straits, in lat. 52 deg. 5' S. long. 69 deg. W. from
Greenwich. - E.]
The Spanish garrison, having consumed all their provisions, died mostly
of hunger, perhaps aided by the scurvy, in their new city. Twenty-three
men quitted it, endeavouring to find their way by land to the Spanish
settlements, but are supposed to have all perished by the way, as they
were never more heard of. Sarmiento fell into discredit with the king of
Spain, for deceiving him as to the breadth of the straits, which he
asserted did not exceed a mile over; whereas the king was certainly
informed that they were a league broad, and therefore incapable of being
shut up by any fortifications. However this may be, even supposing the
report of Sarmiento true, and that his fortress could have commanded the
straits, even this could have proved of little or no service to Spain,
as another passage into the South Sea was discovered soon afterwards,
without the necessity of going near these straits.
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