Not Willing To Add Too Severely To The Affliction Of This Man, Sir John Burrough Freely Dismissed Don Fernando And Most Of His Followers, Giving Them Some Vessels For That Purpose, With All Necessary Provisions.

Having dispatched this business, Sir John Burrough had leisure to take such a survey of the goods in his prize, as the convenience of the seas would admit; and seeing many inclined to commit spoil and pillage, he very prudently seized upon the whole in the name of her majesty.

He then made a cursory inspection of the cargo, and perceived that the wealth would be fully answerable to expectation, and would be more than sufficient to content both the desires of the adventurers, and the fatigues and dangers of the captors. I cannot here refrain from acknowledging the great favour of God to our nation, by putting this rich prize into our hands, thereby manifestly discovering the secrets and riches of the trade of India, which had hitherto lain strangely bidden and cunningly concealed from our knowledge, only a very imperfect glimpse of it being seen by a few, while it is now turned into the broad light of full and perfect knowledge. Whence it would appear to be the will of God for our good, if only our weakness would so apprehend it, that we should participate in those East Indian treasures, by the establishment of a lawful traffic, to better our means of advancing the true religion and the holy service of God.

This carak, in the judgment of those most experienced, was of not less than 1600 tons burden, 900 of which were stowed full of rich merchandize; the remainder being allowed partly for the ordnance, which were 32 pieces of brass cannon of all sorts, and partly to the ships company, passengers, and victuals, which last could not be a small quantity, considering the length of the voyage, and that there were between six and seven hundred persons on board. To give a taste as it were of the commodities, it may suffice to give a general enumeration of them, according to the catalogue made out at Leadenhall, London, on the 15th September 1592. After the jewels, which were certainly of great value, though they never came to light, the principal wares consisted of spices, drugs, silks, calicoes, quilts, carpets, and colours, &c. The spices were pepper, cloves, mace, nutmegs, cinnamon, green ginger. The drugs, benzoin, frankincense, gallinga, mirabolans, socotorine aloes, camphor. The silks, damasks, taffetas, sarcenets, _altobassos_ or counterfeit cloth of gold, unwrought China silk, sleaved silk, white twisted silk, and curled cypress. The calicoes were book-calicoe, calicoe-lawns, broad white calicoes, fine starched calicoes, coarse white calicoes, brown broad calicoes, brown coarse calicoes. There were also canopies, and coarse diaper towels, quilts of coarse sarsenet, and of calico, and carpets like those of Turkey. Likewise pearls, musk, civet, and ambergris. The rest of the wares were many in number, but less in value; as elephants teeth, porcelain vessels of China, coco nuts, hides, ebony as black as jet, bedsteads of the same, curious cloth made of the rind of trees, &c. All which piles of merchandize, being valued at a reasonable rate by men of approved judgment, amounted to no less than 150,000 pounds Sterling, which being divided among the adventurers, of whom her majesty was the chief, was sufficient to content all parties.

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