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that they entreated him to accept of their country, and to take the government of it into his own hands; for the king, with the apparent concurrence of the rest, placed the crown upon his head, graced him with the chains and other figns of authority, and faluted him by the title of Hioh.

The kingdom thus offered, though of no farther value to him than as it furnished him with present neceffaries, Drake thought it not prudent to refuse; and therefore took poffeffion of it in the name of Queen Elizabeth, not without ardent wifhes that this acquifition might have been of use to his native country, and that fo mild and innocent a people might have been united to the church of Chrift.

The kingdom being thus configned, and the grand affair at an end, the common people left their king and his domefticks with Drake, and difperfed themfelves over the camp; and, when they faw any one that pleased them by his appearance more than the rest, they tore their flefh, and vented their outcries as before, in token of reverence and admiration.

They then proceeded to fhew them their wounds and diseases, in hopes of a miraculous and inftantaneous cure; to which the English, to benefit and undeceive them at the fame time, applied fuch remedies as they ufed on the like occafions.

They were now grown confident and familiar, and came down to the camp, every day repeating their ceremonies and facrifices, till they were more fully informed how difagreeable they were to those whofe fa vour they were fo ftudious of obtaining: they then visited them without adoration indeed, but with a curiofity fo ardent, that it left them no leifure to pro

vide the neceffaries of life, with which the English were therefore obliged to fupply them.

They had then fufficient opportunity to remark the customs and difpofitions of these new allies, whom they found tractable and benevolent, ftrong of body, far beyond the English, yet unfurnished with weapons, either for affault or defence, their bows being too weak for any thing but fport. ing fish was fuch, that, if they faw them fo near the fhore that they could come to them without swimming, they never miffed them.

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The fame curiofity that had brought them in fuch crowds to the fhore, now induced Drake, and fome of his company, to travel up into the country, which they found, at fome diftance from the coaft, very fruitful, filled with large deer, and abounding with a peculiar kind of coneys, fmaller than ours, with tails like that of a rat, and paws fuch as thofe of a mole; they have bags under their chin, in which they carry provifions to their young.

The houses of the inhabitants are round holes dug in the ground, from the brink of which they raise rafters, or piles fhelving towards the middle, where they all meet, and are cramped together; they lie upon rufhes, with the fire in the midft, and let the fmoak fly out at the door.

The men are generally naked; but the women make a kind of petticoat of bulrushes, which they comb like hemp, and throw the skin of a deer over their fhoulders. They are very modeft, tractable, and obedient to their hufbands.

Such is the condition of this people; and not very different is, perhaps, the ftate of the greatest part of

mankind.

mankind. Whether more enlightened nations ought to look upon them with pity, as less happy than themfelves, fome sceptics have made, very unneceffarily, a difficulty of determining. More, they fay, is loft by the perplexities than gained by the inftruction of fcience; we enlarge our vices with our knowledge, and multiply our wants with our attainments, and the happiness of life is better fecured by the ignorance of vice than by the knowledge of virtue.

The fallacy, by which fuch reafoners have impofed upon themselves, feems to arife from the comparison which they make, not between two men equally inclined to apply the means of happiness in their power to the end for which Providence conferred them, but furnished in unequal proportions with the means of happiness, which is the true ftate of favage and polifhed nations, but between two men, of which he to whom Providence has been moft bountiful destroys the bleffings by negligence, or obftinate misuse; while the other, steady, diligent, and virtuous, employs his abilities and conveniencies to their proper end. The question is not whether a good Indian, or bad Englishman, be most happy; but which state is most defirable, fuppofing virtue and reason the fame in both.

Nor is this the only mistake which is generally admitted in this controverfy, for thefe reafoners frequently confound innocence with the mere incapacity of guilt. He that never faw, or heard, or thought of trong liquors, cannot be propofed as a pattern of fobriety.

This land was named, by Drake, Albion, from its white cliffs, in which it bore fome refemblance to his native country; and the whole hiftory of the refignaVOL. IV.

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tion of it to the English was engraven on a piece of brafs, then nailed on a poft, and fixed up before their departure, which being now difcovered by the people to be near at hand, they could not forbear perpetual lamentations. When the English on the 23d of July weighed anchor, they faw them climbing to the tops of hills, that they might keep them in fight, and obferved fires lighted up in many parts of the country, on which, as they fuppofed, facrifices were offered.

Near this harbour they touched at fome iflands, where they found great numbers of seals; and, defpairing now to find any paffage through the northern parts, he, after a general confultation, determined to fteer away to the Moluccas, and fetting fail July 25th, he failed for fixty-eight days without fight of land; and on September 30th arrived within view of fome 'iflands, fituate about eight degrees northward from the line, from whence the inhabitants reforted to them in canoes, hollowed out of the folid trunk of a tree, and raised at both ends fo high above the water, that they feemed almost a femicircle; they were burnished in fuch a manner, that they fhone like ebony, and were kept fteady by a piece of timber, fixed on each fide of them, with ftrong canes, that were fastened at one end to the boat, and at the other to the end of the timber.

The first company that came brought fruits, potatoes, and other things of no great value, with an appearance of traffick, and exchanged their lading for other commodities, with great fhew of honefty and friendship; but, having as they imagined laid all fufpicion afleep, they foon fent another fleet of canoes, of which the crews behaved with all the infolence of

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tyrants, and all the rapacity of thieves; for whatever was fuffered to come into their hands, they feemed to confider as their own, and would neither pay for it nor reftore it; and at length, finding the English refolved to admit them no longer, they discharged a fhower of ftones from their boats, which infult Drake prudently and generously returned by ordering a piece of ordnance to be fired without hurting them, at which they were fo terrified, that they leaped into the water, and hid themselves under the canoes.

Having for fome time but little wind, they did not arrive at the Moluccas till the 3d of November, and then defigning to touch at Tidore, they were vifited, as they failed by a little ifland belonging to the king of Ternate, by the viceroy of the place, who informed them, that it would be more advantageous for them to have recourfe to his mafter for fupplies and affiftance than to the king of Ternate, who was in fome degree dependent on the Portugueze, and that he would himfelf carry the news of their arrival, and reception.

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Drake was by the arguments of the viceroy prevailed upon to alter his resolution, and on November 5, cast anchor before Ternate; and scarce was he arrived, before the viceroy, with others of the chief nobles, came out in three large boats, rowed by forty men on each fide, to conduct the fhip into a fafe harbour; and foon after the king himself, having received a velvet cloak by a meffenger from Drake, as a token of peace, came with fuch a retinue and dignity of appearance as was not expected in thofe remote parts of the world. He was received with difcharges of cannons and every kind of mufick, with which he was so much delighted,

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