Insomuch as those
great and mighty men, in whom their prosperous estate hath bred such an
overweening of themselves, but they do not only wrong their inferiors,
but despise them being injured, seem to take a very unfit course for
their own safety, and far unfitter for their rest. For as ESOP teacheth,
even the fly hath her spleen, and the emmet [ant] is not without her
choler; and both together many times find means whereby, though the
eagle lays her eggs in JUPITER'S lap, yet by one way or other, she
escapeth not requital of her wrong done [to] the emmet.
Among the manifold examples hereof, which former Ages have committed to
memory, or our Time yielded to sight: I suppose, there hath not been any
more notable then this in hand; either in respect of the greatness of
the person in whom the first injury was offered, or the meanness of him
who righted himself. The one being, in his own conceit, the mightiest
Monarch of all the world! The other, an English Captain, a mean subject
of her Majesty's! Who (besides the wrongs received at Rio de [la]
Hacha with Captain JOHN LOVELL in the years 1565 and 1566) having been
grievously endamaged at San Juan de Ulua in the Bay of Mexico, with
captain JOHN HAWKINS, in the years 1567 and 1568, not only in the loss
of his goods of some value, but also of his kinsmen and friends, and
that by the falsehood of DON MARTIN HENRIQUEZ then the Viceroy of
Mexico; and finding that no recompense could be recovered out of Spain,
by any of his own means, or by Her Majesty's letters; he used such helps
as he might, by two several voyages into the West Indies (the first with
two ships, the one called the _Dragon_, the other the _Swan_, in the
year 1570: the other in the _Swan_ alone in the year 1571, to gain such
intelligences as might further him, to get some amends for his loss.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25