next Sunday, and then on August 11 the whole com-
pany was ordered ashore. In an open tent Drake took
up his position, and calling on each side of him his
captains, Wynter and Thomas, unfolded before him a great
paper book. Fletcher offered himself to make a sermon,
but Drake cut him short. 'Nay, soft, Master Fletcher,'
said he, 'I must preach this day myself.' With that he
ordered the men to be marshalled by ship's companies,
and addressed a few words by way of preface to the
speech he meant to read. 'My masters,' he began, 'I
am a very bad orator, for my bringing up hath not been
in learning, but what so I shall here speak let every man
take good notice of and let him write it down; for I will
speak nothing but I will answer it in England, yea and
before Her Majesty, and I have it here already set down.'
Then followed the famous speech in which he laid down
the splendid tradition that was thenceforth to govern the
English sea-service and to save it from the disease that
did most to enfeeble that of Spain. After reminding them
of the desperate nature of the service to which they were
committed, he told them that their mutinies and discords
must cease. 'For by the life of God,' he cried, 'it doth
even take my wits from me to think on it. Here is such
controversy between the sailors and the gentlemen and
such stomaching between the gentlemen and sailors, that
it doth even make me mad to hear it. But, my masters,
I must have it left. For I must have the gentleman to
haul and draw with the mariner and the mariner with
the gentleman. What! let us show ourselves all to be of
a company and let us not give occasion to the enemy to
rejoice at our decay and overthrow. I would know him,
that would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know
there is not any such here. And as gentlemen are very
necessary for government's sake in the voyage, so have I

-262-