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Shipmaster John Douglas
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John Douglas, master of Raleigh's admiral, had served in Raleigh's
privateers. He is listed as one of the shipmasters who appraised the
Black Dog for a High Court of Admiralty suit relating to the
privateering voyage made by the late William Mitchelson in 1589. Thomas
Hariot noted that John Douglas had a copy of a Spanish rutter(1) for the
West Indies which Captain William Parker has acquired, either in his
voyage of 1592 or that of 1593, and passed on to Raleigh: see BL, Sloane
MS 2292, ff. 16-33; Andrews, English Privateering, pp 57, 220.
For the 1595 Guiana voyage, Thomas Hariot worked out navigational
figures for Raleigh, Captain Jacob Whidden (died Trinidad 1595) and John Douglas, the
shipmaster, so that they could make corrections due to facial structure.
However, it seems that Whidden and master of "myne owne shippe"
Douglas's measurements consistently placed then 2 degrees closer to the
equator than they actually were.
Raleigh's El Dorado Expedition
also known as Raleigh's First Voyage to Guiana was a military and
exploratory expedition that took place during the Anglo–Spanish War in
April 1595.
Raleigh's flagship on the first El Dorado expedition
was the "Bark Raleigh." The Captain was Jacob Whiddon, (died Trinidad
1595) and the shipmaster was John Douglas. There was also a small bark
under Captain Cross. On board were 150 officers, soldiers as well as
gentleman volunteers.
Notes:
1. A rutter is a mariner's handbook of written sailing directions.
Before the advent of nautical charts, rutters were the primary store of
geographic information for maritime navigation.
2. Presumably
this is not the same man:
1n 1664 Captain John Douglas, who held a
Portuguese Commission to attack enemy ships, was in Cayman Brac for 10
days, lying in wait for the vessel the Blue Dove. Douglas eventually
caught up to the Blue Dove in Bluefields Bay, Jamaica. William Browne, a
passenger on board the vessel reported that ‘Douglas’ men gave them a
voly of shot, being in number about 27 men, and being somewhat darke the
master was shot in the arme and the men of the Blow Dove were put in the
howll of the ship; and then the asaylants cut the cables and carryd away
both vesells and them, until they came to Poynt Niggereell, where they
met with ane English barke coming from Caymans and bownd for Porte
Royall in Jamaica where they putt the said master of the Blowe Dove
aboard according to his desire and furnished them with some victwales
and a caise of spirits; and after they were gone owt of sight they lasht
there barke aboard the prise and took most of there things owt of her
and let her go adrifte.’ The master of the Blue Dove, Robert Cook later
said that Douglas and his men had taken everything except the clothes he
wore, including jewellery, chests of silver and the cargo of sugar the
Blue Dove was carrying. More on this John Douglas here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24882/24882-h/24882-h.htm
3.
Extracts from Walter Raleigh (1554-1618): The Discovery of Guiana, 1595
- Fordham University:
The master of my ship, John Douglas, took one
of the canoas which came laden from thence with people to be sold, and
the most of them escaped; yet of those he brought, there was one as well
favoured and as well shaped as ever I saw any in England; and afterwards
I saw many of them, which but for their tawny colour may be compared to
any in Europe.
Many and the most of these I found to be true;
but yet I resolving to make trial of whatsoever happened, directed
Captain George Gifford, my Vice-Admiral, to take the Lion's Whelp, and
Captain Caulfield his bark, [and] to turn to the eastward, against the
mouth of a river called Capuri, whose entrance I had before sent Captain
Whiddon and John Douglas the master to discover. Who found some nine
foot water or better upon the flood, and five at low water: to whom I
had given instructions that they should anchor at the edge of the shoal,
and upon the best of the flood to thrust over, which shoal John Douglas
buoyed and beckoned34 for them before. But they laboured in vain; for
neither could they turn it up altogether so far to the east, neither did
the flood continue so long, but the water fell yere they could have
passed the sands.
In the meantime, fearing the worst, I caused
all the carpenters we had to cut down a galego boat, which we meant to
cast off, and to fit her with banks to row on, and in all things to
prepare her the best they could, so as she might be brought to draw but
five foot: for so much we had on the bar of Capuri at low water. And
doubting of King's return, I sent John Douglas again in my long barge,
as well to relieve him, as also to make a perfect search in the bottom
of the bay; for it hath been held for infallible, that whatsoever ship
or boat shall fall therein can never disemboque again, by reason of the
violent current which setteth into the said bay, as also for that the
breeze and easterly wind bloweth directly into the same. Of which
opinion I have heard John Hampton,35 of Plymouth, one of the greatest
experience of England, and divers other besides that have traded to
Trinidad.
I sent with John Douglas an old cacique of Trinidad for
a pilot, who told us that we could not return again by the bay or gulf,
but that he knew a by-branch which ran within the land to the eastward,
and he thought by it we might fall into Capuri, and so return in four
days. John Douglas searched those rivers, and found four goodly
entrances, whereof the least was as big as the Thames at Woolwich, but
in the bay thitherward it was shoal and but six foot water; so as we
were now without hope of any ship or bark to pass over, and therefore
resolved to go on with the boats, and the bottom of the galego, in which
we thrust 60 men.
So as we were driven to go in those small boats
directly before the wind into the bottom of the Bay of Guanipa, and from
thence to enter the mouth of some one of those rivers which John Douglas
had last discovered; and had with us for pilot an Indian of Barema, a
river to the south of Orenoque, between that and Amazons, whose canoas
we had formerly taken as he was going from the said Barema, laden with
cassavi bread to sell at Margarita. |
Sources
Sources for this article include:
• BL, Sloane MS 2292, ff. 16-33
• Andrews, English
Privateering, pp 57, 220
• Three Keys to the Past: The History
of Technical Communication, edited by Teresa C. Kynell, et al.
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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