blished his principal
settlement, which he named _Ciudad del Rey Felippe_, or the City of King
Philip. This was a regularly fortified square fortress, having four
bastions; and is said to have been in all respects one of the
best-contrived settlements ever made by the Spaniards in America. At
this place Sarmiento left a garrison of 400 men and thirty women, with
provisions for eight months, and then returned into the Atlantic. These
transactions took place in the years 1584, 5, and 6. Sarmiento, after
several fruitless attempts to succour and relieve his colony, was taken
by an English vessel, and sent prisoner to London.

[Footnote 39: The Narrows of the Hope are eighteen leagues of Castile,
or about forty-eight English miles from Cape Virgin, the northern cape
at the eastern mouth of the straits, in lat. 52 deg. 5' S. long. 69 deg. W. from
Greenwich.--E.]

The Spanish garrison, having consumed all their provisions, died mostly
of hunger, perhaps aided by the scurvy, in their new city. Twenty-three
men quitted it, endeavouring to find their way by land to the Spanish
settlements, but are supposed to have all perished by the way, as they
were never more heard of. Sarmiento fell into discredit with the king of
Spain, for deceiving him as to the breadth of the straits, which he
asserted did not exceed a mile over; whereas the king was certainly
informed that they were a league broad, and therefore incapable of being
shut up by any fortifications. However this may be, even supposing the
report of Sarmiento true, and that his fortress could have commanded the
straits, even this could have proved of little or no service to Spain,
as another passage into the South Sea was discovered soon afterwards,
without the necessity of going near these straits.

SECTION VI.

_First Supplement to the Voyage of Sir Francis Drake; being on Account
of Part of the foregoing Navigation, by Nuno da Silva_.[40]

Nuna da Silva, born in Oporto, a citizen and inhabitant of Guaia, saith,
that on the 19th January, 1578, while at anchor with his ship in the
harbour of St Jago, one of the Cape de Verd islands, he was made
prisoner by the admiral of six English ships, and detained because
discovered to be a pilot for the coast of Brazil. Setting sail,
therefore, with the said admiral from Brava, they held their course for
the land of Brazil, which they descried on the first April, being in the
latitude of 30 deg. S. whence they held on their cour