... it may ... be suggested that Fletcher was not such a romancer as has sometimes been supposed. There is really a large amount of information condensed in his few pages,--as much, or perhaps more, than is to be found in many chapters of later and more diffuse historians or travellers. That he should have seen strange and unprecedented occurrences in the light of his own limited knowledge and of the narrow experience of his time, was after all a psychological necessity. His narrative, like the sea-god Glaucus in Plato's Republic, is obscured by strange incrustations; nevertheless with a little patience the fictitious shell may be removed and the solid fact discovered intact beneath it.... It is apparent that the whole passage describing Drake's interview with the "King," on which some ridicule has been cast, is chiefly absurd because the narrator inevitably reads into the social conditions of an uncultured tribe something of the European etiquette of the day.... It was only natural that a difficulty should have been experienced by minds, not scientifically trained, in finding an appropriate terminology by which to describe unfamiliar objects.... Other instances might be quoted, but the above are sufficient to show that Fletcher described scenes that actually passed before his eyes, while the inferences he drew from them were erroneous. It is only fair, if small things may be compared with great, that the humble chronicler of a later day should be accorded the same liberal method of interpretation which has long been granted to classical authors.[A-6] _John Drake's Second Declaration._--John Drake was the orphan son of Robert Drake, who was the uncle of Francis Drake. John Drake accompanied his cousin on the voyage round the world, and subsequently went along on the Edward Fenton expedition, was shipwrecked in the River Plate (1582), taken captive by the Indians, and escaped only to fall into the hands of the Spanish. John Drake was questioned by the authorities, and in his second deposition there is a brief account of the occurrences in California, 1579.[A-7]