Pirates and Privateers

April 1573. Dawn.

Bells clang. Deep. Many.

The ambushers stir. Get into position. They wait and watch.

Mules appear. They trudge along the earthen road. Sure-footed. Steady. Laden with heavy packs that rock as the mules walk.

With them come soldiers. Fewer. Scattered among the browns, grays, and blacks. Helmeted. Breast-plated. Muskets. Lances.

Closer . . . closer . . . close . . .

Alack, we must not get ahead of ourselves. Better to begin our story earlier. In a small fishing village on the coast of Normandy, France around 1509, the birth of a son is celebrated.¹ He is named Guillaume Le Testu (sometimes styled as Têtu, Tetu, or Tutila).

Engraved plan of fortifications of Havre de Grâce,
France in 1636 by Christophe Nicolas Tassin
(Source: David Rumsey Map Collection)

Scant details of his early life have survived, although he attended the École de Dieppe, a group devoted to cartography. Le Testu was one of several cartographers who became known for maps that showed France’s efforts to colonize newfound lands. In 1550, he received a royal commission from King Henri II to map the coastline of Brazil. Upon his return, he worked on a nautical atlas, which was published in 1556 and dedicated to Gaspard II de Coligny, the Admiral of France and a leader of the Huguenots (French Protestants) during the Wars of Religion. La Cosmographie Universelle contained fifty-six maps of the world, including newly discovered lands.² This atlas was (and is) considered an important work, even though Le Testu integrated twelve charts of Jave le Grand/Terra Australis, of which he admitted were created “only by imagination” because “there has never yet been any man who has made a certain discovery of it.” (Siebold)

Admiral Gaspard II de Coligny (16th century) and Henri II (1559) and Catherine de Médeci (circa 1560)
by or from the workshop of François Clouet
(Source: Wikimedia Commons & Wikimedia Commons & Wikimedia Commons)

That same year he was designated “Pilote royal” for Le Havre. Philippe Strozzi, a general and cousin of Catherine de Médeci, considered Le Testu a “très excellent pilote.” (Anthiaume, 139) Among his duties was the supervision of the other pilots who guided vessels into and out of the port. He also oversaw the anchoring and docking of vessels visiting Le Havre, and trained people to assist him in his duties. He held this position for ten years.

In 1557, Le Testu participated in an expedition to France Antarctique (a small island in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon had founded the colony two years earlier, and the purpose of this voyage was to strengthen the colony. While there, Le Testu could have taken part in raids on Spanish shipping and settlements.

Ten years later, the Second War of Religion broke out in France.³ Charles IX, who now ruled, dawdled in implementing the promised freedoms dictated in the Edict of Amboise, which ended the First War of Religion. At the same time, alterations to those freedoms were instituted. Rumors also spread that he and his mother, Catherine de Médeci, intended to slaughter all heretics (this was how some Catholics viewed their Protestant counterparts, the Huguenots) not only in France, but also in Spain. When war broke out anew, Le Testu joined the Huguenots and fought at sea, where he was captured by Spaniards, who accused him of attacking and plundering their country’s vessels. He was taken to Flanders (Belgium) in the Spanish Netherlands where he was incarcerated.

For whatever reason, King Charles sent his ambassador to seek Le Testu’s release in 1570. He had committed the alleged attacks, but the ambassador decried such accusations as “pure calomnie” (sheer slander). After a visit to see Le Testu, the ambassador wrote to his majesty that “ils le laissent mourir de faim dans la prison” (they let him starve in prison). (Augeron, 456). On hearing this, Charles let his counterpart in Spain, Felipe II, know that if Le Testu died, Charles would be “très mécontent et aur[ait] une juste raison d’être très indigné” (very unhappy and have just cause to be indignant). (Augeron, 456) Felipe II finally acquiesced and pardoned Le Testu in January 1571.

After all his suffering, Le Testu hated Spaniards and was determined to seek vengeance for what he had endured. He set sail for the Caribbean and became a flibutor or fribustier (a French pirate or freebooter in the Americas, especially in the second half of the sixteenth century).

In March 1573, Le Testu was aboard his ship, the Havre, with seventy men, all of whom were in desperate straits. They had no water, which forced them to drink a concoction of cider and wine that had soured and made them sick. On the 25th, strange sails were sighted. The visitors proved to be English pirates led by Francis Drake, who sent over the much-needed water.

Even though the two captains shared commonalities – a hatred of Spain and a belief in a Protestant God – they remained wary of each other. The French outnumbered the English (70 to 31), but were weak from thirst and sickness. Testu’s eighty-ton Havre surpassed Drake’s vessels, a twenty-ton frigate (a captured prize newly built) “and our Pinnace nothing neere ten Tun.”⁴ (Nichols, 317)⁵ (Think blue whale versus a barracuda and a cod.) On the other hand, if Drake wished to succeed in capturing Spanish silver, he needed reinforcements; his prior attempts had ended in failure. The first step in establishing amity had already been taken. It was time for Le Testu to make the next move. He did so by gifting Drake a brace of pistols and a scimitar that once belonged to the late French king, Henri II. Drake’s offering was “a chaine of Gold and a Tablet which he wore.” (Nichols, 316)

Now, the two captains could meet face-to-face on equal footing. They chatted about news from home, including the murder of Admiral Coligny, who was slaughtered in Paris the prior August during the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.⁶ (Already wounded from an assassination attempt, Coligny was beaten and tossed out a window.)

Eventually, Drake got down to business. He had a single goal: to capture one of the daily mule trains (recuas) that transported gold and silver from the city of Panamá across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios, where the treasure was loaded onto ships for transport to Havana and then Spain. Once he met with Le Testu and gauged his willingness to strike out against the Spanish, Drake believed their combined crews would succeed where his previous attempts had failed.

Le Testu selected twenty of his men to accompany him and Drake and his company of fifteen. Cimarrones (escaped slaves), who trusted Drake but were wary of the French, also joined the expedition to fight, scout, and guide the Europeans. During their absence, Drake told Robert Doble, who was left in command of the frigate, “to stay there, without attempting any chase untill the returne of our Pinnaces.” (Nichols, 317) The expedition party traveled in pinnaces along Rio Francisco until it was time to disembark. Drake told those remaining behind to return in four days.⁷ Le Testu, Drake, and their men headed toward el Camino Real (the Royal Road), which required them to traverse jungle terrain for seven leagues (roughly twenty-four miles).

They reached their destination on 29 April in the evening. Five miles southwest of Nombre de Dios, they were close enough to hear the knocking of hammers on wood as carpenters repaired ships of the treasure fleet. (It was cooler to work in the evening than during the hottest part of the day.) Drake believed that since the Spaniards didn’t expect anyone audacious enough to attack the recuas so close to the city, they were not likely to have a vanguard of soldiers patrolling ahead of the mules.⁸

Drake was both wrong and right in his assumptions. His belief in the absence of soldiers ahead of the mules was correct. His belief in a single train was incorrect. On this particular day, the pirates struck the mother lode. Instead of one recua, there were three: “one of fifty Moyles, the other two of seaventy each, every of which caryed 300. pound waight of silver, which in all amounted to neere thirty Tun.” (Nichols, 318)

The land chosen for the ambush was open fields where little natural cover existed. A few of the forty-five ambushers seized the mules at the head and end of the recuas. These animals halted and laid down; those in between did the same.

Thus, we arrive at the point where our story began.

Muskets crack. Arrows whoosh. Blades clash.

A bell clangs. Mules bray.

Men shout.

The musty, sulfuric odor of black powder mingles with the metallic smell of blood.

Fifteen soldiers guarded each recua, which made the two groups relatively even in numbers. In the fight that ensued there was “some exchange of Bullets and Arrowes for a time.” Eventually, the “Souldiers thought it the best way to leave their Moyles with us, and to seeke for more helpe” from Nombre de Dios.⁹ (Nichols, 318) They retreated, while Drake and the pirates looted the train. Unfortunately, Le Testu “was sore wounded with hayle-shot in the belly, and one Symeron slaine” in the skirmish. (Nichols, 318) Capitán Cristóbal Monte of Panamá confirmed this account, writing in May of 1573, “[a] negro harquebusier who stood up to them killed the captain of the French, I mean, badly wounded him, and killed an Englishman and a cimarron.” (Wright, 60)

When the pirates examined the packs, they found 186 mules carried 300 pounds of silver each. The other four animals were laden with gold. Two learned men of the Audiencia of Panamá, Licentiates Diego Ortegon and Alvaro de Carvajal, would write to the Spanish king on 4 May that “18,300 pesos of fine gold” had been taken. (Wright, 66) Two other officials, appointed by Felipe II, claimed the ambushers “took from the pack-train more than 100,000 pesos, all in gold, including 18,363 pesos 5 tomines and 2 grains . . . consigned to your majesty.” (Wright, 68)

The total weight was far too great for the men to carry back to their ships. Each man collected “as many Bars and Wedges of Gold, as” he could carry – no more than sixty pounds. They buried “about fifteen Tun of silver, partly in the boroughs which the great Landcrabs had made in the earth, and partly under old trees which are fallen thereabout, and partly in the sand and gravell of a River, not very deepe of water.” (Nichols, 319)

Thus when about this businesse we had spent some two houres, and had disposed of all our matters, and were ready to march backe, the very selfe same way that we came, we heard both horse and foote comming as it seemed to the Moyles, for they never followed us after we were once entred the Woods, where the French Captaine by reason of his wound, not able to travell farther, stayed in hope that some rest would recover him better strength. But after we had marched some two leagues, upon the French Souldiers complaint that they missed one of their men also, examination being made whether he were slaine or no, it was found that he had drunke much Wine and overlading himselfe with pillage and hasting to goe before us, had lost himselfe in the Woods. And, as we afterwards knew, he was taken by the Spaniards that evening, and, upon torture, discovered unto them where we had hidden our Treasure. (Nichols, 319)

Capitán Monte’s account described what the Spaniards found upon their return to the site of the ambush.

[They] found the wounded captain and a French gentleman whom he had asked to stand by him. The latter fled and they killed the French captain that the rest might get away with the booty. (Wright, 60)

In other words, it was the ambushers who killed Le Testu so the Spaniards would be unable to torture him to discover where to find the rest of his comrades. Monte was the only one to suggest this scenario.

When Drake and the others arrived back at the rendezvous site, they found seven Spanish pinnaces at anchor instead of their own. Never easily discouraged and often stubborn, Drake set the men to building a raft. With “a Sayle of a Bisket sacke prepared; an Oare was shaped out of a young Tree to serve in steed of a Rudder, to direct their course before the wind,” Drake and three others set sail with a promise to return for the rest once they found their vessels. (Nichols, 320) (No mention was made in the remembrances of those who were with Drake on this voyage to the New World as to what became of the Spanish pinnaces.)

It took more than six hours for Drake to find his frigate, most of which was spent “sitting up to the waste continually in water & at every surge of the wave to the armepits . . . upon this Raft.” (Nichols, 321)

[A]fter his comming aboard, when the[y] demanding how all his Company did, he answered coldly, well, they all doubted that all went scarce well. But he, willing to rid all doubts, and fill them with joy, tooke out of his bosome a Quoit of Gold, thanking God that our voyage was made. And to the Frenchmen he declared how their Captaine indeed was left behind, sore wounded and two of his Company with him, but it should be no hinderance to them. (Nichols, 321)

After the rest of the ambush party reunited with Drake, the captured treasure was “devided by weight the Gold and silver into two even portions, between the French and the English” as Le Testu and Drake had agreed. (Nichols, 322) Each crew received roughly £40,000 (about  £12,292,631 or $15,248,997 in 2023). Thereafter, Havre weighed anchor and sailed for home without Le Testu.

Fourteen days passed before “twelve of our men and sixteene [Cimarrons set out to] recover Monsieur Tetu the French Captaine, [or] at least wise to bring away that which was hidden in our former surprize and could not then be conveniently carried.”¹⁰ (Nichols, 322) Led by John Oxnam and Thomas Sherwell, this party no sooner landed than one of the Frenchmen left behind with Le Testu emerged from the jungle and fell to his knees. When asked about his captain and his comrade, the Frenchman reported that “within halfe an houre after our departure the Spaniards had overgotten them, and took his Captaine and other Fellow.” (Nichols, 322) He managed to escape because he discarded all his ill-gotten gains and accoutrements to “fly the swifter from his pursuers.” (Nichols, 322) “As for the Silver which we had hidden thereabouts in the earth and the sands, he thought that it was all gone, for that he thought there had beene neere 2000. Spaniards and Negroes there to dig and search for it.” (Nichols, 322-323)

Two royal officials in Nombre de Dios reported to King Felipe II on 13 May that those sent from the city after word of the ambush was received were able “to recover of the said 18,300 pesos . . . only ten gold bricks worth 6308 pesos 4 tomines.” (Wright, 71) Another document, written the next day, placed the stolen amount at 150,000 pesos in gold and silver, included in which amount were . . . 20,000 pesos of gold.” (Wright, 73) This account also detailed what happened when officials learned of the attack.

[A]uthorities went out from this city in all haste and gathered up a certain amount in bars of silver and gold, which the corsairs abandoned because they could not transport them. They killed two of these corsairs and one of the cimarrones, among them the French captain, according to the identification of the body made by another Frenchman who was taken prisoner as he wandered lost in the bush. He was presently executed. (Wright, 73)

Diego Calderon, who had served as the alcalde (mayor) and captain-general of Nombre de Dios, gave his deposition in Panamá nearly a year after the attack.

. . . I sallied forth on the road on foot, and with me went the said Captain Hernando de Berrio and other residents and soldiers. I proceeded to the place where the robbery occurred, which was two leagues from the city. We went into the brush and killed the captain of the French, named Captain Tutila, and others of the corsairs and two of the cimarrones, and captured another of the French corsairs, who said his name was Jacques Laurens. He was executed. And we took from the corsairs a great part of the booty they had stolen, i.e. a great quantity of gold bricks and gold and silver bars, among these being eleven large gold bricks belonging to your highness . . . With the said force I pursued the corsairs until night came on, with storm and rain . . . so it became impossible to follow them further. (Wright, 82-83)

When Oxnam, Sherwell, and their men reached the ambush site, “they found that the earth, every way a mile distant, had been digged and turned up in every place of any likelihood,” but they didn’t return to Drake empty-handed. They found “thirteene bars of silver, and some few Quoits of Gold.” (Nichols, 323)

Drake and his men finally left the region and sailed home. “[W]e passed from the Cape of Florida, to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived at Plymouth, on Sunday, about sermon time, August the 9th, 1573. At what time, the news of our Captain’s return . . . did so speedily pass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire and delight to see him, that very few or none remained with the Preacher. All hastened to see the evidence of GOD’s love and blessing towards our Gracious Queen and country, by the fruit of our Captain’s labour and success. Soli DEO Gloria.” (Drake)

Le Testu never received any accolades. According to depositions given in 1574 in Panamá, one deponent “said soldiers killed the captain of the French who was called Tutila.” (Wright, 91) Another saw “in the market-place of Nombre de Dios . . . a head exposed which they said was that of Captain Tutila, and . . . also . . . the head of a negro which they said was that of a cimarron.” (Wright, 89)


Notes:
1. In 1517, King Francis I had a new harbor built and named it Havre-de-Grâce. It became an important seaport providing access to La Manche (the English Channel), and is better known as Le Havre.

2. The full title of Le Testu’s book is Cosmographie universelle selon les navigateurs tant anciens que modernes (Universal Cosmography according to both ancient and modern navigators). Le Testu identifies himself as a “pilote . . . de la ville françoise de Grace,” meaning a pilot from the French village of Grace.

In addition to the maps, Le Testu included artwork depicting people in local costumes, their weapons, battles, flora, fauna, fish, boats and ships. For example, one depiction is of Francisco Pizarro’s brutal subjugation of the Inca and is “one of the first visual representations of the horror of the Conquest.” (Whatley, 37)

The reason for the inclusion of fictional elements on the maps, as well as the artwork, was “to inspire hesitant French monarchs to finance expeditions and underwrite colonies.” (Whatley, 36)

3. The French Wars of Religion covered a thirty-six-year period of civil unrest between the Catholics and Protestants of France. Eight wars were fought between 1562 and 1598. At the time, 18,000,000 people lived in France; upwards of 4,000,000 died during the conflicts.

4. In this time period, a pinnace was a light boat that could be transported unassembled in a vessel’s hold until needed. It was used to ferry men and supplies from ship to shore, or to go in shallower water where larger vessels could not.

5. Philip Nichols, a minister, collected remembrances from Christopher Ceely, Ellis Hixom, and others who accompanied Francis Drake on his third voyage to the Caribbean in 1572 into a single volume. Drake edited the manuscript prior to his death. The original manuscript, which provided the best retelling of the raid, was given to Queen Elizabeth in 1593.

6. This pogrom against Huguenots was but one event in France’s Wars of Religion. The slaughter took place on 24 August 1572, and only one royal ever wrote about what occurred. Marguerite de Valois was the daughter of the Queen Mother, Catherine de Médeci; sister of the King, Charles IX; and the six-day bride of Henri III, king of Navarre. She was Catholic; he was Protestant. Theirs was a political union meant to cement peace between the two sides. Instead, wholesale murder occurred, first in Paris and then spreading to the provinces. She wrote in her memoirs:

King Charles . . . now convinced of the intentions of the Huguenots, adopted a sudden resolution of following his mother’s counsel . . . [T]he “Massacre of St. Bartholomew” was that night resolved upon.

. . . chains were drawn across the streets, the alarm-bells were sounded, and every man repaired to his post, according to the orders he had received, whether it was to attack the Admiral’s quarters, or those of the other Huguenots. M. de Guise hastened to the Admiral’s, and Besme, a gentleman in the service of the former, a German by birth, forced into his chamber, and having slain him with a dagger, threw his body out of a window to his master.

I was perfectly ignorant of what was going forward . . . The Huguenots were suspicious of me because I was a Catholic, and the Catholics because I was married to the King of Navarre, who was a Huguenot. This being the case, no one spoke a syllable of the matter to me.

At night, when I went into the bedchamber of the Queen my mother . . . my sister seized me by the hand and shedding a flood of tears [cried]: “For the love of God . . . do not stir out of this chamber!” . . . The Queen again bade me go to bed in a peremptory tone. My sister wished me a good night, her tears flowing apace, but she did not dare to say a word more; and I left the bedchamber more dead than alive.

As soon as I reached my own closet, I threw myself upon my knees and prayed to God to take me into his protection and save me; but from whom or what, I was ignorant . . . As soon as I beheld it was broad day . . . I bade my nurse make the door fast, and I applied myself to take some repose. In about an hour I was awakened by a violent noise at the door, made with both hands and feet, and a voice calling out, “Navarre! Navarre!” My nurse, supposing the King my husband to be at the door, hastened to open it . . . a gentleman . . . ran in, and threw himself immediately upon my bed. He had received a wound in his arm from a sword, and another by a pike, and was then pursued by four archers . . . I jumped out of bed, and the poor gentleman after me, holding me fast by the waist. I did not then know him; neither was I sure that he came to do me no harm, or whether the archers were in pursuit of him or me. . . . I screamed aloud, and he cried out likewise, for our fright was mutual. At length . . . M. de Nangay, captain of the guard, came into the bed-chamber, and, seeing me thus surrounded, . . . was scarcely able to refrain from laughter. However, he reprimanded the archers very severely for their indiscretion, and drove them out of the chamber. At my request he granted the poor gentleman his life, and I had him put to bed in my closet, caused his wounds to be dressed, and did not suffer him to quit my apartment until he was perfectly cured. I changed my shift, because it was stained with the blood of this man, and . . . [a]s [I] passed through the antechamber . . . a gentleman of the name of Bourse, pursued by archers, was run through the body with a pike, and fell dead at my feet. As if I had been killed by the same stroke, I fell, and was caught by M. de Nangay before I reached the ground. . . . (de Valois, Letter 5)

A mob consisting of Paris residents and soldiers went on a frenzy, killing nearly all Protestants in the city. Estimates of the slaughtered totaled nearly 70,000. High-ranking Catholics throughout Europe, including Pope Gregory XIII and Felipe II of Spain, rejoiced at the news. Authorities in Protestant nations, especially England, denounced the atrocity.

7. No Panamanian river has this name today. It has been suggested that Rio Francisco is most likely Rio Cuango today.

8. The Spaniards called these mule trains recuas. They regularly departed Panamá for Nombre de Dios, where the cargo was transferred onto waiting treasure ships.

9. Ortegon and de Carvajal’s letter to Felipe II of Spain on behalf of Panamá’s Audiencia said the guards “could not resist, because the attacking party was large, and because, being near the city, where they thought there was no danger, they were travelling in some disorder.” (Wright, 66)

10. The departure of the French without their captain and Drake’s delay in returning to the ambush site may seem harsh and uncaring. In actuality, they all understood they were unlikely to see Le Testu alive again. Belly wounds, especially severe ones, meant internal organs were damaged and surgeons of the time lacked the expertise and knowledge to keep such patients alive. Even if the patient survived for a time, most likely pieces of clothing penetrated the wound and infection was guaranteed. Nearly all such wounds proved fatal both in the sixteenth century and even during the American Civil War. Even Le Testu knew he was dying before the fighting ended.


Resources:

Augeron, Mickaël. “Le Testu Guillaume (v.1509-1573),” Dictionnaire des Corsaires et des Pirates edited by Gilbert Buti and Philippe Hordej. CNRS Editions, 2013.
Anthiaume, Albert. Un Pilote et Cartographe Havrais au XVIe Siècle. Imprimerie Nationale, 1911.

B., R. The English Hero: or, Sir Francis Drake Reviv’d. Nath. Crouch, 1695.
Barden, Jenny. “‘Carrying Away the Booty’ – Drake’s Attack on the Spanish ‘Silver Train’,” English Historical Fiction Authors, 26 July 2012.
Bicheno, Hugh. Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs: How the English Became the Scourge of the Seas. Conway, 2012.

Campbell, Tony. “Egerton MS 1513: A Remarkable Display of Cartographical Invention,” Imago Mundi 48 (1996) 93-102.
Coote, Stephen. Drake: The Life and Legend of an Elizabethan Hero. Thomas Dunne, 2003.

De Craecker-Dussart, Christiane. “'Cosmographie universelle' edited by Frank Lestringant,” Maps in History 57 (January 2017), 8-9. [review]
De Valois, Margarerite. Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre. L. C. Page and Company, 1899.
Downie, Robert. The Way of the Pirate. Ibooks, 1998.
Drake Revived edited by Philip Nichols. Collier & Son, 1910.

Guenebault, L. J. “De la Gartographie au Moyen Age,” Revue Archéologique 8:1 (15 Avril – 15 Septembre 1851), 375-380.
“Guillaume Le Testu de Le Havre (1509?-1573),” Shady Isle Pirate Society.

Jones, Dodie. “Royal Protectors, Explorers and Thieves: Pirates of the Elizabethan Cold War, 1558-1685” (2000). Honors Theses, Paper 312.

Kaufmann, Miranda. “Black Tudors: The Cimarrons,” Future Learn.
Kehoe, Mark. C. “Torso Wound Care during the Golden Age of Piracy,” The Pirate Surgeon’s Journals.
Konstam, Angus. The World Atlas of Pirates. Lyons Press, 2010.
Kraus, Hans P. Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography. Library of Congress.

Lane, Kris E. Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas 1500-1750. M. E. Sharpe, 1998.
Lestringant, Frank. “Deux Regards sur le Nouveau Monde au XVIe Siecle: Guillaume le Testu et l’Anonyme du ‘Drake Manuscript,’” Proceedings of the Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society 19 (1994), 1-22.
Little, Benerson. How History’s Greatest Pirates Pillaged, Plundered and Got Away with It. Fair Winds, 2011.

McGrath, John T. “East Coast of North America,” French Colonial History 1 (2002), 63-76.

Nichols, Philip. Sir Francis Drake Revived. Nicholas Bourne, 1628.
Nielsen, Nicky. “Francis Drake’s Raids on Spanish Colonial Ports Netted Tons of Loot,” Military History, January/February 2007.

“Objet #1 – la Cosmographie universelle de Guillaume le Testu,” Paradis Perdus, 10 Mai 2022. [includes color pictures from the book]
Onetto Pavez, Mauricio. A Passage to the World: The Strait of Magellan during the Age of its Discovery translated by Natascha Scott-Stokes. Universidad Autonoma de Chile.

Pike, Ruth. “Black Rebels: The Cimarrons of Sixteenth-Century Panama,” The Americas 64:2 (October 2007), 243-266.
Raphaël. “1566 – Guillaume Le Testu, MappeMonde en Deus Hémisphères – Gascongne,” HTBA, 6 Octobre 2020.
Rogozinski, Jan. Pirates! Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction and Legend. Facts on File, 1995.

Siebold, Jim. “Guillaume Le Testu Cosmographie Universelle, 1555,” Index to Maps & Monographs.
Sir Francis Drake Revived edited by Philip Nichols. Collier & Son, 1910.
“Sir Francis Drake Revived” in Voyages and Travels: Ancient and Modern edited by Charles W. Eliot. P. F. Collier & Sons, 1910, v. 33, 129-198.

Thrower, John. “Francis Drake’s Treasure Haul 29 April 1573,” The Drake Exploration Society.
Thrower, John. “More Light on Drake’s Mule Train Robbery in Panamá 1573,” The Drake Exploration Society.

Whatley, Janet. “Commentary on Papers by Frank Lestringant and Gordon Sayre,” Proceedings of the Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society 19 (1994), 35-43.
Wright, Irene A. Documents Concerning English Voyages to the Spanish Main 1569-1580. The Hakluyt Society, 1932.

Review Copyright ©2023 Cindy Vallar

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