ABSTRACT
Drake's three weeks at Rio de la Hacha evoked a substantial spate of letters and informaciones, but the Spanish material is unusually free from controversy. The governor, Licenciado Francisco Manso de Contreras emerges, not only in his own letters1 and informaci6n,2 but also in the city cabildo's reports,3 as the hero of the occasion. Comparison with the English narratives suggests that he exaggerated the strength of the initial resistance to the landing, but that his account of the ransom negotiations was essentially true, 4 though the men of Rio de la Hac ha, preoccupied as they were with their own troubles, failed to notice that Drake had other reasons to pause at this stage: he had probably at least fifty wounded, and no extensive re-victualling had so far been possible. It must be allowed that the English accounts likewise omit to point out the relevance of these facts. In any case the value of the time thus gained and lost was great in view of the situation at Panama, but the governor's messages to the westward were not, as he claimed, vital to the safety of Cartagena and the Isthmus. For Don Pedro de Acufia, at Cartagena, had already received Pedro Tello's warning on 5 Decembers
parley with us for a certain sum of Treasure for ransome of the said towne. The fourth of December they brought Pearle, &c. but lesse in value than was compounded for, which our Generall Sir Francis Drake refused, and thereupon ordered that it should be set on Fire and burned, which accordingly was done at our departure.
