Saturday, Septemb. 21. 1583. Die Sancti Matthæi.

True & Faithful Relation: Liber Peregrinationis excerpts

LIBER PEREGRINATIONIS

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We departed from Mortlack, about three of the Clock after noon: The Lord Albert Lasky, (Vaywode of Siradia, in Polonia) meeting me on the water, as we had appointed: And so brought night to London; and in the dead of the night, by Wherries, we went to Greenwich to my friend Goodman Fern the Potter his house: Where we refreshed our selves, and thither came a great Tylt-boat from Graves end to take us in, (by appointment of me and Mr. Stanley) to go to our ships, which we had caused to ly seven, or eight mile beyond Graves end. To which ships we came on Sunday morning by Sun rise: In the greater of them (being a dubble Fly-boat, of Denmark) my Lord Laskie, I, and E.K. with my Wife and Children, &c. went: And in another ship (by me also hired for this passage) went some of my Lord his men, two horse, &c. that ship was a Boyer, a pretty ship. With little winde we straight-way hoysed sayl, and began our voyage in the ship. This 22. day we were in great danger of perishing (on the sands, called the Spits) about midnight: We had (by force of winde contrary) anchored by them, and the Anchor came home, no man perceiving it, till the ship was ready to strike on the sands. Then, upon great diligence and pollicy used by our Marriners in hoysing sayl, and cutting our Cable, (to leave our shote anker) and committing our selves to the hands of God, and most earnestly praying for a prosperous winde: It pleased the Almighty, and most mercifull God, suddenly to change the winds, which served us to bear from the sands, and to recover Quinburrough, back again. The 23. day (being Munday) we came to the mouth and entrance of Quinburrough Creek, or Haven. And as we made to land in small Fisher- boats, the Lord Laskie, my Wife and Children in one boat, and I, with E.K., Marie, Elizabeth, and John Crokar, in another, it fell so out, that at the ships side, our Fisher-oat his sayl-yard and sayl was entangled on the Mayn-yard of the Fly-boat (being stroke down) so that, in our setting from the ships side, the top of our Boat being fast above, and the windes and stream carrying the Boat off below, it inclined so much on the one side, that the one half of the Fisher boat (well near) was in the water, and the water came so in (by the intangling before specified, nor easily to be undone, or loosed) that my Lord, my Wife, and all that saw us thought that of necessity our Boat must sink, and so, we to have perisht. But God in his providence and mercy had greater...... of us, so that we became clear; the Boat half full of water, so that we sat wet to the knees, and the water with the billow of the Sea came still beating in more and more: And in this mean trouble; one of our two Boat-men, had lost his long Oare out of the Boat into the water; and so not onely we lacked the help of that Oare, but also by reason they would have followed the winde and ebb, for that oar, (contrary to our course in hand, and not able to become by) with much adoe we constrained them with the sayl, our one Oare, and the Rudder to make such shift as they could to get to Quinborrough Town: And in the mean space E.K. with a great Gantlet did empty most part of the water out of the Boat, else it must needs have sunk by all mans reason. At length (to be brief) we came to the Town side, up the crooked Creek, where, when as the Master of our ship would have taken me out in his arms (standing in the water with his Boots) he fell with me in the water, where I was foul arrayed in the water and Oase. God be praised for ever, that all that great danger was ended with so small grief, or hurt. At Quinborrough.