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Yes; we were on the track of the old sea-heroes; of Drake and Hawkins, Carlile and Cavendish, Cumberland and Raleigh, Preston and Sommers, Frobisher and Duddeley, Keymis and Whiddon, which last, in that same Flores fight, stood by Sir Richard Grenville all alone, and, in 'a small ship called the Pilgrim, hovered all night to see the successe: but in the morning, bearing with the Revenge, was hunted like a hare amongst many ravenous houndes, but escaped' to learn, in after years, in company with hapless Keymis, only too much about that Trinidad and Gulf of Paria whither we were bound.
But Duddeley was the first Englishman, as far as I am aware, who marched, 'for his experience and pleasure, four long marches through the island; the last fifty miles going and coming through a most monstrous thicke wood, for so is most part of the island; and lodging myself in Indian townes. Poor Sir Robert 'larding the lean earth as he stalked along' in ruff and trunk hose, possibly too in burning steel breastplate, most probably along the old Indian path from San Fernando past Savannah Grande, and down the Ortoire to Mayaro on the east coast.
It was in 1595, nearly a century after Columbus discovered the island, that 'Sir Robert Duddeley in the Bear, with Captain Munck, in the Beare's Whelpe, with two small pinnesses, called the Frisking and the Earwig, ran across from Cape Blanco in Africa, straight for Trinidad, and anchored in Cedros Bay, which he calls Curiapan, inside Punta Icacque and Los Gallos a bay which was then, as now, 'very full of pelicans. The existence of the island was known to the English: but I am not aware that any Englishman had explored it.
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