Newfoundland - Essays
Sir George Peckham and his True Reporte
by R. Wesley Atkinson (January 2004)
(1) Sir George Peckham's A True Reporte of the Late Discoveries of Newfound Land (1583) is a prime and comprehensive example of Elizabethan literature of colonization justification. Written as a reaction to uncertainties in the ethical and spiritual ramifications of colonization, A True Reporte attempts to rationalize North American military conquest by synthesizing English discourses on the economic and spiritual necessity of colonization with Spanish discourse on the right of Christian mercantile nations to attack, subdue, and exploit non-Christian lands. Because A True Reporte is a reactionary document, it is important to understand the political and religious climate leading up to Peckham's treatise.
(2) Despite the circulation of literature concerning how, where, and to what ends colonization ought to occur, no major document justifying conquest of foreign nations was written in English before Sir George Peckham's A True Reporte . It wasn't until Sir Humphrey Gilbert -- Peckham's partner in colonizing -- sank into the Atlantic on the return voyage of his second expedition to "claim" Newfoundland for the English Crown that English popular opinion even sought a rationale for New World conquest. Gilbert's first expedition failed due to his unprepared fleet and his wanton piratical attempts, which could be the mistakes of a man, but his second expedition was sunk by high seas, an act of God. In the wake of public doubt of Providence's endorsement of colonization, Peckham wrote A True Reporte to ease the guilty conscience of Elizabethan England as they prepared to build an empire on the backs and land of a different people.
(3) Peckham borrows heavily from contemporary sources on different aspects of the colonizing enterprise. It is interesting to note that the sequence of major documents on colonization in English begins with an outline for military action, followed by an economic treatise, and then a religious rationalization before Peckham provides political grounds. This can be taken as a reflection of Elizabethan priorities. Each of the justifying texts leading up to Peckham's Reporte assumes that war is the first and best means of economic exchange with Native Americans. Convincing the English merchants that this war could be profitable is the second priority of colonizers. Appeasing the consciences of dissenting religious voices comes next, while justifying the initiation of hostile conflict in terms of international relations is the last topic considered.
(4) Below I outline the topical progression and influence of a few key discourses on colonization leading up to Peckham's climactic and comprehensive True Reporte . I find it interesting that plans for action and actual colonization attempts begin before any rationale is pondered. Because A True Reporte is a direct result of the sinking of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's ship, it seems that, if the entire outline of military and economic conquest had gone according to plan, no contemplation of the legality or morality would have occurred. This essay addresses the sequence of events that did occur, focusing on their influence on Peckham's True Reporte , beginning with the militaristic evaluation of colonization by Richard Hakluyt, followed by the economic benefits as discussed by Christopher Carleill. I then describe the voyage and failed colonization attempt by Gilbert. The resulting spiritual meditation on colonization of Edward Hayes is the final inspiring document examined before addressing Peckham's interpretation and application of these authors and incorporation of Spanish colonial literature.
HAKLUYT: THE BATTLE PLAN
(5) Richard Hakluyt the Elder's "Notes on Colonization," written in 1578, discusses how a colony ought to be established in the New World. Hakluyt does not attempt to reason why such a colony is justifiable; he takes it for granted that settling on another nation's shores and exploiting their resources is morally and legally acceptable. Still, he does understand that the Natives might have some objection to an English land grab:
Now admit that we might not be suffered by the savages to enjoy any whole country or any more than the scope of a city, yet if we might enjoy traffic and be assured of the same, we might be much enriched, our Navy might be increased, and a place of safety might there be found, if change of religion or civil war should happen in this realm. (Quinn 184)
It is interesting to note that Hakluyt considers that land might be gained in first economic and then militaristic terms. Indeed, wealth and violence also went hand in hand for Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, and even Edward Hayes. The first "colonizing" voyage of Gilbert, undertaken with Raleigh and Hayes, resulted in nothing but privateering against commercial Spanish vessels. Although all of the ships in Gilbert's fleet were involved in piracy (the Swallow robbed a ship en route to Newfoundland), at least two of the ships themselves, the Swallow and the Squirrel, were stolen outright (Quinn 80-85). If these English settlers were able to steal so much from fellow Christians and countrymen without hesitation, it is no wonder they were also eager to appropriate land and resources from Native Americans.
(6) But Hakluyt did not propose to initiate exploitation of Americans with violence. He writes:
Nothing is more to be endeavored with the inland people than familiarity. For so may you [English settlers] best discover all the natural commodities of their [Native American's] country, and also all their wants, all their strengths, all their weaknesses, and with whom they are in war [...] which known, you may work great effects of greatest consequence. (Quinn 182)
Friendship, for Hakluyt, meant understanding the country's resources (in order to utilize them), learning of the people's desires (in order to take advantage of them), their strengths (to avoid encountering), their weaknesses (in order to suppress them), and who their enemies were (to either repel or ally with them). Once these are known, "familiarity" has performed its function and exploitation can begin.
(7) Hakluyt's recommendations include another notable assumption: the Natives would already be at war. Considering England's recent and current wars with Ireland, Spain, and involvement with the French Huguenots, it is not surprising that Hakluyt would have difficulty imagining a nation at peace with its neighbors. But even if the English were unable to engage in war with the actual owners of the land they settled upon, they didn't have to abandon violence altogether: they could at least fight with their Native friend's enemies.
(8) Hakluyt did not couch his violence within economic gain. In fact, he leads his "Notes" with fortification considerations:
That the first seat be chosen on the seaside so as [...] you may have your own Navy within bay, river or lake, within your seat safe from the [unnamed] enemy. [...] Thus seated you shall be least subject to annoy of the enemy, so may your Navy within, pass out to all parts of the world [...] so may your commodities be carried away also. (Quinn181)
His ultimate objective was conquest through violence.
(9) This philosophy of morally unjustified conquest was to guide and dominate English colonization procedures until Gilbert's ship sank during his attempt to realize Hakluyt's vision. After this disaster, the English would be forced to re-imagine Providence's endorsement of the colonizing enterprise.
CARLEILL: THE ECONOMIC PLAN
(10) As interest in a military-commercial outpost in foreign unchristian lands increased through essays like Hakluyt's, adventurers and venture capitalists became eager to enrich themselves at the expense of foreigners, particularly if the exploited were only "Savages."
(11) Christopher Carleill was one such adventurer. Like Gilbert, his questionable ethics did not begin in the New World (indeed, Carleill never made it to America). Carleill couched his interests in America first as an associate in Gilbert's party, then he approached investors excluded from Gilbert's settling project in order to secure a settlement of his own, double-crossing Gilbert and using his information and planning to his own ends.
(12) Carleill's stepfather, Sir Francis Walsingham, was the government official to whom Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir George Peckham petitioned for letters patent and travel visas. Sensing an opportunity for personal profit, Walsingham ostensibly lobbied to have his stepson named a ship captain on Gilbert's voyage, and when Carleill conveniently wasn't ready to leave with the party in March, he attempted bypassing Gilbert's patent altogether in order to secure his own patent with other investors (Quinn 78-81). Carleill took it upon himself to approach the Muscovy Company, a trading company traveling between Russia and England, to finance a settlement of his own in the New World.
(13) Although not published in book form until it was included in Hakluyt the Younger's 1589 Principall Navigations , Christopher Carleill's pamphlet, A Brief and Summary Discourse upon the Intended Voyage to the Hithermost Parts of America (Quinn 351), was written during the month of Gilbert's second departure (March 1583) to persuade the Muscovy company to invest in colonization (Quinn 351). Because the merchants of the Muscovy Company had money on the line, Carleill's discourse includes several arguments for the profitability of foreign resource exploitation, particularly to current English traders (Quinn 77). Carleill lists the shortness of the voyage; the quantity of fish, furs, and lumber; the potential for agriculture; and the lack of foreign tariffs and red-tape as sufficient reasons for trade (Quinn 355-56). As the military strength of foreign kings slowed England's consumption and sale of Europe's resources, the lack of monarchy and guns made the New World particularly appealing.
(14) While Richard Hakluyt the Elder considered relations with Natives a necessary evil in obtaining natural resources, Carleill saw them as a resource in themselves. Carleill builds upon Hakluyt's meet-and-greet policies with a model of labor exploitation:
The country people being made to know, that for wax and honey, we will give them such trifling things as they desire of us, and showing them once the means how to handle and provide the same, the labor thereof being so light, no doubt but in short time they will earnestly care to have the same in good quantity for us. (Quinn 356-57)
The Natives are now producers of goods, and producers to be had only at the cost of "trifling things." But the Natives will not only be cheap labor, they can also become consumers. The "Savages" aren't ashamed of their bodies and wear no clothes, and Carleill believes that this naïve worldview can easily be corrected:
[The Savages] shall have wonderful great use of our said English clothes, after they shall come once to know the commodity thereof. The like will be also of many other things, over many to be reckoned, which are made here by our artificers and laboring people, and of necessity must be provided from hence. (Quinn 358)
So that their consumption might not be limited to body coverings, upon further contact with civilized Europeans, It is to be assuredly hoped, that they will daily by little and little forsake their barbarous and savage living, and grow to such order and civility with us, as there may be well expected from thence no less quantity and diversity of merchandize than is now had out of Dutchland, Italy, France or Spain. (Quinn 357)
(15) Carleill does not mention the use of the sword to secure these investments, and it is understandable, for trading companies have little to gain from unstable relations with the country they wish to exploit. His hope of good relations with Natives is undying, and he projects "reducing the savage people to Christianity and civility" (Quinn 361).
(16) A Brief and Summary Discourse amends and develops Hakluyt's "Notes on Colonization." Richard Hakluyt, a lawyer, provided the battle strategy for colonization, while Christopher Carleill, a merchant, provided the economic plan.
GILBERT: THE SECOND VOYAGE
(17) In March of 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert left England for the New World in five vessels: the Delight , the Raleigh , the Golden Hinde (a.k.a. Samuel), the Swallow and the Squirrel. Because the island of Newfoundland was the closest landmass of the Americas to England, Gilbert planned on anchoring there to establish his claim. He arrived in good time (about two months at sea), although the Raleigh had turned back after two days at sea. After assembling the fishermen from various countries (twenty Spanish and Portuguese ships, sixteen from France and England (Quinn 85)) who sailed the coast of Newfoundland, Gilbert went ashore on August 5 to claim that island and all land within 200 leagues for the English crown. Edward Hayes, partner colonizer and witness to Gilbert's claim, records the event:
The General had his tent set up, who being accompanied with his own followers, summoned the merchants and masters, both English and strangers to be present at his taking possession of those countries. Before whom openly was read and interpreted unto the strangers his commission: by virtue whereof he took possession in the same harbor of S. John, and 200 leagues in every way, invested the Queen's Majesty with the title and dignity thereof, had delivered unto him (after the custom of England) a rod and a turf of the same soil, entering possession also for him, his heirs and assigns forever. (Quinn 402)
(18) In a curious ceremony, Gilbert "takes possession" of the island of Newfoundland (for an interesting evaluation of the implications of this ceremony, see Seed). From whom Gilbert takes this possession is left unsaid, although we can be sure it is from the "Savages," who have not the authority to relinquish the land they have lived on for centuries. Hayes seems to consider Gilbert's taking of a rod and turf as final and certain -- one wonders why no other man had the foresight to gather these samples and thus own this rich, unindustrialized land. Of course, both Gilbert and Hayes were royal subjects and considered their authority of divine origin, via the divine right and patent of Queen Elizabeth. However, considering Gilbert's pirating of even English ships in England, Gilbert's history of mass-murder and acts of terror in the of conquest in Ireland, and attempts against Spain (see Williams 151-55 for Gilbert's distinguished and daunting military record), it is doubtful that any laws of man could keep Gilbert from profiteering through violence and trickery.
(19) In fact, alongside Hakluyt and Carleill, Sir Humphrey Gilbert contributed an important element of his own to Elizabethan colonizing discourse: outright dishonesty. When it came to conquering enemies (for personal gain), Gilbert considered all fair in war. He devised and submitted to Queen Elizabeth two schemes in November of 1577 to rob Spanish ships at sea, entitled " A Discourse how Her Majesty may Annoy the Kind of Spain " and "A Discourse how Her Majesty may Meet with and Annoy the Kind of Spain." The premise of both discourses was that the Queen would authorize letters patent to someone (namely Sir Humphrey himself) to "discover and inhabit some strange place," under the guise of which Gilbert would engage in piracy against the Spanish fleet (Quinn 171). After the crimes have been committed, he leaves it to the Queen's discretion to "avow the [piracy] (if by the event thereof it shall so seem good) or to disavow both them and the fact, as league breakers, leaving them to pretend it as done without your privities." Gilbert advocates a policy of dishonesty and robbery, a policy of outright attack with false pretenses to ensure political immunity. While this may be the sign of true military genius, it introduces the plausibility of the bold-faced lie, a tactic that would be used frequently in New World colonizing discourse.
(20) To Gilbert's credit, he does not suggest that this robbery will be beneficial to both perpetrator and victim. He writes, "The safety of Principates, Monarchies, and Common Wealths rest chiefly in making their enemies weak, and poor, and themselves strong and rich" (Quinn 170). At least in his own Queen's court, he is honest about the results of such action. Gilbert's partner in colonizing, Edward Hayes, was of another opinion. He argues that forcibly taking resources, land, and labor from Native Americans would benefit both Europeans and Natives. This will be discussed further in the next section.
(21) On August 8, while still in Newfoundland, Gilbert wrote to his investor and potential American tenant Sir George Peckham:
Sir George, I departed from Plymouth on the eleventh of June with five sails, and on the thirteenth the Bark Raleigh ran from me in fair and clear weather, having a large wind. I pray you solicit my brother Raleigh to make them an example of all knaves. On the third of August we arrived at a port called Saint John's, and will put to the seas from thence (God willing) so soon as our ships will be ready. Of the Newfound Land I will say nothing, until my next letters. Be of good cheer, for if there were no better expectation, it were a very rich domains, the country being very good and full of all sorts of victual, as fish both of the fresh water and sea fish, deer, pheasants, partridges, swans, and diverse fowls else. I am in haste, you shall by every messenger hear more at large. On the fifth of August, I entered here in the right of the Crown of England; and have engraven Arms of England, diverse Spaniards, Portuguese, and other strangers, witnessing the same. I can stay no longer; fare you well with my good Lady: and be of good cheer, for I have comforted myself, answerable to all my hopes. From Saint John's in the Newfound Land, the eighth of August, 1583.
Yours wholly to command, no man more, Hum. Gilbert. (Quinn 383)
This would prove to be the last letter Peckham received from Gilbert, for on the return voyage Gilbert's Squirrel sank into the Atlantic Ocean during heavy seas. The Delight and the Swallow had beached or sunk during exploration of Newfoundland, and only Edward Hayes's crew and the Golden Hinde returned intact.
HAYES'S CALVINISM: SPIRITUAL JUSTIFICATION
(22) The disaster of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's demise had far-reaching consequences. English colonizers and investors had always presumed the protecting hand of Providence would be with them. While the conquest and economic hopes of England were still very much alive, the spiritual implications of the enterprise were called into question. When Gilbert's ship sank, the English were forced to reconsider their divine right to America. None seemed to be more affected than Gilbert's partner and co-voyager, Edward Hayes.
(23) Not three months after Gilbert's ship sank, Hayes published an account of the voyage and subsequent drowning, entitled Narrative of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Last Expedition . Robert A. Williams, Jr., in his comprehensive tracing of colonizing discourse in Europe from which much of this discussion is derived, points out that "Hayes's return crossing had provided him with the opportunity to reflect on the arguments, moral as well as legal, supporting the discovery and conquest of America" (164). Hayes was faced with not only promoting colonization but justifying it as well. To Hayes, Providence would only protect and encourage those who were committed to the spreading of the gospel and not those who had motives of personal gain.
It behooveth every man of great calling, in whom is any instinct of inclination unto this attempt, to examine his own motions: which if the same proceed of ambition or avarice, he may assure himself it cometh not of God, and therefore can not have confidence of God's protection and assistance against the violence (else irresistible) both of sea, and infinite perils upon land. (Quinn 387)
Edward Hayes indirectly (and rightly) accuses Sir Humphrey Gilbert of being motivated not by religious fervor but by personal ambition and avarice. Thus, in Hayes's mind, God rejected Gilbert and doomed him to die at sea.
(24) Unfaltering in his own aims at colonizing lands "not in the actual possession of any Christian prince" (Quinn 385), Hayes stresses an unquestionable justification for exploiting the resources of the New World: religion. Hayes predicts wild success for any colonizer who is of a
Virtuous and heroical mind, preferring chiefly the honor of God, [has] compassion of poor infidels captivated by the devil, tyrannizing in most wonderful and dreadful manner over their bodies and souls [...] all these be honorable purposes, imitating the nature of the munificent God, [...] who will assist such an actor beyond expectation of man. (Quinn 387)
(25) Of course, since the Calvinist God rewards the good and punishes the wicked, the economic and social ambitions of colonizers could be still be got at by religious methods, as long as their motives were pure. This distinction in intent is a key element of English literature of justification and is derived from Calvinist religious dogma. As Harvard professor Reed Konsler points out,
What Calvin DID--and in retrospect this is one of the best bits of networking you could imagine--was declared that you could recognize those people that were performing "good" deeds by their EARTHLY rewards. You could recognize "the elect" by their success. Calvin didn't oppose the bankers and burgomeisters...he embraced them. Calvin validated an uneven distribution of wealth and power by claiming that the wealthy and the powerful were the good guys.
Thus, while Gilbert may have been less than good, other colonizers could be sure of their success if they had "honorable purposes."
(26) England could be sure of her unique positions as divinely ordained missionaries because John Cabot's "discoveries" in 1497 made England the first Christian nation to make contact with North America. Hayes considered Spain's financial success in South America and the Caribbean as indicative of her spiritual rightness, because Columbus and Vespucci first landed there, while Spain's failure to profit from North America, which was "discovered" by John Cabot, to be evidence of Spain's geographical and spiritual wrongness and thus England's divinely appointed proselytizing jurisdiction (Quinn 387). Hayes's new justification provided not only an ease of conscience but also a moral obligation to conquer and convert. Williams notes Hayes's methods of evangelizing:
Hayes had simply appropriated and economized early Puritanism's 'planting' metaphor and applied it to America: planting colonies of English farmers in America meant planting the seeds of civility and Christian religion. The seeds of commerce germinated by this divinely predestined endeavor were derivative but fortunate by-products of the seeds of faith planted by the English. (164)
Colonizers need not even explain their religion to Natives. By pursuing commercial gain with a heart for God, English farmers, fishermen, and soldiers could plant seeds of faith merely by proximity with Native Americans. And they could measure their degree of godliness by the wealth derived from exploitation.
(27) A uniquely protestant and mercantile philosophy of justification was beginning to take shape. However, what these elements of justification (Carleill's economic, Hayes's religious) and planning (Hakluyt's battle) lacked was a political motivation for outright exploitation and degradation of Native American bodies. Sir George Peckham was to provide this justification and present it in a comprehensive treatise on colonization in the New World.
PECKHAM'S SYNTHESIS: THE LEGAL JUSTIFICATION
(28) Sir George Peckham was a wealthy Catholic who was seeking religious refuge away from the expensive persecution of the Church of England. Having been imprisoned at least once for involvement with the Catholic Church (Quinn 71-72), he found the notion of a distant and unregulated colony appealing. In June 1582, under the approval of Sir Francis Walsingham, Peckham and his fellow Catholic recusant Sir Thomas Gerrard petitioned Gilbert for inclusion in the New World colonization scheme. Williams lays out the conditions of the eventual agreement:
Gilbert was to be lord proprietor and governor of any colony established by Gerrard and Peckham. The two Catholic organizers were each to be lords paramount of separate American seignories, with power to assign lands out of their grants from Gilbert at a rent of 1 shilling per 100 acres. A supreme council, of which Gilbert, Peckham and Gerard were to be members, was to be established, and each of the parties was to hold court for their tenants' disputes. This blending of corporate and feudal forms recalls the basic organizing models pioneered by Sidney and Smith for Irish colonization. (159)
Before allowing the Catholics to depart, Secretary of State Walsingham made sure they either paid or promised to pay their recusant fines. Apparently Gerrard was unable to do so, as he drops from the picture and plans immediately after the initial agreement (Quinn 72-73).
(29) Having invested heavily in the enterprise, and secured a tenuous right to emigrate from anti-Catholic England, Peckham must have been dismayed upon learning of Gilbert's calamitous end. A frustrated settler, he began devising new plans of colonization with Sir Philip Sidney, who took the place of Gerrard in Gilbert's original patent (Williams 165).
(30) Unable to garner the necessary mercantile and royal endorsement, in November 1583 Peckham wrote a treatise of his own, A True Reporte of the Late Discoveries , to garner governmental, commercial, and popular support. In it he includes nine short essays on the virtues of colonization by the major commercial and political figures of his day, a colored version of Gilbert's demise (in which Gilbert's fate is "uncertain"), and a number of chapters devoted to the moral (derived from Hayes) and fiscal (echoes of Carleill) justness of settling on foreign soil. Peckham congeals these two motives with a powerful third argument -- an argument powerful enough to disguise Gilbert's dishonesty behind Hayes's virtuous intent and provide venue for Hakluyt's battle plans for the commercial gains posited by Carleill.
(31) Peckham found this argument in the Catholic developed Law of Nations, penned by Franciscus de Victoria. As Williams points out, Peckham's "argument that the right to trade was secured by the Law of Nations closely paralleled that of the early sixteenth-century Spanish Dominican theologian Franciscus de Victoria" (167). Williams cites Victoria's 1532 lecture:
I will now speak of the lawful and adequate titles whereby the Indians might have come under the sway of the Spaniards. (1) The first title to be named is that of natural society and fellowship [compare Peckham's "mutual society and fellowship"]. And hereon let my first conclusion be: (2) The Spaniards have a right to travel into the lands in question and sojourn there. (167, brackets Williams's)
Williams goes on to say
Victoria (like Peckham) cited as his first "proof" "the law of nations" [...] Victoria's second proof (like Peckham's) relied on historical custom: "Secondly, it was permissible from the beginning of the world... for anyone to set forth and travel wheresoever he would." Peckham's discussion in this part of "A True Reporte" followed the precise sequence of Victoria's first two proofs. (167-68)
The Law of Nations, developed by Victoria and utilized by Peckham in conjunction with Elizabethan conquest discourse, simply stated that no nation could deny another from trading and trafficking with its citizens. In other words, free trade is a natural law. If this natural law is violated, then the victim nation is justified in enforcing its right with violence, even to the point of subjugation and destruction of the perpetrating nation.
(32) Thus, in Peckham's new scheme, if a settler with righteous intentions for trade was denied or hindered from trade by a Native American, he could inflict his pre-determined battle plan. Furthermore, since even a violent conflict could convert the "savages" into Christians (Calvin's intentions again), it was possible to begin relations with violence, justifying actions after-the-fact, á là Gilbert.
(33) Peckham's True Reporte assimilated all of the current arguments for and justifications of colonization, while incorporating Spanish discourse of conquest by hiding it in Calvinist ideology. While his economic and religious arrangements were by then familiar, his extensive treatment of the rights and benefits of Natives and his legal justifications of England as the particular nation to exploit them were the most engaging and complete of his day.
A TRUE REPORTE
(34) Sir George Peckham, like Christopher Carleill, was a frustrated colonizer. His Elizabethan mindset, which made allowance for taking land from a foreign people without their consent, did not allow him to do so without royal English permission. As a frustrated Catholic, he was not allowed to practice his religion without persecution from the Church of England. His vision for escape to America was hindered on the one side by England's fear of spreading Catholicism, on another by Spain's fear of spreading English colonization, and on a third by the sinking of Gilbert's ship. Popular opinion of English colonization was skeptical, at best. Commercial prospects were not good, as the first batch of speculators received no returns on their investments.
(35) It is no wonder then that Peckham found motivation to write a persuasive pamphlet, encouraging adventurers and merchants to settle in the New World. In desperation, Peckham called together the arguments of all of the justification of colonization and conquest literature he could muster. Because of his catholic roots, he was exposed to more than just the protestant works of Christopher Carleill, Richard Hakluyt, Edward Hayes, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert. In fact, because Franciscus de Victoria was both Spanish and catholic, Peckham was in a singular position to access his arguments. Peckham was required to disguise his use of Victoria's Law of Nations rationale in a discourse of his own if the English were to accept it, and he wisely phrased it in Hayes's nearly Puritanical religious terms (Williams 166-67). His synthesis of Victoria's political justification by the law of nations, Hayes's religious justification by Calvinistic intent, Carleill's economic discourse of profit, and guided by Gilbert's willingness to lie and steal resulted in a complete philosophy that called for the military action described by Hakluyt.
(36) Peckham begins his True Reporte with letter of dedication to Sir Francis Walsingham. Walsingham, as noted earlier, was the Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth and coordinated Peckham's collaboration with Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Peckham clearly wishes to retain the favor of Walsingham in order to secure another patent in the New World. Peckham continues with nine poems and letters glorifying conquest and England's rightful title to the world's resources. Sir William Pelham concludes the leading poem with this verse:
Then England thrust among them for a share,
Since title just, and right is wholly thine:
And as I trust the sequel [Peckham's treatise] shall declare,
Our luck no worse, then theirs before hath been.
For where the attempt, on virtue doth depend:
No doubt but God, will bless it in the end. (Quinn 437)
Pelham's poem includes shades of Calvinistic intent, "the attempt, on virtue doth depend," a nod at English greed, "for a share," and an Elizabethan sense of divine entitlement, "since title just, and right is wholly thine." Pelham's poem includes a suggestion of what Peckham contributes to English colonial discourse: the justification of taking by force "this abounding land" with their "coffers yet to fill." The remaining introductory works by the likes of Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Richard Bingham, Anthony Parkhurst, and others contain varying degrees of self-glorification, God's inevitable blessing, the missionary opportunities, the right of the English crown, and glowing language describing North America.
Chapter One
(37) "The first Chapter, wherein the Argument of the Book is Contained," entitles the first portion of Peckham's own writing. In it, drawing largely from Edward Hayes's testimony of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Peckham recounts Gilbert's last voyage. Gilbert's uniquely English ceremony of possession and the laying down of English law is discussed as if this process had actual objective territorial consequence. The sinking of Gilbert's ship, the event which prompted the public criticism of colonization and, in turn, prompted Peckham to write this treatise, is so glossed that it leaves Gilbert's fate entirely uncertain. Peckham briefly writes, "but of Sir Humphrey as yet, we hear no certain news" (Quinn 445). Clearly Peckham does not want to dwell upon Gilbert's demise.
(38) In the very next sentence Peckham diverts his readers' attention all the way back to ancient Greece, as he brings in Themistocles and his debate with Aristides. This is an interesting rhetorical move, as Peckham compares the Elizabethan's objections to colonizing North America with Aristides's objections to Themistocles and other Greeks burning their enemy's Navy. Aristides, Peckham tells us, informs the Greeks that while it may be profitable for them to do so, it is ultimately wrong because it is dishonest. The use of this tale performs two important rhetorical acts. The first effect of this story is to separate himself, if only a little, from Sir Humphrey Gilbert. It was Gilbert, Elizabethans will remember, who suggested molesting Spain's Navy for personal profit. It was Gilbert, critics would have known, who ransacked Irish villages for profit. Peckham uses his ancient Greek analogy to place himself of the side of Aristides, who believes that personal profit is not sufficient justification for destruction, exploitation, or theft of other people's property. Despite his rhetorical separation from Gilbert, Peckham retains Gilbert's ex post facto justification.
(39) This analogy serves a second function: to introduce justification other than personal profit. Peckham writes, "I drew myself into a more deeper consideration, of this late undertaken voyage, whether it were as well pleasing to almighty God, as profitable to men? as lawful as it is seemed honorable. As well grateful to the Savages, as gainful to the Christians" (Quinn 447). Here Peckham sets up his central justifications. He opens with religious rationalization, moves onto economic validation, suggests a legal foundation, and closes with the mutual benefit to Savages and Christians. Peckham's discourse promises to provide spiritual, economic, legal, and cultural justification for colonization.
Chapter Two
(40) Peckham's second chapter "sheweth that it is lawful and necessary to trade and traffic with the Savages. And to plant in their Countries. And divideth planting into two sorts" (Quinn 450). In this chapter, Peckham offers his uniquely catholic contribution to the literature of justification. He even uses Franciscus de Victoria's phrase "The Law of Nations" to rationalize colonizing enterprises. As noted earlier, Peckham's use of Law of Nations does little to justify actual commerce with Natives. In fact, Peckham doesn't even think that commerce needs any moral justification at all, as he writes,
For who doubteth but that it is lawful for Christians to use trade and traffic with Infidels or Savages, carrying thither such commodities as they want, and bringing from thence some part of their plenty? A thing so commonly and generally practiced, both in these our days, and in times past, beyond the memory of man, both by Christians and Infidels, that it need no further proof. (Quinn 450)
Instead, Peckham relies on the Law of Nations to justify violent conquest. In David Quinn's reprinting, Peckham closes his discussion of peaceful trade with Natives within fifty-seven lines. Peckham goes on to discuss war with the "Savages" against the seemingly omnipresent Cannibals in the next twenty lines, and then spends over 200 lines rationalizing battle against even non-combatant "Savages" themselves. He refers to the Biblical conquests of Joshua, the conquests of Alexander the Great, and other nation-enriching heroes as Godly and legal models for Elizabethan behavior. In doing so, Sir George Peckham reveals the Elizabethan understanding that commerce and prosperity is merely exploitation by force. As a reactionary document, A True Reporte also reveals the primary domestic concerns with overseas colonization: namely the justification of conquest. Peckham not only justifies conquest, he compels it.
Chapter Three
(41) In chapter two Peckham justified the conquest of non-Christian peoples by Christian nations. In chapter three, he attempts to prove why England ought to be the particular nation to do so. He relies on a Welsh myth of Prince Madoc, an ancient hero who supposedly colonized the Americas around 1000 AD. Because Madoc colonized (or at least discovered) and planted a seed of religion (harkens to Hayes) in the New World before any other Christian nation, it is England's obligation to fertilize and harvest that seed of faith. As if Madoc isn't enough, Peckham reminds his readers that John Cabot spied the New World in 1497 and therefore the crown of England has a unique right to settle there. Since England is the first European nation in recent memory to see the shores of North America, they have a right to exploit it first and most (for an extensive investigation into the myth of Prince Madoc, see H.C. Porter's The Inconstant Savage ).
Chapters Four and Five
(42) Chapters four and five borrow from and flush out Christopher Carleill's commercial promises. Chapter four makes economic predictions that will solve England's domestic shortages in employment and markets, while chapter five glorifies the profits of the individual "adventurers" who invest and engage in colonization and exploitation of the New World. Lists of the bounty of the New World, which can be had merely for the price of travel and possibly a few definitive battles, are given to entice the adventurer to settle. Peckham has seemingly already justified the enterprise; now he is merely reiterating the old promises of fortune and adventure.
Chapter Six
(43) Peckham's sixth (and, notably, shortest) chapter harkens back to his contemplation supposedly brought on by thinking of Aristides and Themistocles. Here he justifies conquest by positing that exploitation will "be unto the Savages themselves very beneficial and gainful" (Quinn 467). By mere word count, these benefits will be less bountiful than those enjoyed by the English. The first benefit to the Natives will be, naturally, salvation. Peckham writes, "if in respect of all the commodities they can yield us (were they many more) that they should but receive this only benefit of Christianity, they were more than fully recompensed" (Quinn 467-68). Thus, any further benefit to the Natives is just icing on the cake. The promise of a heavenly reward may be enticing to a Christian, but it is hard to comprehend how well this gift would be received by a Native who has been deprived of his homeland by European conquest. Fortunately for Peckham, his Eurocentric worldview prevents him from considering this appalling perspective. In fact, Peckham is so Eurocentric that he believes the other benefits to the "Savages" will be determined by the degree to which they embrace European culture. Learning to "till and dress their grounds, they shall be reduced from unseemly customs" (Quinn 468), the Natives could only hope to become so Christianized that they might even defend themselves against the cannibalistic influence. In other words, the Natives could benefit from being conquered by learning to conquer themselves. Once again Peckham is able to reduce aspects of cultural interchange to an act of war.
Chapter Seven
(44) Chapter seven is where the real promotional tack of Peckham's discourse occurs. Here, Sir George relates how easy the entire enterprise will be. After invoking the aid of Providence, the shortness of the journey, and likening hinderers to scaredy-cats (Quinn 470-71), Peckham tellingly discusses the weakness of Natives in combat. He writes that they are "void of the knowledge of the discipline of war" (Quinn 471). This is an interesting observation, considering he previously described them as continually under threat of war with the cannibals (see notes on chapter six). At any rate, Peckham considers them easy prey for a war machine like England and lists the profits conquest has yielded Spain and Portugal before transcending into a glorifying rant on world trade in general (Quinn 475-77).
Finis
(45) The closing section of A True Reporte lists the legal rights of participating investors and adventurers. Derived from his original agreements with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Peckham lists these terms in order to preserve a sort of status quo that he, Gilbert, and Sir Francis Walsingham established for Gilbert's colonizing enterprise. Peckham now lays out the specifics of colonization, the rights of each party, and the processes of land acquisition. No stone is left unturned in Peckham's True Reporte ; even the minutest legalities are taken care of.
A DUBIOUS END
(46) Unfortunately for Sir George Peckham, he did not take part in any future colonizing schemes. Heightening suspicion of Spanish and Catholic intrigue caught Peckham in a frenzy of paranoia, and he was imprisoned once again in January of 1584, only three months after publishing A True Reporte. In fact, English colonizing of Newfoundland did not even occur until 1610, and then only with poor results. However, the importance of A True Reporte lies not in its persuasive effectiveness but rather in its completeness as an uniquely Elizabethan representation of literature of justification. Peckham's synthesis of personal, royal, and national profit motives combines the best voices of his day on rationalizing conquering and commandeering the land, labor, and resources of North America.
Works Cited
Porter, H. C. The Inconstant Savage: England and the North American Indian, 1500-1660. London: Duckworth, 1979.
Quinn, David B., ed. Voyages and Colonising Enterprises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. London, Hakluyt Society, 1940.
Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640 . Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
Williams, Robert A., Jr. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest . New York: Oxford UP, 1990.
