Introduction
In a prestigious lecture on the English national character in Oxford, historian Mandell Creighton developed the theme that unlike our European neighbours we don’t much care what others think of us. Sometimes this is good, sometimes bad and sometimes, as in the case of sixteenth-century emigrant Robert Tomson, both.
In 1554, Robert Tomson, of Andover, sailed from Bristol to Cadiz to make his fortune. He went to Seville, where he found an Englishman, John Field, who had been settled there for twenty years, with his wife and family. Tomson learned Spanish and looked about him. Seeing the produce which came from the West Indies, “he did determine with himself to seek means to pass over to that rich country, whence such a great quantity of rich commodity came”. Field was caught by his enthusiasm, and set off with his wife and family to Mexico. On the journey they suffered shipwreck, but were saved by another vessel. They lost all their goods, and landed “naked and distressed” at San Juan de Ulloa.*
There, however, Field met an old acquaintance in Spain, who generously supplied their needs, and gave them means to pursue their journey to Mexico. On the way Field and most of his family died of fever bred by the pestilent country. Tomson was ill for six months, but found even there a Scotsman who had been settled for twenty years, and by his recommendation found employment, in which he prospered for a year and a half. Then he fell into a theological discussion one day at dinner, and conducted it with all an Englishman’s self-sufficiency. “It is enough to be an Englishman to know all about that and more,”* was the remark, he tells us, of a bystander.
* San Juan de Ulúa, a fortress and prison in the harbour of Heroica Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. It was begun in 1535, and extended over the years. The fortress is now a museum with guided tours.
* That is, an Englishman assumes that he knows everything about everything precisely because he is an Englishman, and doesn’t feel the need for any additional qualifications.
Précis
In 1554, Robert Tomson of Hampshire emigrated to Seville, but soon decided to make for the West Indies in search of richer rewards. He survived shipwreck and near-fatal infection, but an outspoken dinner-time theological argument in Veracruz (in modern-day Mexico) did for him at last, and he was thrown in gaol by the Inquisition. (54 / 60 words)
In 1554, Robert Tomson of Hampshire emigrated to Seville, but soon decided to make for the West Indies in search of richer rewards. He survived shipwreck and near-fatal infection, but an outspoken dinner-time theological argument in Veracruz (in modern-day Mexico) did for him at last, and he was thrown in gaol by the Inquisition.
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