In addition to these, Mr. Greenhow enumerates several comparatively recent authors as adopting Hakluyt's opinion. Of these, perhaps Dr. Johnson has the greatest renown. He published a life of Drake in parts, in five numbers of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1740-41. It was, however, amongst his earliest contributions, when he was little more than thirty years of age, and therefore is not entitled to all the weight which the opinion of Dr. Johnson at a later period of life might carry with it. But as it is, the passage, as it stands at present, seems to involve a clerical error. "From Guatulco, which lies in 15° 40', they stood out to sea, and without approaching any land, sailed forward till on the night following the 3d of June, being then in the latitude of 38°, they were suddenly benumbed with such cold blasts that they were scarcely able to handle the ropes. This cold increased upon them, as they proceeded, to such a degree that the sailors were discouraged from mounting upon deck; nor were the effects of the climate to be imputed to the warmth of the regions to which they had been lately accustomed, for the ropes were stiff with frost, and the meat could scarcely be conveyed warm to the table. On June 17th they came to anchor in 38° 30'."
In the original paper, as published in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1741, Dr. Johnson writes 38° in numbers as the parallel of latitude where the cold was felt so acutely. This would be in a far lower latitude than what any of the accounts of Drake's own time gives; so that it may for that reason alone be suspected to be an error of the press, more particularly as Drake is made ultimately to anchor in 38° 30', a higher latitude than that in which his crew were benumbed with the cold. We must either suppose that Dr. Johnson entirely misunderstood the narrative, and intentionally represented Drake as continuing his voyage northward in spite of the cold, and anchoring in a higher latitude than where his men were so much discouraged by its severity, or that there is a typographical error in the figures. The latter seems to be the more probable alternative; and if, in order to correct this error, we may reasonably have recourse to the authority from which he derived his information as to the latitude of the port where Drake cast anchor, it is to the World Encompassed, and not to the Famous Voyage, that we must refer; for it is the World Encompassed which gives us 38° 30' as the latitude of the convenient and fit harbour, whereas the Famous Voyage sends Drake into a fair and good bay in 38°.