He ate down to the bottom of his potatoes and herring with the determination of a prisoner clawing a hole through a wall, finally revealing the plate. The Waterhouse family china had been manufactured by sincere novices in Holland. After James I had outlawed the export of unfinished English cloth to the Netherlands, Drake had begun smuggling it there, which was easily done since the town of Leyden was crowded with English pilgrims. In this way Drake had made the first of several smuggling-related fortunes, and done so in a way pleasing in the sight of the Lord, viz. by boldly defying the King's efforts to meddle in commerce. Not only that but he had met and in 1617 married a pilgrim lass in Leyden, and he had made many donations there to the faithful who were in the market for a ship. The grateful congregation, shortly before embarking on the Mayflower, bound for sunny Virginia, had presented Drake and his new wife, Hortense, with this set of Delft pottery. They had obviously made it themselves on the theory that when they sloshed up onto the shores of America, they'd better know how to make stuff out of clay. They were heavy crude plates glazed white, with an inscription in spidery blue letters: