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SIR KRANCIS DRAKE

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FK'IIM AS KNdRAVINT. 11V IIONI>IUS(?)

Sir Francis Drake

PIONEERS OF PROGRESS

EMPIRE BUILDERS

EDITED BY A. P. NEWTON, M.A., D.LiTT., B.Sc., AND
W. BASIL WORSFOLD, M.A.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

WALTER J. HARTE, M.A.

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, EXETER

WITH A PORTRAIT | *1. S'

LONDON:

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920

ABERDEEN: THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

H

.;

THIS little book does not pretend to provide any
new matter for the story of Drake's life. All that
it attempts is to provide as clear a narrative as
possible, and to offer an unbiassed presentation of
his character, and a reasonable estimate of his posi-
tion as one of the Pioneers of the British Empire.
My thanks are due to Mr. H. W. Hodges of the
R.N.C., Dartmouth, for his suggestions and criti-
cisms on Chapters VI. -VI I.

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Camden Society. Miscellany. Vol. V.

Clowes, Sir W. Laird. The Royal Navy. Vol. I.

Corbett, Sir Julian. Drake and the Tudor Navy.

Corbett, Sir Julian. Drake (English Men of Action).

Dictionary of National Biography.

Drake, Lady Eliott. The Family and Heirs of Sir Francis Drake.

Froude, J. A. English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century.

Hakluyt. Vols. VI., IX., X., XI.

Hume, Martin. The Great Lord Burleigh.

Masefield, J. On the Spanish Main.

Pollard, A. F. The Political History of England. Vol. VI.

Raleigh, Sir Walter. English Voyages in the Sixteenth Century.

Social England. Vol. III.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE SITUATION ABROAD AND AT HOME . . . . i
II. 1540-1572 5

III. NOMBRE DE DlOS 12

IV. ROUND THE WORLD 18

V. 1580-1587 30

VI. PREPARATIONS FOR THE ARMADA 39

VII. THE ARMADA FIGHT . .42

VIII. CADIZ 50

IX. THE END 56

CHAPTER I.
THE SITUATION ABROAD AND AT HOME.

DRAKE'S life was passed in one of the most stormy
periods of English history. He was under twenty years
of age when Elizabeth came to a throne which she did
not seem likely to retain, for, as the daughter of Anne
Boleyn, she was looked upon as a bastard by all true
Catholics, and they maintained the right of her cousin,
Mary, Queen of Scots. The danger to England came at
first from France, where Mary married the Dauphin, and
became Queen of France on her husband's accession in
July, 1559. It then seemed likely that England would
fall to the French monarchy. But the new king died in
December, 1560, and the danger from France passed
with the return of Mary to Scotland the following year.
And Mary soon alienated her Scottish subjects, and fled
to England in 1568. Her arrival caused considerable
embarrassment to the English Government, who even-
tually determined to keep her in England, and there she
remained for nineteen years, the centre of Catholic plots
against Elizabeth.

Whilst Mary was in France Philip of Spain had felt
constrained to support Elizabeth, but on the return of the
Scottish Queen to her native land the danger of the junc-
tion of France, England, and Scotland came to an end,
and he was able to assist Mary. But Philip preferred to
work against Elizabeth by diplomacy and plots, for his -
troops were employed in trying to stamp out the rebellion
of his subjects in the Netherlands. This effort proved

2 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

much more difficult than had been expected, and from
1572 until after the end of our period the revolt in the
Netherlands was an important factor in the European
situation. The constant plotting of the Catholics in
England and on the Continent to free Mary and put her
on the throne ended with the execution of the Scottish
Queen in 1587, and by that time Philip had made up his
mind to crush England The reason for this policy is
not hard to seek, for, with the death of Mary, there was
no fear that Philip's assistance would place on the
English throne one who would give her support to his
rival, France. Yet it is not likely that the removal of
Mary was alone sufficient to rouse Philip to undertake
a crusade against the heretic Queen of England. There
was another cause much more pressing which drove
him unwillingly into action. From the beginning of
Elizabeth's reign English merchants had endeavoured to
carry on a trade with the Spanish possessions in America,
insisting that they had a right to do so under the terms of
commercial treaties made between England and Philip's
ancestors. But Philip refused to admit that Spanish
America came within the scope of those treaties. He
seized all ships which ventured to try to break the em-
bargo, and made use of the Inquisition to punish all Eng-
lish sailors, whom he looked upon not only as smugglers
but as dangerous heretics. So there was perpetual war-
fare on the Spanish Main, the English merchants pushing
their trade by force of arms, and Philip's men resisting
the attempt. But such a state of affairs was not in those
days considered a sufficient reason for open war, because
no State could sufficiently control its subjects at sea, and
the right of reprisal was a well recognised means of ob-
taining redress from foreigners. However, in course of
time the English merchants grew bolder and bolder, and
looked on the plunder of the Spanish Main as a fitting
answer to the Spanish intrigues against their queen, and
a lucrative occupation as well. Now, unless Philip was

THE SITUATION ABROAD AND AT HOME 3

willing ito acquiesce in the loss of his Spanish treasure, it
was necessary for him to make an attack upon England
itself, and so he determined to take a great force of
soldiers to England by sea. This great Armada com-
pletely failed to achieve its object, and, though Philip
made further efforts to crush England, he merely suc-
ceeded in bringing about the ruin of his own country,
and died in 1598, leaving Spain in the position of a
third-class power.

Elizabeth was as unwilling as her rival, Philip, to bring
matters to extremities. At the beginning of her reign
her position was insecure, and her policy was to take no
definite action until she was actually forced to do so.
This did not prevent her from encouraging her merchants
in their enterprises ; in fact, she often took shares in the
more important ventures, though, in her capacity as
queen, she disavowed them and denied that they were
intended as attacks on a brother sovereign, declaring
that any damage committed was done in the right of
private reprisal for injuries received from the Spanish.
She also secretly supported the Netherlanders if she
could not induce any one else to do so, whilst, as a rule,
she found it easy to keep on good terms with France, as
that country was torn with religious wars from 1562-
98, and was alarmed at the growing power of the
Spanish monarchy.

The internal state of England during the early years
of her reign gave no indication of the success which was
to come later on. The two previous rulers had left a
legacy of debt, despair, and misery. The rapacity of the
Reformers during the rule of the Duke of Northumber-
land filled people with disgust, whilst the atrocities com-
mitted by Mary in the name of religion were equally
hateful. So it was by no means easy to decide what
course to take, although to acknowledge the Papal
supremacy was no longer possible. But the Queen's
decision to take a " middle course between Rome and

4 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

Geneva" was not likely to attract any except the luke-
warm, and it was only gradually that the Elizabethan
Church endeared itself to the majority of the nation as
the outward and visible sign of an England free from all
external authority. It was this that especially appealed
to the sailors in their conflict with the Spanish Catholics,
and the Elizabethan seamen were among the most
sturdy supporters of English "Protestantism".

CHAPTER II.
1540-1572.

THE early years of Drake's life are wrapped in obscurity.
His father was almost certainly Edmund Drake, and
Francis was probably born about the year 1540 at
Crowndale in the parish of Tavistock, on an estate be-
longing to Lord Russell. There is no doubt that the
family left Devon and made their home in Kent, probably
at Gillingham Reach, just below Chatham.

Camden says that Drake told him that he was of
" mean" (i.e. middle) parentage, that his father became a
Protestant, and as a result of the Six Articles Act of
1539 fled to Kent, and later became vicar of Upnor.
This statement does not appear to be entirely correct.
In the first place it does not seem probable that in 1539
a Protestant would have fled to the London district where
persecution was hottest, away from the county where
the " protestant " family of Russell had great influence.

It seems much more likely that his flight was the re-
sult of the "Prayer Book Rebellion" of 1549, when all
Devon and Cornwall rose against the new religion.

Secondly, the name Upnor seems to be a slip for
Upchurch, where an Edmund Drake was vicar from
1560-67.

As to the " mean " parentage, the name of Drake was
a common one in Devon, and in East Devon the Drakes
of Ashe were a distinguished family, and they bore the
Wyvern on their coat of arms, as did Sir Francis after

(5)

6 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

1581. But his association with the Wyvern does not
involve the assumption that he had any close connexion
with this family. The note added to the grant of arms
in 1581, stating that Drake had a right by just descent
and prerogative of birth to bear the arms of his name and
family, may have been due to the herald's ignorance of
the facts of the case ; and when Sir Francis became
famous, the Drakes of Ashe would be proud to admit his
claim to be a connexion.

It is probable that Edmund Drake had, while in
Devon, become a convert to the new opinions favoured
by Lord Russell, for the latter's eldest son stood god-
father to Francis, and gave the baby his own name.

In Kent, then, Francis grew up, the eldest of twelve
sons, and he was doubtless brought up amongst "Prot-
estants," knowing the Bible well, and hating the Span-
iards, of whose brutalities in the Netherlands he would
hear, and the Papists, who in the days of Queen Mary
had persecuted his co-religionist friends in England.
However, we must not imagine that the Spaniards would
have been allowed to monopolise the new world if there
had been no religious differences at work. France and
Spain had been fierce rivals in Europe since 1520, and
the struggle between them continued with brief intervals
for forty years, until the energies of the French Govern-
ment were diverted to the suppression of heresy among
its own subjects. During the long struggle between these
two great Catholic powers, the French paid no regard
to the partition of the New World between Spain and
Portugal which had been made by the Pope in 1493, and
French cruisers plundered the Spanish settlements in
America, whilst the harbours of Normandy and Brittany
were full of Spanish ships which had fallen into the
hands of French privateers.

In the past the English had been the enemies of
France and the friends of Spain ; but stories of the wealth
of the New World, of the defenceless condition of the

1540-1572 7

American ports, and of the incompetence of the Spanish
commanders, proved too great a temptation to allow
the old friendship to count. So in England the desire
to get rich quickly went hand in hand with the hatred
felt for the men of the Inquisition ; and it would be in-
teresting to speculate as to what the theological opinions
of English seamen would have been, if Spain had been
willing to tolerate Protestantism whilst she continued
her policy of monopoly in the American trade. Still, for
the English people, the struggle got to be looked upon
as a new crusade for the Reformation, and this feeling
added strength to the desire of the merchants to break
down the Spanish monopoly.

Drake was apprenticed to the master of a bark trading
between Zeeland, France, and England, and the owner
bequeathed the vessel to him after his death. He then
engaged in one or two voyages to Guinea and the Spanish
Main, and came to realise what the Spanish policy
meant.

John Hawkins was the first to break this monopoly.
He learnt whilst trading with the Canaries that negroes
were very good merchandise in Hispaniola, and that they
could be easily obtained on the coast of Guinea. Now
Hawkins was a sober trader, and he had no scruples
concerning slave trading, against which he found nothing
in the Bible.

He also considered that he had acted within his rights,
for treaties made in 1496 and 1499 granted free inter-
course to the English in all lands and ports of the Arch-
duke of Austria, his heirs and successors ; and Philip II.
of Spain was the Archduke's grandson. But the Span-
iards, though they allowed the English to trade with
their European possessions, refused to acknowledge that
the treaties applied to the New World, and had no in-
tention of allowing Hawkins to take slaves there : and it
is difficult to believe that Hawkins could have imagined
that the treaties with the Archduke justified him in

8 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

evading restrictions which were imposed upon even
the Spanish slave traders by their own Government.

In 1562 and in 1564, Hawkins collected negroes on
the coast of Guinea and sold them to eager Spanish
purchasers in the New World.

In the meanwhile Drake had sold his ship and had
made some voyages to Spain, Guinea and the Spanish
Main, as the district between the Orinoco and the
Isthmus of Darien was called.

Hawkins' third expedition was secretly fitted out in
May, 1 567, and started in the following October. Francis
Drake, who was his cousin, accompanied him in charge
of a small ship of 50 tons called the " Judith ". Hawkins
was in an old ship lent by the Queen, the "Jesus of
Lubeck," and there were three other vessels, whilst he
added to their number by seizing some Portuguese ships
on the way.

But things went badly after this. It was only after
considerable trouble that between 400 and 500 slaves
were obtained, and the journey across the Atlantic took
fifty-five days ; whilst it was found to be more difficult
than ever to dispose of his cargo, for "the king had
straitly commanded all his governors by no means to
suffer any trade to be made with us ". So Hawkins em-
ployed force. At Rio de la Hacha he captured the town,
and proceeded to sell about 200 negroes. After this
"violent vindication of the legitimate aspirations of Eng-
lish commerce," the return journey was begun in the
month of August. But ill-luck continued to dog his
course. After passing through the Yucatan Channel,
he met with a fierce hurricane, which lasted four days,
and did so much damage to the "Jesus," that it was
necessary, so Hawkins affirmed, to make for a harbour
and get her repaired. For a fortnight Hawkins worked
round the coast of Florida seeking in vain for shelter,
and then he made for San Juan de Ulloa, the harbour of
the Spanish town of Vera Cruz. The governor was

1540-1572 9

very much alarmed at the arrival of Hawkins, for the
Spanish treasure ships were there awaiting the arrival
of a Spanish escort. Hawkins promised not to attack
the treasure if he were allowed to repair his ships, a
promise he readily gave, as he was always careful to
discriminate between compulsory trade and piracy. He
was then permitted to enter the harbour and to mount
some guns on shore to protect his ships and guard the
entrance against any attack. Next morning (17 Sep-
tember) thirteen Spanish ships appeared. Hawkins
went out to explain the situation to the Admiral, and,
after negotiations, which lasted three days, an agreement
was reached. Hawkins allowed the Spanish ships to
enter their own port, and in return the English were
permitted to repair and reyictual their vessels. So the
two fleets then lay close to one another in the harbour.
But the next day Hawkins' ships were attacked, and
the men ashore were overpowered and killed. After a
sharp fight, in which the Spaniards employed two fire-
ships, Hawkins, in the " Minion," and Drake, in the
"Judith," managed to escape. But the rest of the ships
and all the profits of the voyage, said to be worth
£100,000, remained in the enemy's hands; and the
fugitives got safe away only because the Spanish ships
had been too much damaged in the fight to be able to
pursue.

It was not until the following January (1569) that
Drake got back to Plymouth in the "Judith," crowded
with men who were suffering much from shortage of
food. Hawkins did not arrive till five days later. He,
too, had suffered severely, and had been compelled to
put a hundred men ashore in the Bay of Mexico, whilst
he lost many more from hunger and disease on the way
home.

The two ships had been parted in a gale outside San
Juan, and Drake, without wasting time in looking for
his partner, had pressed for home. He was much blamed

io SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

for this, and accused of deserting his leader ; yet it is
difficult to see what else he could have done in the
circumstances in which he found himself — with an over-
loaded ship and starving men.

Before Drake's arrival, reports had reached England that
all the members of the expedition had been caught and
massacred by the Spaniards. At that time there were
Genoese ships sheltering in English harbours from the
French Huguenot privateers in the Channel. These
ships were carrying treasure which had been borrowed
by Philip to pay the Spanish troops in the Netherlands.
The English Council determined to seize this money on
the plea that it still belonged to the Genoese, from
whom the Queen proposed to borrow it. But, in fact, it
was meant as a reprisal, and it was recognised as such
by the Spaniards, who retaliated by seizing all the Eng-
lish property they could lay hands on in the Netherlands.
But here Spain put herself technically in the wrong, as
it had been agreed that there should be no reprisals till
justice had been refused. So the Queen, in her turn, re-
taliated, seizing all Spanish ships, property, sailors and
merchants in England, and putting the Spanish Am-
bassador under arrest in his own house. Then Drake
arrived, and went up to London at once, where an In-
quiry was opened by the Lord Admiral : and soon after
news was brought home that Drake's cousin, Barret, who
had sailed with him, had been burned at the stake by
orders of the Inquisition, and that many of his com-
panions had been tortured into recanting their faith by
the same authority.

Such was the result of Drake's first serious venture in
breaking the Spanish monopoly in the New World, and
he came back vowing vengeance against the Spaniards
for their treachery and cruelty, and determined to make
good the losses he and his friends had suffered at their
hands.

To those unacquainted with the attitude of mind of the

1540-1572 II

sixteenth century, it is difficult to understand how these
"unfriendly" actions of Spaniards and Englishmen to-
wards one another could be supported by the reprisals
of their respective Governments without involving them
in actual warfare. But a correct diplomatic attitude with
regard to what went on in the New World had not yet
been reached, the control of Governments over their sub-
jects at sea was very ineffective, and so it was thirty
years before open war broke out between the two powers.
Our information about Drake's doings for some time
after this disastrous expedition is very slight. He was
engaged possibly on one of the Queen's ships con-
voying merchantmen to Hamburg and La Rochelle ;
and in 1570 and 1571 he made voyages to the West
Indies of which we know very little. Certainly he
would have collected much valuable information about
the position of affairs in that area, and the Spaniards
said that he seized much booty. This statement is pro-
bably correct, because he was able to fit out his expe-
dition the next year (1572) with every requisite. We
may say then that the era of what we should now call
piracy, but what the Elizabethans called reprisals, was
begun by the English in the year 1570, though it had
been started by the French at a much earlier date.
Drake also found time to woo Mary Newman, the
daughter of a yeoman of St. Budeaux, near Plymouth,
whom he married in July, 1569; and in 15 70 he was
made a freeman of the borough of Plymouth.

CHAPTER III.
NOMBRE DE DIGS.

DURING the years 1570 and 1571 the relations between
Spain and England were very much strained. The
Ridolfi plot against Elizabeth was being matured, but
the English Government knew all about it, and in Janu-
ary* I572> tney ordered Don Guerau, the Spanish Am-
bassador, to leave England.

By the month of May, Drake had completed his
elaborate arrangements for another expedition. He
sailed from Plymouth on the 24th of that month with
two small vessels, the " Pasha " of 70 tons and the
"Swan" of 25 tons, and three "dainty pinnaces" in
pieces stowed aboard ready to be put together as soon as
was necessary. The "Swan" was in charge of Drake's
brother, John. The expedition numbered seventy-three
men and boys, all carefully chosen volunteers, most of
whom were young men, and with them went Drake's
brother Joseph and Mr. John Oxenham.

The journey across the Atlantic was a good one, and
by 21 July, Drake was off the Spanish Main near Santa
Marta, to the west of the Gulf of Venezuela. He then
made for a secret harbour which he had found the
previous year. But the Spaniards had been there too
and had removed the treasures he had buried there. He
next put together his pinnaces, and, whilst thus engaged,
he was joined by James Ranse, an English privateer,
who persuaded Drake to allow him to join the expedition.
They then made for a small island near Nombre de Dios.

(12)

NOMBRE DE BIOS 13

Ranse was left here in charge of the ships, and Drake
went off in the pinnaces with seventy-three men to attack
Nombre de Dios. This was a small unwalled town situ-
ated on a very unhealthy spot about fifty-five miles away
due north of the town of Panama. It was a very quiet
place except at the time when the Spanish galleons came
from Cartagena to take on board the gold and silver
which had been brought there across the isthmus from
the mines of Peru.

Drake was able to make a surprise attack and the
Spaniards were quickly driven out of the town. A great
quantity of silver bars were found, and then the treasure
house was seized in which the gold, pearls and jewels
were kept. Drake had, as he said, brought his men to
the mouth of the Treasure of the World. Unfortunately,
at this point Drake, who had been wounded in the thigh,
fainted, and his untried men fell into a panic. A very
heavy thunder-storm had spoilt their bow strings and
damped their powder, whilst the Spaniards had rallied
and renewed the attack. So they abandoned their rich
spoil, picked up their captain, hurried back to their boats
and made for an island off the coast. There the com-
pany revived themselves and after a few days returned to
Ranse. This latter, disgusted at the failure of the raid,
determined to go home ; and Drake no doubt was glad
to be relieved of a partner who was not one of his own
choice.

Drake's next exploit was to attack Cartagena, the
capital of the Spanish Main. Here he failed, for the
garrison had been warned ; but he managed to seize a
frigate and also a large ship laden with treasure, and
with these he retired to an adjacent island and thought
out his next plan of action. Fortunately, the English
generally, and Drake in particular, had won the con-
fidence of the Maroons, or Cimarrons, tribes of escaped
negroes, who with their Indian wives inhabited the forests
and were bitterly hostile to the Spaniards. He deter-

I4 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

mined to take advantage of his friendly relations with
these men, and with their assistance to land and cut off
the recuas, or mule trains, bearing the Spanish treasure
across the isthmus. Now Drake had not any longer
enough men for all his craft, and as the pinnaces would
be most useful in carrying out his new plans, he sank
the " Swan," burnt his prizes, and then made for a safe
hiding place in the Gulf of Darien, where he could refit
and get into touch with the Maroons. To be secure in
his new retreat he built a fort, which he called Diego
after a faithful negro who had attached himself to Drake
at Nombre de Dios. But the Maroons told him that it
was impossible to make his attack until the rainy season
was over, so Drake had to find occupation for his men
for five months. He left his brother John and some
men in charge of the fort and went off with Oxenham to
Cartagena, where he made some prizes, and even ven-
tured to shelter from the bad weather in the harbour and
the adjacent roads for a fortnight, in spite of the Spanish
attempts to dislodge him. This expedition gives one out of
countless proofs of the hopeless impotence of the Spanish
officials to resist any determined attack upon them.

On his return Drake found that his brother John had
been killed whilst making a rash attack upon an armed
frigate. So he determined to keep quiet, though the
climate and want of regular occupation caused serious
illness amongst his men, twenty-eight of whom died, in-
cluding his brother Joseph. At last the time of waiting
came to an end, the Maroons brought the good news
that part of the fleet had reached Nombre de Dios, where
they lay awaiting the mule trains. So Drake set out on
3 February with eighteen of his men, and thirty Ma-
roons as carriers. After marching through the woods for
three days, they arrived at a trim little Maroon village
surrounded with a ditch and a thick mud wall. Here
Drake persuaded them to put away their crosses, and he
taught them the Lord's Prayer and some of the Protestant

NOMBRE DE BIOS 15

forms of worship. Then he went on over the Cordillera
range. On II February at 10 a.m. the Maroon Chief
took Drake to the hill-top and to "the goodly and
great high tree " in the trunk of which steps had been
cut. In its topmost branches a little hut had been built,
and the trees north and south of it had been cleared
away. And from this outlook it was that Drake, looking
some thirty miles to the south, gazed for the first time
on the waters of the Pacific, and prayed God to give him
life and leave to sail once in an English ship in that sea.
After that he marched down the southern slopes of the
range towards Panama. Now the Spaniards always did
the first stage of the journey, from Panama to Vera Cruz,
by night, " because the country is all champion and con-
sequently by day very hot " ; but from Vera Cruz the
journey was done by day, " because all that way is full
of woods and therefore very cool ". Drake learned that
the Treasurer of Lima and his daughter, with a private
train of mules laden with gold and jewels, were to start
that evening, followed by two more mule trains bearing
victuals ; so that night he ordered his men to put their
white shirts on over their other garments and lie in am-
bush near Vera Cruz, which was about fifteen miles
N.N.W. of Panama. Unfortunately, one of Drake's men
disobeyed orders and came out of his hiding-place as a
Spanish horseman, riding in advance, came along the
track. The Spaniard saw the figure in the shirt, and
guessing that danger was at hand, turned and galloped
back towards Panama as fast as he could, and persuaded
the Treasurer to let the victual trains go before him, so
these alone fell into the enemy's hands. This was, of
course, a great disappointment. Moreover, Drake's pres-
ence was now known, and surprise was no longer possible.
Drake determined to eat and drink from the Spanish
provisions, and then to hurry towards Vera Cruz on the
backs of the mules. Near the town he drove back some
Spaniards who were awaiting him and then rushed the

16 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

town, which he sacked. After that he made his way
back to his ship as quickly as possible, with very little
to show for his venture across the isthmus.

Some time would elapse before the mule trains would
start again, so Drake went out to sea in the " Minion,"
and captured a small ship laden with gold, whilst one of
his pinnaces captured a good frigate with a valuable
cargo aboard. His men used both ships for privateering.
Whilst thus engaged he fell in with a Huguenot privateer,
Captain T£tu, who had seventy men with him ; so Drake,
who had only thirty-one men left, agreed to allow Tetu
to join him, and his new companion increased Drake's
bitterness for the Romanists by telling him of the mas-
sacre of St. Bartholomew.

A new expedition was then planned, and the party,
accompanied with Maroons, made their way to the mouth
of the Rio Francisco. There they left the frigate in the
charge of some of the men, and continued the journey
some way up the river in the pinnaces. Then leaving
the boats with a guard, they lay in ambush close to
Nombre de Dios on the night of 31 March. They had
not long to wait before three royal mule trains, with an
escort of soldiers to guard their precious burden, appeared
in sight. These they easily captured, and then, heavily
laden with their booty, and carrying Tetu (who had been
wounded), they returned to their boats as fast as they
could, each man having as much pure gold as he could
carry. Some of the silver they buried on the way back.
But on reaching the river, there were no boats to be
seen, and, when they got in sight of the sea, they saw
seven Spanish pinnaces apparently making off from the
spot where their boats were to have been ready. Even
so Drake refused to despair. He rigged up a raft, and,
accompanied by one Englishman and two Frenchmen,
he went in search of his boats, and by great good luck
found the two pinnaces which had been unable to return
to the mouth of the river owing to a gale.

NOMBRE DE DIGS 17

So the expedition was successfully accomplished,
though the unfortunate Tetu had to be left behind, and
fell into the hands of the Spaniards.

No time was lost in preparing for the journey home.
The "Pasha" was dismantled, and a captured frigate
was fitted up in her place. Another small frigate was
also captured, and then the two ships, loaded with gold
and silver, but with crews reduced to thirty in number,
made their way for Plymouth, which was reached at
sermon time on Sunday, 9 August, 1573. But very few
of the congregation remained with the preacher, "all
hastening to see the evidence of God's love and blessing
towards our gracious Queen and country ".

CHAPTER IV.
ROUND THE WORLD.

DRAKE had come home a rich man, burning with a
desire to attack the Spaniards in the Pacific, whose
waters he had seen on that memorable 1 1 February.
But it was some time before he was permitted to make
the attempt, for the situation between England and
Spain was much easier than it was when he left Eng-
land in 1572, and his return caused considerable em-
barrassment to the English Government now that it was
on comparatively friendly terms with Philip. So he
had to keep quiet, and we hear nothing more of him until
1575, when we find him serving under the Earl of Essex
on the Irish coast as the captain of the " Falcon ".
Whilst thus engaged he became closely acquainted with
a Mr. Thomas Doughty, who had been in the confidence
of the Earl of Essex, but had forfeited that trust, as the
Earl thought that Doughty had lost him the support of
the Earl of Leicester at Court.

By this time Drake had attracted the notice of Lord
Burghley, and when he left Essex's service in the autumn
of 1575 the latter gave him a letter commending him to
Walsingham, the new Secretary of State, who was a
vigorous Protestant and a member of the war party.
Essex also introduced him to Mr. Christopher Hatton,
the Queen's new favourite, for whom Doughty was acting
as private secretary. At Court Drake laid his plans be-
fore Elizabeth, but he was anxious to hide them from Lord

(18)

ROUND THE WORLD 19

Burghley, who consistently opposed all attempts to pro-
voke the King of Spain. But Burghley had his " secret
service," and was doubtless kept well informed of what
was going on, very likely obtaining his information from
Doughty, who seems to have been a very corruptible
sort of person. So Drake made his preparations, and
managed to keep the Spaniards in the dark ; for, when
the new Spanish Ambassador arrived in March, 1578,
three months after Drake had started, all he could dis-
cover was that Drake had made for Nombre de Dios.

Drake had many difficulties to overcome at Court be-
fore he finally got away to sea at the end of 1577. For
the Queen, as always, was unwilling to make any definite
decision, sometimes siding with Walsingham and the
war party and then swinging over to the mere cautious
views of Burghley. But the designs of Don John of
Austria, Philip's Governor in the Netherlands, made it
improbable that any really lasting peace could be main-
tained with Spain, and on 13 December Drake finally left
Plymouth, ostensibly on the way to the Mediterranean
or the West Indies. The fleet was well stored with
every requisite, and, as before, he took with him pinnaces
in pieces. He also had expert musicians and rich furni-
ture on board, for he intended to make a good show
before the world. Drake himself sailed in the " Pelican,"
a ship of 100 tons and carrying eighteen guns ; and he
had Doughty with him on board. The " Elizabeth," of
eighty tons and sixteen guns, was commanded by Captain
John Wynter ; the " Marigold," of thirty tons and sixteen
guns, and the " Swan," a " fly-boat " or store ship of fifty
tons with five small guns, were commanded respectively
by Captain John Thomas and Mr. John Chester ; and the
" Benedict," a pinnace of fifteen tons with one gun, was
in charge of Thomas Moore. The crews numbered about
150 picked men, and, in addition, a number of gentle-
men accompanied Drake, including Thomas Doughty
and his brother.

20 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

From the very start there were troubles. To begin
with, a violent gale drove them back to Plymouth for
repairs, and soon Thomas Doughty's conduct threatened
to ruin the whole scheme. Drake, first of all, made for
the west coast of Morocco, where he captured a Portu-
guese ship, which he re-named the " Christopher," and
incorporated it in his fleet in place of the " Benedict ".
Shortly after, another Portuguese ship was taken, and
Drake called it the " Mary," and gave the command of it
to Doughty. But he was accused of appropriating some
of the cargo, and so Drake ordered him back to the
"Pelican," and sailed in the "Mary" himself with his
brother Thomas as captain. The men and passengers
captured on the ships were set free without ransom,
with the exception of a pilot, Nufio da Silva, who was
well acquainted with the South Seas and was said to be
willing to accompany Drake. It was not until the fleet
was passing the Cape Verde Islands that the men were
told that they were bound for Brazil, and soon afterwards
Doughty caused more trouble. Apparently he considered
that he had stepped into Drake's position when the latter
left the " Pelican," and there is evidence that while he
was on board an attempt was made to get the crew to
desert. So, in the hope of avoiding further trouble,
Doughty was put on board the " Swan," either as a
private individual or as a prisoner at large.

After sailing for two months without sight of land
Drake made the coast of South America near the Rio
Grande do Sul. Dense fogs and terrible gales were then
experienced, and it was only after a period of great anxiety
that the mouth of the River Plata was reached. Here
they rested for a fortnight, and then again set out, with
Drake once more in charge of the " Pelican ". After
another bout of bad weather Drake found shelter in Port
Desire, situated about 300 miles from the entrance to
Magellan Straits. But the "Swan" and the "Mary"
broke away from the rest in the storms, and though the

ROUND THE WORLD 21

former was soon found, the latter, with John Drake on
board, was not sighted until his brother was about to
enter the Straits.

Drake now determined that the " Swan " was not a
suitable vessel for the work, so he broke her up and put
back Doughty on the " Pelican ". The voyage up to this
point had been a most unlucky one," for the fleet had
suffered from gales, calms, sultry heat, terrific thunder-
storms, and terrifying fogs, and Drake had been further
worried by Doughty's suspicious behaviour. The re-
sult was to convince Drake that his former friend was
" practising the Black Art " and in league with the Evil
One ; and in this opinion he was confirmed by the reports
he heard of Doughty's behaviour on the " Swan " while
she was separated from the fleet, by which it appears
certain that he had endeavoured to depose the master
and seize the vessel. It seemed to Drake that it would
be impossible to continue the enterprise with Doughty
at hand ever ready to create disorders and raise the
spirit of mutiny among the crew, so he removed him to
the " Christopher " ; and the fleet again set sail, to be
again troubled with foul weather, during which time the
"Christopher " was lost for three days. Drake then put
into a little bay and determined to break up the " Chris-
topher". This done, he placed both the Doughty
brothers on the "Elizabeth" in charge of Wynter, with
orders that they should be kept apart from the crew and
not allowed to write or read.

With only three ships — the "Pelican," the "Eliza-
beth," and the " Marigold " — Drake made his way down
towards the Straits, and put in at Port St. Julian.
Here it was that Magellan had put to death four cap-
tains for mutiny, and it was here that now Thomas
Doughty was to suffer death, ostensibly for mutiny, con-
spiracy, witchcraft, disaffection, and insubordination. It
is doubtful whether Drake had the power of life and
death over the gentlemen volunteers who accompanied

22 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

him, but a jury of about forty men was chosen, with
Wynter, the Vice- Admiral, as foreman. Doughty was
unwise enough to blurt out that he had informed Lord
Burghley of Drake's design, and this, doubtless, re-
moved all doubt as to the prisoner's guilt ; for his indis-
cretion made it appear that he was acting on board as
Burghley 's agent, to prevent any action on the part of
Drake that could produce a rupture with Spain. The
jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty, and sentence
of death was pronounced on him. Then Drake took
the sacrament with the condemned man, and Doughty's
head was struck off. Thus ended the mysterious con-
nection of Thomas Doughty with Drake's great ad-
venture.

Drake now determined to assert his authority. On
Sunday, 1 1 August, after every man had taken the
sacrament, Drake spoke to them of the need of harmony.
" I must have the gentleman to hawl and draw with the
mariner, and the mariner with the gentleman," he said ;
and he offered a ship to those who should be unwilling
to follow him, but no one accepted the offer. Then
Drake cashiered all the officers, and after giving his ver-
sion of the Doughty affair, and reprimanding some of
the accomplices, he promised that no more should suffer
for their offences. He told them how the Queen was
interested in the expedition, and explained that, if it
failed, Spain would triumph over the Queen, and no one
would afterwards venture to attack Spain in the Pacific.
He then restored the officers to their posts, and a week
later he sailed for the Straits.

We will here anticipate events in order to bring the
unpleasant story of Doughty to an end. Soon after
Drake's return, John Doughty prosecuted Drake for the
murder of his brother. But the case was hushed up, and
it was evident that some great secret of State was in-
volved. What that was it is impossible to decide ; but it
is not unreasonable to suppose that Burghley was in-

ROUND THE WORLD 23

volved in Doughty's proceedings, and that it was not
advisable that the agreement between the two should
become divulged.

It was on 20 August that Drake entered the Straits
with his three ships. He then re-christened his " Pelican "
the " Golden Hind," the emblem of his friend and patron,
Sir Christopher Hatton, whose servant he had just exe-
cuted, and whose resentment, it was said, he thus hoped
to allay.

One of Drake's prisoners tells us that the " Golden
Hind" was a very fast galleon, with a hundred skilled
men aboard. He says that Drake treated his men with
affection, and they him with respect, though he kept
very strict discipline. He had with him nine or ten
gentlemen, who were members of his Council, but none
of them sat or remained covered in his presence with-
out his permission.

Drake was now in utterly unknown waters, and his
course became extremely intricate, owing to the numerous
channels and the constantly changing winds, and he
found it necessary to go ahead in a boat from time to
time to feel the way. On one of the islands in the
Straits he landed, and took possession of it in the narne
of the Queen. After seventeen days of great anxiety,
he cleared the Straits, only to be met by a furious gale,
which drove him, in snow and darkness, down south.
During its course the " Marigold " foundered, and the
" Elizabeth " disappeared from sight, and then " partly
through a kind of desire that some in her had to be out of
these troubles, and to be home again, partly because, no
exact rendezvous having been given, there seemed little
prospect of again joining the Admiral, Wynter, on
making the entrance to the Straits, on 8 October, re-
solved to go home," and he reached England in June,
1579. Meanwhile Drake was driven before the north-
eastern gale and became the unwilling discoverer of the
fact that the land to the south consisted of a group of

24 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

islands and was not part of another continent stretching
towards the south pole, as had been supposed. For
fifty-two days Drake was battered about by storms :
then fine weather set in, and he made his way up the
Chili coast in the hope of finding Wynter. On the way
some of the company landed with Drake on the coast,
but they were fiercely attacked by the natives, who had
already, perhaps, experienced the brutalities of the
Spaniards. In this engagement the only surgeon in the
company, the chief gunner, and his faithful negro, Diego,
were killed, whilst Drake and most of the boat's crew
were wounded. Fortunately Drake possessed some
simple knowledge of the doctor's art, and the wounds
did not prove serious. Farther up the coast they met
with a much better reception ; and the natives agreed
to pilot them to Valparaiso, a small Spanish settlement
of about nine households.

The visit of the English to the west coast of South
America was a complete surprise to the Spaniards, for
they did not sail European ships on the Pacific, but built
vessels there for their coasting voyages up to the isthmus
and back. Consequently Drake's raid along this coast
was the easiest part of his enterprise. As he entered
each harbour he was naturally mistaken for a Spanish
visitor, and before the mistake could be rectified the
English had attacked, the ships in harbour were rifled,
the crews fled or were put ashore, and Drake could then
make off to perform the same feat at other harbours
along the coast. At Valparaiso he carried off the ship
which he found in the harbour, and with her a Greek
whom he kept to pilot him to Lima. After Val-
paraiso, Arica was visited, and then Lima, where they
found twelve or fifteen fine ships all lying in fatal secur-
ity. There he learned that a ship laden with bullion
had started a fortnight before for Panama ; so he gave
chase, discarding on the way one of his captured prizes.
As they drew near Cape San Francisco the object of

ROUND THE WORLD 25

their pursuit came in sight. The captain of the " Caca-
fuego," as she was nicknamed, thought that the Spanish
Viceroy was sending him some message, and so put his
vessel about and made towards the " Golden Hind ".
He soon found out his mistake and had to surrender his
ship, the richest vessel in all the South Sea. After re-
moving treasure worth between ;£i 50,000 and ^200,000,
Drake released the ship and its crew with presents.

The question now arose how Drake was to get home
with his heavy weight of treasure. There appeared to
be four ways available. He could attempt to return the
way he had come ; but then he would have to run the
gauntlet of the Spaniards all the way down the coast.
He might make for the isthmus, land his treasure there,
capture a mule train, and, after loading it, make his way
across the isthmus, swoop down on an Atlantic ship,
fill it with his wealth and then make for England. But
this plan was also too full of risk now that the Spaniards
knew that he was in the neighbourhood. A third
course was to cross the Pacific, and return either by
way of the Cape of Good Hope or by a course to the
north of Asia. And the fourth plan was to go up north
and find the passage supposed to exist between the
Pacific and the Atlantic. It was this last course that
Drake proposed to take, and his first care was to find a
hidden creek where he might careen his vessel and pre-
pare for the homeward journey. He had also the good
luck to fall in with a frigate on which he found charts of
the Pacific. But the attempt to find a sea passage to the
east ended in failure. Bitter cold, heavy squalls and
thick mists, the existence of which it is difficult to explain
in a latitude not further north than 43°, discouraged his
men, and made further progress impossible. So the
"Golden Hind" was brought back to a bay in the
vicinity of what is now San Francisco. Here it proved
necessary to land the cargo and thoroughly overhaul the
vessel, and therefore Drake built a fort to protect his

26 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

little company. The natives had probably never seen
Europeans before, and they were at first very timid, but
subsequently they proceeded to worship the new-comers.
Drake allowed them to invest him with a crown of
feathers and chains of bone, and "considering what
honour and profit it might bring to our country, he took
the sceptre, crown and dignity into his hand in the name
and to the use of her Most Excellent Majesty, wishing
that the riches and treasure thereof might so conveniently
be transported to the enriching of her kingdom at home,
and named the place New Albion ". This episode well
illustrates Drake's kindly dealings with the natives, and
the ideas in his mind in making the expedition. He was
no mere adventurer or pirate. His plan was to wage
war on the Spaniards with the Queen's approval, to take
the natives under English protection, and to establish a
new England in America as a rival to new Spain.

On 26 July, Drake left New Albion and began his
voyage home across the Pacific, where for sixty-eight
days he was out of sight of land. On 21 October he
touched one of the Philippine Islands, and then he made
south for Ternate in the Spice Islands, where the Portu-
guese had made themselves thoroughly detestable by
their depraved cruelty. The Sultan eagerly welcomed
Drake, and declared how glad he would be of an alliance
with the English Queen, to whom he granted the mon-
opoly of the spice trade in his territory. After a rest of
four days, Drake set off for an uninhabited island south
of Celebes, and there he made ready his ship for the most
dangerous and intricate part of the voyage. The vessel
soon ran upon a shoal, and so great was the shock that
it looked as if she would prove a complete wreck. But
the "Golden Hind" was splendidly built, and Drake
managed to get her off after sacrificing some of the valu-
able cargo on board. But he was not clear of the
dangers of these island-studded seas until the middle of
February, and even then he took another month to reach

ROUND THE WORLD 27

Java. There he was cordially received by the Rajah ;
and after careening his ship once more he set off for the
Cape of Good Hope, and finally dropped anchor in Ply-
mouth Sound at the end of September, 1 580.

In England, after Wynter's return, it was generally
presumed that Drake had lost his life in the South Seas.
But rumours reached England that he was still alive, and
accounts of his exploits had reached Spain, where Philip
was gradually collecting a large fleet and army for some
unknown purpose. So the Queen was naturally alarmed
lest the activity of her privateers should have at last pro-
voked Philip to attack her, for the secret could no longer
be kept that men in high position in England shared
the spoils taken from the Spanish ships.

The destination of the Spanish armaments was soon
disclosed. On the death of the King of Portugal in 1 580,
Philip at once asserted his claim to this throne, and with
the forces he had gathered soon secured Portugal and all
its resources. At the same time a formidable rising,
supported by Philip with six hundred men, took place
in Ireland.

Such was the unfavourable position of affairs when
Drake dropped anchor in Plymouth Sound, to add yet
another complication to the difficult situation. With
several horse loads of his precious plunder, Drake made his
way to London in obedience to the Queen's commands.
Mendoza, the Spanish Ambassador, at once protested
against his reception, and the great sailor's position was
by no means safe ; for though the shareholders in the
undertaking were beside themselves for joy,1 the peaceful
English merchants were in alarm lest their trade with
Spain and the Netherlands should be cut off, and they
called Drake "the master thief of the unknown world".
Many of the Council, too, were hostile to him, and sinister
reports were floating about with regard to his treatment

xThe value of the plunder is variously estimated at between half a
million and two and a half million pounds of our money.

.28 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

of Doughty. But a reaction soon set in. Men held
that the prize was lawful prize, and "taken without
offence to any Christian prince or state, but only by fair
reprisals," and they thought that if war with Spain broke
out, the treasure would fully defray the cost of seven
years' war, and so save taxation and give England a
great advantage against a daring adversary. So the
" Golden Hind " 1 was brought round to Deptford, and
the Queen expressed herself well pleased with the service
Drake had rendered, though the Council debated whether
the treasure ought not to be returned to the King of
Spain. Also the Queen was annoyed with Philip for
assisting the rebels in Ireland ; and in September she
determined to stand by the bold mariner and actually
visited the "Golden Hind," and knighted Drake on
board his own vessel. So the die was cast, the long
period of waiting was at an end, and the Queen stood
out before the world as the enemy of the King of Spain.
Recent events had made this course more necessary for
her, because, although the rebellion in Ireland had
collapsed, and the cause of the Netherlanders looked
more hopeful, as the Duke of Anjou had consented to
accept their sovereignty, and might therefore be expected
to get French troops to save them from destruction, yet
the acquisition of the Portuguese possessions by Philip
seemed to put an end to any hope of securing an endur-
ing peace between England and Spain.

Drake was now a very wealthy man, with an unequalled
reputation for bravery and daring. He was the first
Englishman to navigate the Pacific, and the first com-
mander to sail round the world from start to finish, for
Magellan had died before completing his journey.

From the various contemporary descriptions and por-
traits which have come down to us we can picture him

1 When the " Golden Hind" was broken up, John Davis had a chair
made out of her timbers and presented it to the University of Oxford. It
is still to be seen in the Bodleian Library.

ROUND THE WORLD 29

as a man of low stature and strong limbs, broad chested,
with a round head covered with brown hair, and a full
ruddy beard ; with eyes round, large, and clear, and curi-
ously arched eyebrows ; and with a fair and cheerful
countenance. He was credited with being ambitious
for honour and greatly affected to popularity, also with
being ostentatious and fond of vain-glorious boasting, with
a high, haughty, and insolent carriage. He was of restless
energy, cautious in preparation, but prompt and sudden
in execution. Though a stern disciplinarian, he was
careful of the lives and interests of his men, and they
were devoted to him. Admiral Mansell, who knew him
well, described him to his friend Hakluyt as "of a lively
spirit, resolute, quick and sufficiently valiant ... a
willing hearer of every man's opinion, but commonly a
follower of his own". In fact, a masterful, capable
man, well able to take command and to carry through
what he undertook. Knowing well what he was able to
do, and what was the right time for doing it, he never
failed to achieve success in any enterprise in which he had
the sole command. Indeed, whether the tradition about
the game of bowls be false or true as a fact, it is per-
fectly true as an illustration of the character of the hero
of the story.

Judged by the standards of the nineteenth century, he
was as much a pirate as were the Spaniards or the French;
but it is as unreasonable to judge the sixteenth century
by the standards of the nineteenth, as it would be to
condemn Julius Caesar for not wearing a top hat. And
when we judge him by the standard of his own time we
must be struck by the sincerity of his Old Testament
religion, and by the humanity which he showed to the
natives of the Indies.

CHAPTER V.

1580-1587.

WITH the return of the "Golden Hind" a new era
opened for Drake, and he appears in a different rdle.
He is no longer a private adventurer, but he comes to
the front as one of the chief leaders on whom the Queen
relies in her struggle with Philip, although we must not
expect to find her always willing to follow his advice.

At first an expedition was planned for supporting Don
Antonio, the claimant to the throne of Portugal, and it
was proposed to set up a naval base in the Azores whence
Philip's Atlantic treasure ships could be attacked. But
the Queen grew cold towards the scheme when she
learned how expensive the enterprise would be ; so it
was rejected, and, instead, a fleet was sent out to establish
factories in the Moluccas, in virtue of Drake's treaty with
the Ruler of Ternate. But the commander was unsuc-
cessful, and the enterprise proved a miserable failure.

Drake remained at home at this time, and in 1581 he
was appointed Mayor of Plymouth, whilst in 1584 he
was elected a Member for the Parliamentary borough of
Bossiney. In January, 1583, his wife died, and early in
1585 he married Mary Sydenham, the daughter and
heiress of Sir George Sydenham of Combe Sydenham
in Somerset.

The same year Drake was a member of a Royal Com-
mission appointed to make a thorough inquiry into the
state of the Navy and to draw up suitable regulations
for its management : and so he was now able to bring his

(30)

1580-1587 3i

experience and influence to bear upon the direction of
the naval policy of the State.

By the year 1585 it looked as if the long impending
war would at once break out, for England's cup of
iniquity seemed full to the brim. Philip had been
roused by the Queen's seizure of the Genoese money, by
the help she had given to the rebels in the Netherlands,
by the raids of Drake and other English sailors, by the
expulsion of his ambassadors and the ill-treatment of his
agents, and by the proposed marriage of the Queen to
the Duke of Anjou ; whilst English anger was stirred by
the murder of the Prince of Orange, the Spanish plots
against the Queen, the horrors of the Inquisition, the
growing success of the Duke of Parma in the Netherlands,
and the constant conflict between Spanish and English
sailors in the New World. That year Philip had induced
English merchants to send over a large supply of corn,
and on their arrival he seized their ships, only one of
them managing to escape. In reply, an embargo was
laid on all Spanish goods in England, letters of reprisal
were issued to the merchants, Elizabeth promised to
send troops to help the Dutch, and Drake was ordered
to undertake the rescue of the English vessels. Money
flowed in abundantly for the expedition, which set out
from Plymouth on 14 September, 1585, with about thirty
ships. It was the finest fleet ever sent out from England
on a semi-private venture ; for though there were two of
the Queen's ships the rest of them were contributed by
the principal ports and private enterprise. Drake had
with him a brilliant band of officers. Frobisher was
Vice- Admiral, and in addition there went Francis Knollys
and Captain Edward Wynter as well as Drake's brother
Thomas and Richard Hawkins, the total force number-
ing 2300 men. As usual there were difficulties to be
overcome before Drake was at last able to sail. The
Queen's habit of procrastination grew stronger with her
years, and matters became still more complicated when

32 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

Sir Philip Sydney, the Queen's latest favourite, who had
been appointed Master of the Ordnance, escaped from
Court to Plymouth and informed Drake that he intended
to accompany him as a volunteer. Now Drake felt that
Sydney's presence would undermine his own authority,
so he hurried up to London and informed the Queen of
her favourite's intention, with the result that Sydney was
ordered to return to her at once, and Drake hurried back
to Plymouth, and got away as quickly as he could on
14 September, 1585. The report that the object oi
the expedition was to rescue the captured English ships
proved to be mere " camouflage," for Drake had deter-
mined to make once more for the West Indies. He
first of all visited Vigo Bay, and informed the Governor
that he had come to inquire whether the seizure of the
English vessels was an act of war. The Governor
answered that the embargo had been taken off a week ago,
and that he would be pleased to allow the fleet of a
friendly Prince to water and obtain fresh supplies. Then
a furious storm got up, whilst suspicious activity at the
mouth of the river caused Drake to scent mischief. The
experiences of San Juan de Ulloa had not been forgotten,
and Drake determined to get in the first blow. When
the storm had abated he raided the boats in the river and
collected a very considerable amount of booty. The
Governor appeared quite unable to make any reprisals
and had to allow Drake to furnish his ships with whatever
he required. The fleet then made for Cape Blanco, in
the Cape Verde Islands, where it obtained further sup-
plies ; and then Santiago, a strongly fortified town in the
same group of islands^} was reached. It was quite un-
prepared for any attack, and was easily taken and burnt,
with the exception -of the hospital, on 17 November.

From Santiago he made his way across the Atlantic,
but his forces were sadly stricken by a pestilence which
struck down between two and three hundred men, whilst
many more were rendered quite useless by the sickness.

1580-1587 33

So Drake determined to spend the Christmas on St.
Christopher, and there the ships were cleaned and the
sick landed. From this island he sent out an advanced
squadron to reconnoitre San Domingo, the capital of the
Spanish Islands, important as a rendezvous of the treas-
ure fleet and the distributing centre of European goods.
A captured Greek pilot gave the adventurers useful in-
formation, and they got in touch with the Maroons who
willingly agreed to fall upon the little Spanish garrison
commanding a place about ten miles from the city
where Drake wished to land. The result was that he
was able, without any fighting, to put some of his troops
ashore here under his Lieutenant-General, Carleill. With
the rest he passed on and opened fire on the castle, whilst
Carleill broke into the city ; so the garrison withdrew
from the castle and Drake was able to enter the harbour
and seize all the shipping. But his demands for ransom
remained for a long time unsatisfied, so he gradually
burned down one part of the city after another, until at
last the remainder was ransomed for about £50,000 of
our present money. Then on I February Drake set out
again, having revictualled his ships and augmented his
fleet with many of the Spanish vessels found in the
harbour, and some 240 guns and a great many liberated
galley slaves.

The next objective was Cartagena, a place well de-
fended by nature from attack by sea by reason of danger-
ous shallows and very narrow approaches, in addition to
which the Spaniards had put a chain across the mouth
of the harbour, and the whole town was very nearly sur-
rounded by water. The garrison here was prepared for
Drake's visit, and there was a stiff fight before the Eng-
lish broke through the gates and occupied the city square.
After that the Spaniards fled from the town and the
garrison surrendered the fort And thus was taken the
capital of the Spanish Main and the headquarters of the
Spanish fleet. As before, it was difficult to extract a

34 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

ransom, and Drake destroyed the ships in the harbour
and then bit by bit burnt the town, until what was left
was ransomed for about £30,000. But the amount of
booty obtained was disappointing, as the Spaniards had
had time to remove their treasures before his arrival.

It was unfortunate that it was found impossible to
keep hold of Cartagena, for its retention would have
entirely ruined Philip's plan of attacking England, besides
destroying his American trade, and perhaps bringing
about the fall of his empire in the New World. But
Drake and his Council agreed that it would be impossible
to keep hold of the city with the forces at his disposal,
aud there does not appear to be any justification for
criticising the decision of the men on the spot.

The return was delayed by very foul weather, during
which Drake's handling of his crews was greatly admired
by his officers, for he dealt with his depressed and sick
men as a comrade rather than as an officer.

The journey took them along the coast of Florida, for
by that means they would get into the anti-trade winds
which blow steadily from the south-west. They landed
at St Augustine and destroyed the new Spanish settle-
ment there, and then they sailed up north looking for
Ralegh's new colony of " Virginia ". This they dis-
covered about the middle of June, and the dejected
colonists persuaded Drake to take them away with him.

So once more he returned home, in July, 1586, having
opened "a very great gap, very little to the liking of the
King of Spain ". The shareholders of the enterprise
made the very handsome profit of fifteen shillings in the
pound, after paying the men one third of the proceeds ;
but Drake and his officers do not appear to have shared
in the good fortune of the promoters, who, however,
urged the Government to see that Drake and his officers
were suitably rewarded !

The moral effect of this adventure was most important,
for it came at a time when the success of the Duke of

1580-1587 35

Parma in the Netherlands threatened a speedy attack
upon England. Now it looked as if Philip had been
irretrievably ruined and would be unable to find money
for any further undertaking ; for the Spaniards estimated
that their losses since the preceding August amounted to
one and a half million ducats, and declared that a na-
tional war would have been less costly.

But Philip kept steadily on his way. A military and
naval attack was not possible at once, but much might
be accomplished by the cheaper methods of plots. And
so Babington was encouraged to plan the assassination
of the Queen ; but the plot was discovered, the leaders
were caught, and Mary Queen of Scots, charged with
complicity in it, was executed in February, 1587.

The danger of invasion again seemed imminent, but it
passed away : for Philip was unable to follow up the plot
with an attack in force, and Elizabeth once again began
to negotiate with him for a lasting peace, although she
had sent the Earl of Leicester with a force to the Nether-
lands, and Hawkins to capture the Plate fleet which Drake
had failed to find on his return. Drake was put in charge
of the shipping at Plymouth, and he was sent over to the
Netherlands to get the Dutch to join in some big naval
expedition ; but he failed to win their assistance. At
the same time plans were formed to help Don Antonio,
who was then in England, and to form an alliance with
the Turks who had now recovered from their defeat at
Lepanto in 1 572.

Philip, however, continued to make preparations for
the invasion of England. Elizabeth then decided to
anticipate him by making a raid on his shipping, and
sent Drake from Plymouth in April, 1 587, with a squadron
of twenty-three sail, his flagship being the "Elizabeth
Bonaventure ". The fleet included four of the Queen's
ships, four belonging to the Levant Company, and four
fitted out by Drake himself, besides several more supplied
by the West of England. As the Queen's Admiral he

36

received a commission " to impeach the joining together of
the King of Spain's fleet out of their several ports, to
keep victuals from them, to follow them in case they
should come forward towards England or Ireland, and
to cut off as many of them as he could and impeach
their landing, as also to set upon such as should either
come out of the West or East Indies into Spain or go
out of Spain thither". On 19 April Drake appeared
before Cadiz. Besides defeating and destroying two
huge vessels and a large number of iron-beaked war
galleys, he carried off four ships laden with provisions,
and gained full information about Philip's preparations.
He also captured many prisoners whom he proposed
to exchange for English captives, but as the Spanish
Governor refused, he sold his Spaniards to the Moors,
keeping the money to be used to redeem English
prisoners in their hands. Then after an unsuccessful
attack upon Lagos, he captured the strong castle on Cape
Sagres, the fortified monastery of St. Vincent, and the
castle of Valliera : all of which were destroyed. Whilst the
land forces under Drake himself had been thus engaged,
his ships had destroyed about fifty small ships along the
coast. The fleet then anchored in Cascaes Bay outside
Lisbon, but being unable to do anything here, Drake
again made for Cape St. Vincent, where he refreshed his
men and cleaned his ships, and sent home urgent appeals
for reinforcements, so that he might be able to hold on to
this important station. But the Queen had neither men
nor money to spare to secure the post, so Drake had
once more to abandon it. Philip was naturally greatly
alarmed by Drake's visit, for, as the Venetian dispatches
said, the English were the masters of the sea and held
it at their discretion. Lisbon, with the whole coast, was,
as it were, blockaded.

The King sent order after order giving one plan after
another for driving him away. But Drake's attacks had
put everything out of gear, and before the Spaniards

1580-1587 37

were ready to take the offensive, Drake was off to the
Azores. There a storm scattered his fleet, and when it
abated, only ten vessels were to be found in his company,
and one of these deserted. But still he pressed on and
had the luck to capture the ship he was seeking. This
was Philip's own East Indiaman the "San Felixe," in
which he found not only treasure, spices and other
goods, valued at nearly a million of our money, but also
papers which gave our English merchants their first clear
idea about the nature and value of the East India
trade.

After securing this rich prize he made for home and
reached Plymouth 26 June, three months after the time
of his departure.

During this expedition Drake had serious difficulty
with his Vice-Admiral, Borough, who commanded the
" Golden Lion ". Borough complained that Drake took
unjustifiable risks, and that he did not consult his cap-
tains, but called them together merely to explain to them
his plans, a course contrary to the instructions laid down
for the service in the time of Henry VIII. So strong
was Borough's remonstrance that Drake, with his usual
impetuosity, put Borough under arrest on the " Lion,"
which he then entrusted to a Captain Marchant The
day after the gale that dispersed Drake's fleet had sub-
sided, the " Lion " went in chase of a strange sail, and
then made off for home, though Captain Marchant left
her and returned to Drake with the news that the crew
refused to obey his orders to rejoin the fleet. Marchant
believed that Borough was at the bottom of this mutiny.
Drake thereupon summoned a council of war, consisting
of all the captains and masters of the fleet, and had the
mutineers tried. They were declared guilty, and Borough
and all the officers were sentenced to death in their
absence. But on his return Drake was not able to get the
sentence executed. The rules of the Navy did not give
the admiral power of life and death over his chief officers ;

38 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

and Borough was acquitted of mutiny and subsequently
promoted to be Controller of the Navy.

Although this court was at first called rather as a
court of inquiry, it had assumed the character of a court
martial ; and from this date the naval court martial seems
to have been a common institution.

Thus Drake had shown that not only Flanders and
the Indies, but also Portugal and Spain were insecure as
long as England remained unconquered. For in a
period of less than two months he had completely swept
from the coasts of Galicia, Portugal and Andalusia,
every kind of vessel, and had also ruined the tunny
fishery, on which the inhabitants depended for food in
Lent In Cadiz alone he had destroyed 10,000 tons of
shipping, as well as the stores collected by Philip for his
Armada ; and he had demonstrated for all future time
the uselessness of the war galley when attacked by the
broadside fire of the sailing ship. So he had paralysed
the mighty preparations which were being made against
his country, and had done so much damage that, as the
Venetian Ambassador wrote, " though the King were to
obtain a most signal victory against him, he would not
recover one half the loss he had suffered ".

CHAPTER VI.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE ARMADA.

DRAKE found on his return that the Queen's warlike
ardour had completely cooled down. It was in vain that
he warned her of the greatness and the imminence of
the danger, and explained that he had merely " singed
the King of Spain's beard ". She would neither allow
Drake to renew the attack, nor would she keep her fleet
together to meet the approaching danger ; though she
sent a few ships to blockade the Flemish ports, where
Farma was concentrating troops for the invasion of her
country. She still seemed to think that peace was pos-
sible and had not ceased her negotiations with Parma,
even suggesting that he should set up an independent
State for himself in the Netherlands.

The dogged Philip still clung to his plan of invasion,
and urged on his officers to start for England. But his
Admiral, Santa Cruz, found that he must land his troops
and careen and caulk his ships. He sent an expert to
Philip to warn him of the danger of sailing so late in the
year, of the bad condition of the fleet, of the lack of
sailors, and of the deaths and desertions in the army.
But the King refused to listen, and so Santa Cruz wrote
to Philip in November assuring him that to set out
during the winter months . meant destruction ; that the
rising in Ireland was over, that no faith could be placed
in the King of Scotland, that Spain would be exposed
to the attacks of the Turks, and that the climate of

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40 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

England in winter would be fatal to his men. So Philip
was at last persuaded that the expedition could not start
till the next year. Drake had ruined his plans as far as
the year 1587 was concerned, and the Queen's policy
was for the time justified. At the end of the year she
began to make vigorous preparations for the coming
storm, though she would not allow Drake to visit the
Spanish coast again, and she still continued her negotia-
tions with Parma.

But Philip had no intention of being diverted from his
course ; though the death of Santa Cruz in January,
1588, destroyed the last hopes of the success of his
plans. For the Admiral was a great man, and the only
one who was able to influence the obstinate King, whose
determination to see, understand, and deal with every
point himself " is a great source of constant delays, and
prevents the completion of the necessary steps to meet
the evil, which is the general opinion, and, in fact, is
most serious ".

Here a few words on the Navy — the weapon with
which England was to fight her great antagonist — will
not be out of place.

Henry VIII. may be considered as the creator of the
Royal Navy, for he not only bought large merchant
ships abroad, which he converted into " men-of-war," but
he also built several war ships, and at the time of his
death possessed fifteen vessels of about 250 tons burden.

Still the Royal Navy was supposed to constitute only
a nucleus of the naval defences of the country, and the
majority of the ships were drawn from private owners.
This was not a source of difficulty, because in those days
there was little difference between a fighting ship and an
armed merchantman: for the latter was fitted out not
only for trade, but for self-defence and offence, if a profit-
able chance of privateering presented itself; and by the
time of Elizabeth piracy was a recognised and respect-
able profession, in which men of all classes gained a

PREPARATIONS FOR THE ARMADA 41

thorough knowledge of how to handle ships and how to
fight them.

It was during Elizabeth's reign that sails definitely
replaced oars as the method of propulsion in fighting
ships. The change meant nothing less than a revolution
in naval tactics : for whilst the aim of the rowing ship
was to ram its enemy, the object of the sailing ship, as
developed by the English, was to overwhelm the enemy
with gun-fire from a distance, and with this object they
developed "broadside" fire. Here they broke away
from the tactics of the Portuguese and Spanish seamen ;
for these latter, even after they had thrown over oars
in favour of sails, still clung to the old idea of closing
with the enemy and boarding him, and thus fighting
with soldiers a land fight upon the sea. In fact, while
the English were gradually learning to use their ships
as gun platforms, the Spaniards used theirs to bring
their soldiers in touch with those of the enemy.

In 1570 the Royal Navy possessed only thirteen ships,
but Sir John Hawkins was made Treasurer in 1574, and
during his seventeen years of office he may be said to
have organised future victory. Hawkins' policy favoured
medium sized ships averaging about 500 tons, which
would be easy to handle and would act as gun platforms
for muzzle-loading guns, the heaviest of which were
thirty-pounder " demi-cannons ". But Hawkins was
troubled all through by the excessive parsimony of the
Queen, and by the peculation carried on by the officials,
who acted as profiteering middlemen, buying what was
required cheap and then selling it to the Navy at ex-
orbitant prices.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ARMADA FIGHT.

As the information from Spain made it evident that the
Armada would soon be ready, the Council made definite
plans as to how it should be met. Already Lord Howard
had been sent to keep up the blockade of Dunkirk, and
he had with him a highly efficient squadron.

The Council proposed to put a fleet in the narrow seas
off the east coast and another between Ireland and Spain.
An expedition was also to be sent to Portugal when the
Spanish fleet had put to sea, and a fourth fleet was to
make for the Azores to capture treasure ships.

This was not a plan which commended itself to Drake,
for he wished to lie off Lisbon and attack the Armada as
it put to sea with the full strength of the English fleet.

However, the original plan was altered. Lord William
Seymour and Sir William Wynter were sent to blockade
the Flemish coast and keep the eastern end of the
English Channel, and Howard with over forty large ships
and at least twenty smaller vessels sailed to Plymouth,
where Drake had already gathered together about thirty
ships. Lord Howard, as Lord High Admiral, made the
" Ark " his flagship. It was a splendid ship, which had
been designed for Sir Walter Ralegh and sold by him to
the Queen. Howard thought her "the odd ship in the
world for all conditions ". Drake was appointed Vice-
Admiral of the fleet and loyally put himself under the
nominal command of Howard, bearing himself, as How-
ard said, "lovingly and kindly" under him. For we

(42)

THE ARMADA FIGHT 43

must remember that though the High Admiral was
experienced in sea affairs, he was rather a courtier than
a seaman, and the success of the fleet depended upon
Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, and Fenner. Still, great
praise is due to Howard for being able to recognise the
greater genius of Drake.

The English fleet numbered about 200 vessels, thirty-
four of which belonged to the Royal Navy. A great
number of the other ships were too small to be of much
use, and not more than fifty in all were over 200 tons'
burden. But they were much better and more heavily
armed than the Spanish, answered the helm much more
quickly, and could fire three times as fast. They were,
in fact, better fighting machines, and were handled by
real sailors and skilful gunners.

The fleet contained some well-known captains and
ships; for besides the "Ark" there was the "Revenge,"
commanded by Drake, whilst Rear-Admiral Sir John
Hawkins commanded the " Victory," and Captain Martin
Frobisher the "Triumph".

On 30 May, Howard set out with his whole fleet,
apparently with the intention of making for Vigo Bay ;
but contrary winds drove him back. Then he received
orders to ply up and down between Spain and England.
But sickness and lack of victuals kept him in harbour,
and though he started again, gales drove him into
Plymouth.

It is fairly evident that the Spaniards never regarded
their Armada as "invincible". At Rome and Paris its
failure was regarded as almost certain, and from the
Venetian dispatches we learn that it was considered as
beaten before it sailed. Philip's old-fashioned ideas did
not give it a chance against the modern English ships
with their broadside fire. For Philip intended his fleet
to fight the usual land battle at sea, and the Armada
carried three times as many soldiers as sailors. Thus,
while the Spanish flagship was JQQQ tons' burden, it

44 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

carried only 48 guns and 470 men, most of whom were
soldiers ; whereas the " Ark," a vessel of 800 tons, carried
64 guns and 425 men, most of whom were sailors.
Again, the Spanish fleet numbered about 1 30 vessels, of
which sixty -two were over 300 tons ; but a great number
of them were merely transports, and not fighting ships
at all.

The Armada, under the command of the Duke of
Sidonia, who knew nothing about a sailor's duties, started
from Lisbon on 18 May ; but its progress was very slow,
and as many of its ships as possible put into Corunna
on 9 June to replenish their stores, whilst the rest were
scattered along the coast by a gale. So the fleet had to
be reorganised before it was fit to proceed, and this work
took a month to accomplish. But Howard was unable
to take advantage of this opportunity, for he did not
learn of the disordered condition of his enemies, and if
he had done so, the adverse winds would have prevented
him from setting out

When the English fleet was at length able to start, it
was divided into three divisions, with Drake on the left
wing towards Ushant with twenty big ships, and Hawkins
on the right wing with a similar squadron towards Scilly.
But still the enemy did not appear, so the fleet took up
its station off Ushant on 7 July, whilst pinnaces were
sent out to obtain news of the enemy. Then, urged on
by Drake, Howard made for the Spanish coast ; but again
the wind played the traitor, and, being short of victuals,
they had to return to Plymouth, which they reached on
12 July.

This long delay was beginning to tell severely on
England, for the cost of maintaining the fleet was great,
and sickness played havoc with the crews. At last, on
Friday, 19 July, news came that the enemy had been
sighted off the Lizard.

A favouring wind gave Medina Sidonia a great ad-
vantage as he drew near Plymouth, for the English fleet

THE ARMADA FIGHT 45

had to put out in the teeth of this wind and pass during
the night across the Spanish front in order to obtain the
" weather gauge," a difficult manoeuvre which was never-
theless skilfully carried out.

The Spaniards made their way slowly up the Channel
in battle order, with the object of joining the Duke of
Parma off the Flemish coast. Outside Plymouth the
English, on 21 July, made their first attack and "dis-
tressed " two of the best ships of the enemy, Howard's
plan being to "pluck their feathers one by one". From
Plymouth Medina Sidonia made towards the Isle of
Wight, and Howard followed ; but in the night Drake,
who was leading the van, made off to capture a disabled
ship. It looks as if Drake had lapsed for the time into
the privateer of former days. He declared, however, that
he saw ships coming up apparently with the intention of
"weathering" him, and made for them; but on finding
that they were Germans let them pass, and then on his
way back fell in with the crippled Spanish ship and
captured it. The incident caused considerable friction,
for apparently Hawkins and Frobisher had already dis-
abled her, and Frobisher wrote "he (i.e. Drake) thinketh
to cozen us out of our share of the 15,000 ducats, but
we will have our share . . . for he hath done enough
of those cozening tricks ".

By nightfall the next day both fleets lay between
Portland and the Isle of Wight in a dead calm ; and the
day following (Tuesday, 23 July) they joined battle
again, the object of the English being apparently to
drive the Spaniards on to the dangerous " Owers ".
During this fight, Frobisher and some of the others were
cut off from the rest and were in danger until a change
of wind enabled them to extricate themselves.

On the following day Howard divided his fleet into
four squadrons whilst he was waiting for a fresh supply
of ammunition. The first division he led himself, to
Drake the second was assigned, the third was placed

4

46 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

under Hawkins, and Frobisher commanded the fourth.
A dead calm kept the fleet inactive most of the next day,
but later a gale sprang up and the Spaniards, fearing to
be driven on to the "Owers" by Drake and Hawkins,
made their way towards Calais.

So far, then, the results had simply proved the superior
tactics of the English Admirals and the excellence of the
sailing power of the English ships. Sidonia's new plan
was a faulty one ; for there was no port in the neighbour-
hood of Calais where he could shelter, whilst Seymour
and Wynter came down from the eastern end of the
Channel with twenty ships and joined Howard on Satur-
day, 27 July. This brought the number of Howard's
fleet up to about 140, whilst the Spaniards numbered
about 124. On the night of Sunday, 28 July, the
English sent eight fire-ships against the Spanish fleet, and
Sidonia ordered his ships to cut their cables and make
north as best they could. So off went the Spaniards, and
the English pursued them with the object of preventing
them from reforming after their hurried flight. Unfortun-
ately Howard turned aside from the pursuit to capture
a crippled galleasse, "the finest vessel on the whole face
of the seas ".

The Admiral had forgotten that his object was the
destruction of the Armada, and slipped back into his old
habit of mind ; and when he turned aside his squadron
followed, leaving it to the others to carry out the destruc-
tion of the Spanish fleet. Still, in the end he managed
to return, some four hours after the battle had been
joined. The wind was now north-west ; and Sidonia,
threatened with the shipwreck of his fleet on the Dun-
kirk flats, determined to face his enemies, and managed
to get together about fifty of his ships, and to put them
in some sort of fighting order, in spite of Drake's at-
tempts to prevent him. Frobisher severely criticised
Drake's tactics ; but Frobisher did not understand the
new ideas, and was as conspicuous for getting himself

THE ARMADA FIGHT 47

into tight corners as he was for the bravery with which
he fought his way out of them.

Sidonia had to bear the brunt of the English attack
until the rest of the Armada could join him, and the
Admiral made a sturdy resistance, during which he con-
trived what we should now call a smoke barrage. The
battle soon developed into a running fight for eight
hours off Gravel ines. It was a very hot engagement,
and the slaughter on the Spanish ships was terrible ; for
the Spaniards fought tenaciously and put up a magnifi-
cent fight against the English, who came up and poured
broadside after broadside into them, and then showed
great agility in "going about". Thus about sixteen of
the enemy's ships were put out of action, and the Eng-
lish, who had lost about a hundred men, were well nigh
certain that they had the enemy completely in their
hands, when a most violent squall swept down, which,
though it lasted only a quarter of an hour, entirely altered
the aspect of affairs and robbed the English of the fruits
of their victory. But one of their objects had been ac-
complished. The Spaniards had been driven out of the
Channel, and could no longer hope to join Parma, and,
as they subsequently admitted, their losses in this fight
amounted to 600 killed and 800 wounded.

The expenditure of ammunition by the English in this
fight was on a scale never reached in any former battle,
and when the squall was over, Howard, after reforming
his fleet, had to be content just to keep in touch with the
Spaniards so as to prevent any attempt to return. The
Armada was by this time bearing away towards the
north-east, and as night came on and the wind and the
sea got up, it looked as if the whole fleet would be driven
by the wind on to the Zeeland banks ; but again it was
saved by the change of wind, and the next day a
southerly breeze enabled it to make for the North Sea.

We can well understand the intense disappointment
of the English at the comparatively small result of all

48 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

their efforts. Howard held a fresh Council of War to
determine what plan of campaign should be pursued.
The decision was that Seymour and Wynter should re-
main to keep an eye on the Flemish coast and guard the
Channel, and that the rest of the fleet should pursue the
Spaniards. This plan was carried out until Friday morn-
ing (2 August), by which time the English fleet was about
sixty miles off Newcastle. Then lack of water and of
ammunition and a change of wind to the north-west
caused them to turn about and make for the North Fore-
land, where they could renew their supplies and be ready
to attack the Armada, if it took advantage of the wind
and made an effort to join the Duke of Parma. By
this time the Queen was appalled at the enormous ex-
pense in which she had been involved, and annoyed that
the enterprise had yielded so little plunder. So she
called Howard to attend her Council, and with him ap-
parently went Drake and Hawkins. Disease was now
playing terrible havoc among the crew, and the ships,
too, were in need of a thorough overhauling. So the
Council ordered Howard to reduce the fleet to a hundred
sail, and Drake and Hawkins were sent to Sheerness to
carry out the order. But whilst this reduction was being
effected, Sir Edward Norreys, who had apparently been
left to keep in touch with the Armada, arrived with the
news that it was returning. So Howard tried to get the
fleet ready to put to sea. But there were other rumours
afloat contradicting the report brought in by Norreys, and
these proved to be correct ; for soon information came to
hand that the Spaniards had been seen to the west of
the Orkneys, and that Parma had retired to Bruges and
given up all thought of invading England. So the Eng-
lish fleet was disbanded, except a few ships retained to
guard the Channel.

The return journey of the Armada was more fatal than
was the fortnight's fighting with the English. Scarcely
half the ships got back to Spain, and only five thousand

THE ARMADA FIGHT 49

men survived ; whereas the English lost only about a
hundred men and one ship.

Englishmen, however, naturally asked why the results
were so poor. They forgot that victory means working
according to plan, and that in the days of sailing ships
plans were at the mercy of wind and weather. The
well-known legend on the medal gives a fair explanation
of what happened to the Armada on its return journey,
but it is no commentary on the events of the fortnight,
when, as we have seen, the weather saved the Spaniards
from destruction on many occasions. But in spite of all,
as the Pope said, " the Queen's distaff outweighed the
King's sword ".

CHAPTER VIII.
CADIZ.

IT was the desire of Drake and Sir John Norreys to
follow up the Armada by taking a small efficient military
force to capture Lisbon, liberate Portugal, and complete
the destruction of the maritime power of Spain. But
Drake knew that such a scheme was not likely to be
taken up by Elizabeth alone, so he proposed that a joint
stock company should undertake it, with the Queen as
one of the shareholders.

The original plan provided for a grant by the Queen
of ,£20,000 in money, the use of six ships of the Royal
Navy, equipped for three months with artillery, weapons
and ammunition, permission to levy 8000 men, a re-
quest for additional men and transport from Holland,
and a Royal Commission, giving the right to press ships
and men for the service, take provisions at Government
prices, exercise martial law, and distribute the prizes.
In addition to the contributions from the Crown, Nor-
reys and Drake agreed that private adventurers should
subscribe £40,000. They also asked that the Queen
should agree to pay all losses if she recalled or delayed
the expedition, and to feed the soldiers if they were
held back for more than ten days by bad weather.
Most of these requirements, though in general terms,
were provided for in the Commission, which was granted
to Drake on 1 1 October.

Private subscriptions came in readily, and the Earl
of Northumberland, Lord Rich, Sir Charles Blount, and
many other courtiers, became adventurers. £10,000 was
subscribed by the City, besides £5000 by the London
merchants. Drake put in £2000, and from his friends

(50)

CADIZ 51

he collected £6000. Don Antonio promised large
amounts from his rents in Spain, guaranteed the whole
cost of the expedition, and promised to take into his
service the officers and soldiers ; and the army was to be
allowed to loot Spanish property in Lisbon, and to burn
Philip's ships in Lisbon and Seville.

The greatest difficulty was to obtain trained soldiers :
for there were probably not more than a thousand men
in England who had ever seen foreign service, and for
that reason it was essential to get the hardy English
veterans who were fighting in the Netherlands.

Drake went down by sea to Plymouth, in order to
make his final arrangements, and, as he left Dover, he fell
in with a fleet of sixty Dutch boats in ballast on their way
to Rochelle, and induced their skippers to join him and
transport his soldiers. On his arrival at Plymouth,
he was joined by crowds of gentlemen and soldiers, all
eager to join such a promising expedition. By 19
March the fleet was ready to sail from Plymouth. It
was the largest that had ever been gathered together
there, and consisted of about 1 50 vessels, of all kinds,
including eight ships of the Royal Navy, seventy-seven
armed merchantmen, and the Dutch "fly" boats, with
between 14,000 and 22,000 men. The uncertainty as
to this latter figure is due to two causes ; firstly, because
the masters exaggerated their numbers, and, secondly,
because others were interested in concealing as far as
possible the amount of men engaged.

As had happened so often before, adverse winds de-
layed the start, and the fleet was held up in harbour for
a month.

During this enforced stay the troops were drilled, and
the army and fleet organised on an elaborate basis. But
there was trouble, too. The Dutch masters be-
came restive, and even protested against their deten-
tion and treatment. Then the Earl of Essex caused
more trouble, for he fled from the monotony of his life
at Court to Falmouth, and going at once to Sir Roger

52 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

Williams on the " Swiftsure," persuaded him to make
use of a chance breeze and slip out of harbour ; and
he was not heard of again until the " Swiftsure " once
more joined the fleet off the coast of Portugal. He
thus freed himself from the pursuit of the Queen's Mes-
sengers, who were sent to bring him back. This
proved to be a most serious episode ; for Elizabeth felt
her dignity so injured, and her pride and feelings were so
ruffled by the disobedience of her favourite, that from this
time she became actively hostile towards the expedition,
and, although matters had gone too far for her to cancel
the whole scheme, she put every obstacle in the way.

The great danger to the expedition at this time was
due to the exhaustion of supplies during the stay at Ply-
mouth ; for the Council were very grudging in supplying
what was necessary, and when the force set out it had
little more than two weeks' provisions on board, though,
after its departure, the Council sent out further supplies.

It was not until 18 April that Drake was at last able
to get to sea, and with him went Don Antonio. The
Council had given him instructions to attack the shipping
on the north coast of the Peninsula, and then on the
west, as far as Lisbon ; so that England might not be in
danger during his absence. Then, if the Portuguese ap-
peared likely to support Don Antonio, troops were to
be landed, Lisbon seized, and Antonio set up. But these
orders were not carried out. Drake did not believe that
there was any danger to be feared from the Spanish
navy, and he said that the wind prevented him from
attacking Santander in the Bay of Biscay. He himself
wished to make straight for Lisbon, but the Generals felt
that some consideration must be paid to the Council,
and, as a compromise, it was determined to attack Co-
runna. This town was reached on 24 April. The
troops were at once landed, and the lower town taken
and plundered without much difficulty. Unfortunately,
the soldiers found a great deal of wine there, and soon
they were for a time incapable of any further action.

CADIZ 53

When they had recovered, an attack was made upon the
upper town or fortress, but this was a failure. News was
then brought that a Spanish army was being collected to
attack the invaders ; so Norreys at once marched against it,
Drake remaining behind to hold the Corunna garrison in
check. Norreys' attack was a brilliant success, and he re-
turned to camp, after completely defeating the Spaniards
and laying waste the country after the fashion of that time.

It was then decided to waste no more time in trying
to capture the fortress, for the Generals were satisfied
with the amount of spoil they had already obtained,
which included about fifty " great brass pieces," and a
great number of pikes. So, after burning the lower
town and all the shipping, except three ships, which
they took with them on 9 May they set sail for Peniche.
On the way they fell in with the " Swiftsure," with the
truant Essex on board. A landing was effected, after
some difficulty in a dangerous bay close to Peniche
under the lead of Essex himself, much to the surprise of
the Spaniards, who thought that the rocks and surf
sufficiently protected the coast at that point. So great
was the dash of the troops that they were able to occupy
the town the same night, and the Spaniards withdrew
inland, whilst the castle of Peniche was also surrendered.

And now there were differences of opinion as to the
best plan of attacking Lisbon. Drake wished to re-
embark the troops and land them at Cascaes, so that they
might co-operate with the fleet in attacking the castle of
St. Julian which guarded the mouth of the Tagus. But
Don Antonio was eager to march overland to Lisbon,
and Drake had to give in, though he felt that such an
undertaking without the necessary cavalry and baggage
train was a mistake. So the troops were left on shore
under Norreys, and Drake took the fleet down to Cascaes,
which was reached 22 May, He was able to occupy the
town without any trouble, and then proceeded to lay
siege to the castle, whilst waiting to hear of the progress
of Norreys. He has been criticised for not sailing up

54 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

the Tagus and co-operating with the land forces. But
had he done so, he would probably have lost his fleet ; for
the westerly winds would have made it impossible to cross
the bar, and he would have been exposed to the fire
of the forts, whilst the Cadiz fleet was also being brought
round to Lisbon to attack him.

Norreys' operations were most unsuccessful. Peniche
is forty-five miles from Lisbon, and the march took six
days, for the Portuguese were afraid to come forward to
help the English, and the Spaniards threatened the army
all the way. But the real enemy was disease and death,
caused by the crowded ships, the hot climate, the surfeit
at Corunna, the privations on the march, and the poor
physical stamina of the troops, of whom about 200 died
every day. Still, the suburbs of Lisbon were ultimately
reached on 25 May, and the Spaniards thought it best to
burn the stores in the neighbourhood to prevent them
from falling into the enemy's hands. But Norreys was
able to do nothing more, and after besieging Lisbon for
less than a week, he determined to beat a hasty retreat
to Cascaes. This he was able to effect, and the army
embarked without further loss. Just as the fleet was
preparing to leave, a large Hanseatic fleet of about
seventy ships appeared in sight Drake at once went
out and captured it, finding that it was laden with stores
of all kinds for the new Armada which Philip was pre-
paring. Advantage was also taken of this lucky capture
to release the Dutch boats that had been pressed into the
service. This event was followed by the arrival of sup-
plies, and also of an express messenger from the Queen
giving peremptory orders that Essex was to be sent home
at once, orders that it was impossible to disobey.

The English fleet then put to sea intending to make
for the Azores, but the weather was very changeable.
At first a calm held it up, and it was attacked by nine-
teen Spanish galleys which managed to sink four English
ships. When the wind got up again it was contrary, and
the fleet took seventeen days to get to Vigo. There a

CADIZ 55

landing was effected and the town was burnt. It was
now necessary to form fresh plans, for Drake's forces were
very much reduced, and his best friend, William Fenner,
the Rear-Admiral, had died of wounds. But the new plans
were rendered abortive by a fierce gale which scattered
the fleet, and so damaged the " Revenge" that there
was nothing for it but to make for Plymouth as quickly
as possible.

The expedition was undoubtedly a great failure, due
to many causes besides the badness of the weather.
First of all the landing at Corunna was a mistake. " The
landinge at the Groyne was a lingring of the other de-
signe (i.e. the seizing of Lisbon), a consuminge of vic-
tualls, a weakeninge of the armie by the immoderate
drinking of the souldiers, a warning to the Spaniards to
strengthen Portugal, and as great as all this, a discour-
agement to proceede further, beinge repulsed in the first
attempt".

Others attributed the failure to the fact that the Queen
did not wholly undertake it herself. " For whosoever he
be of a subject that thinks to undertake soe great an
enterprise without a prince's purse shall be deceived . . .
and therefore those two generalls . . . never overshott
themselves more than in undertakinge soe great a charge
with soe little meanes, which is the only cause to be im-
puted to the ill successe of it, for where there is victualls
and arms wantinge what hope is there of prevailing ".
Others again thought that the reason was to be found
in "the Portugalls faylinge of theire helpes and assist-
ance ". Still there were some redeeming points, and
the enterprise was not without its use, for it destroyed
all chance of a second Armada. It showed, too, again
the reckless bravery of the leaders and the feebleness of
the Spanish defence. Still the Queen was intensely
annoyed. She had entrusted the expedition to these
daring men, and all they had done was to exhaust her
resources and ruin any possible reconciliation with the
Spanish King.

CHAPTER IX.
THE END.

DRAKE was now again in disgrace, his policy was thrown
over, and the conflict once more degenerated into a war
on the enemy's commerce, stimulated by the quest for
rich prizes. But this game was no longer as easy or
profitable as in earlier days, for Philip had elaborately
organised his trans-Atlantic service to meet the English
attack, and new fast men-of-war of smaller size for carry-
ing the treasure had been built at Havana, where all the
treasure ships were now ordered to unload.

In 1590 the Council woke up to action, and sent
Hawkins and Frobisher to blockade the Spanish ports
and intercept the treasure fleet from the Indies, and
Drake was sent to fortify Plymouth. He was also sent
to watch the Breton coast, where the Spaniards had
seized Hennebon and Blavet.

The enterprise of Hawkins and Frobisher produced
very little booty, for Philip got news of their coming
and ordered his ships to winter at Havana. But they
had effected something, for they had stopped Spanish
trade with her colonies, and caused such a financial dis-
tress that Philip was unable to send Parma money to
pay his troops. This was of great service to Henry of
Navarre, who had assumed the title of Henry IV. after
the murder of the last of the Valois House in 1588.

The English Government determined to send out an-
other expedition commanded by Lord Howard and Sir
Richard Grenville with about sixteen ships, whilst Drake
was sent to keep his eye on the Spanish coast. Howard
and Grenville showed no skill in this enterprise, and
allowed themselves to be completely surprised at Flores

(56)

THE END 57

by a Spanish fleet of some fifty ships, and it was there
that Sir Richard Grenville made an undying name for
himself on the " Revenge," whilst Howard was able to get
away. But storms, which so far in our story had so often
ruined the English plans, on this occasion worked in their
favour ; for a tempest destroyed about half of the Spanish
ships, while Howard was able to weather the storm, and
also to pick up sufficient prizes to prevent the promoters
of the expedition from being much out of pocket

And now as reports were filtering in that Philip was
preparing another Armada, the Queen was anxious to
keep her Navy at home to meet it, and only minor ex-
peditions were sent out to prey on Spanish commerce.
As the danger from Spain grew greater the Queen again
turned to Drake, who had since 1590 made his head-
quarters at Buckland Abbey, near Plymouth. In 1592
he was summoned to Court ; but nothing was done,
and, meanwhile, Philip was securely establishing himself
on the coast of Brittany. It was determined to send an
expedition to attack the Spaniards there on the Crozon
Peninsula opposite Brest, and Norreys and Frobisher
were sent to ,act in conjunction with a French force.
After a desperate attack the place was taken, Brest was
relieved, and 400 Spaniards were put to death. Here Fro-
bisher, after a display of great courage, received a mortal
wound and died just after he was landed at Plymouth.
The success of Norreys removed the fear of a Spanish
attack from Brittany ; but there was now renewed trouble
in Ireland, where Hugh O'Neill had plotted a very
formidable rising with the assistance of a Spanish force.

The English Government determined to anticipate the
new attack from Spain, and Drake, who in 1593 was
chosen Member of Parliament for Plymouth, was sent
over to the Netherlands to persuade them not only to
take a share in the expedition, but also to consent to the
withdrawal of the English force which had been sent
over to assist them. The expedition was to be a private
one, to which the Queen was to contribute six ships.

58 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

Drake and Hawkins were given the joint command, and
they were to make an attack on the Isthmus of Panama.
The force was to include a large number of troops under
Sir Thomas Baskerville, who had already proved himself
a most capable commander in the Low Countries. There
were more than the usual delays in setting out, for though
the expedition was ordered for November, 1594, it was
not ready until August, 1595. Thus the Spaniards had
time to bring home safely the Havana fleet, and to re-
cover from the alarm caused by the news that Drake was
once more to lead an attack against them, besides being
able to make full preparations to meet him.

In July a Spanish force of about 600 men landed in
Cornwall and laid waste the district round Penzance at its
leisure, without any resistance on the part of the in-
habitants. Soldiers were quickly despatched from Ply-
mouth, and the enemy was speedily driven out ; but the
incident was a great shock to the Government, and
Drake received orders not only to release Baskerville to
look after the Cornish defences, but also to give up all
idea of an immediate attack on the Isthmus. He was
ordered to look out for the Spaniards along the south
coast of Ireland, and if he found none, he was to sail for
the Spanish coast so as to meet any fleet sent out to
threaten England, and if none appeared he was to lie in
wait for the West Indian fleet. These, we must re-
member, were orders given to men provided with troops
for a campaign on land. The Admirals replied that if
they undertook the Irish cruise it must be at the Queen's
expense, and they pointed out the impossibility of carrying
out her plans with the forces which they had already got
together for an entirely different project. But the Queen
would not let them go on the old venture until she heard
that there was a rich prize to be captured at Puerto Rico.
Then, at last, Hawkins and Drake were permitted to set
out at the end of August, with twenty-seven ships and
2500 men, the two commanders holding a joint command.
Such an arrangement was bound to lead to trouble.

THE END 59

Hawkins was by this time over sixty, " old and wary"'.
Drake was still impetuous and headstrong. It was as
though the ox and the Arab steed had been harnessed
together, and from the beginning there was friction,
which grew worse and worse as time went on, for there
was no one to settle disputes as they arose.

Drake wanted first of all to make an attack on the
Canaries or Madeira, but Hawkins urged that they should
at once cross the Atlantic. On this occasion Drake got
his way, but it was only after many words had been
spoken which were a cause of bitterness for the rest of
the voyage. The attack proved a failure, and this
damped the ardour of the men, and shook their belief
in Drake's invincibility. By the end of October the
fleet reached Guadeloupe, where preparations were to be
made for the attack upon Puerto Rico. Five of the new
Spanish treasure escorts arrived there on the same day,
and managed to capture a small English ship that had
lagged behind the rest. From their captives the Spaniards
learned all about the English plans, and they hurried off
to prepare for the enemy. Drake was very anxious to
attack Puerto Rico before it had time to prepare, but on
this occasion Hawkins carried the Council with him, and
all Drake could do was to persuade his colleagues to
make for the place by a course that the Spaniards would
not expect. So the English dodged the enemy, and
reached Puerto Rico, on 12 November. But they found
the garrison quite prepared for them. And there, be-
fore the attack began, the brave, cautious, old Admiral
Hawkins died, and fate removed the misfortune of a
divided command. It was now left for Drake to develop
his plans, but without that element of surprise on which
he had always relied. The attack proved a disastrous
and depressing failure, and Drake had to withdraw and
reorganise his fleet in one of the hidden harbours along
the coast. He now proposed to attack Nombre de Dios,
but on the way he visited Rio de la Hacha, which he
laid waste, carrying off with him a great amount of

60 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE

treasure. On 27 December Nombre de Dios was
seized after some slight resistance, but little booty was
got here, for the commander had been warned and had
removed all that was of value. Drake destroyed the
town and the shipping, and then the soldiers set out for
Panama across the isthmus. This plan also failed, for
the Spaniards were lying in wait and drove the men
back. As it was evident that nothing was to be gained
by staying here, it was agreed to make for Truxillo.
But once again, and now for the last time, contrary winds
held Drake back, and he had to anchor under the deadly
shelter of a small island. There dysentery struck down
man after man, and at last Drake himself succumbed.
On the night of 27 January, 1596, the great Captain
died on board his ship " Defiance," and at sea, just off
the coast of Puerto Rico, they buried him. Sir Thomas
Baskerville took charge of the sorrowing fleet, now de-
cimated by sickness, and under him the squadron made
its sad way home.

Drake's career apparently ended in utter failure, and by
the end of Elizabeth's reign no English colony had been
established. It may then seem strange at first to look upon
him as a Pioneer of English colonisation and empire.

But his life had not been a failure. He had taught a
new art of sea strategy and sailing tactics, and his pupils
were ready to carry it out after he was gone. He had
broken the maritime power of Spain, and shown her
powerless to keep other nations out of the New World.
His discovery of New Albion stimulated Englishmen to
reach it by the north-west passage, and directed their
attention to the northern continent. His treaty with the
Sultan of Ternate encouraged Englishmen to trade with
the East, and so led to the foundation of our Indian
Empire. He sowed where others were to reap, and to
him is rightly due the title of Pioneer of Progress ; for he
opened up the road to an Empire of which, though the
vastness intoxicates the foolish and the burden terrifies
the fearful, the responsibilities sober yet inspire the brave.

DA
86

.22
D7H3

Harte, Walter James
Sir Francis Drake

1

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