Young Drake--for that was his name--did get on in spite of his
difficulties; he worked hard at his duty until he became a captain of
two small ships, one of seventy, the other of thirty tons, and with
these he sailed to fight the Spaniards, who were at that time our
enemies, away across the ocean in Central America.
He not only fought them, but was successful in taking some of their
ships and a great deal of valuable booty from their towns.
On his return home he was promoted to command a large expedition of
five ships, the biggest of which, however, was only 100 tons, and the
smallest was 15 tons--no bigger than a fishing smack.
With these he sailed down the West Coast of Africa, then across to
Brazil and down the South American coast till he rounded the end of it
through the dangerous and difficult Straits of Magellan into the
Pacific. He coasted up the western side of America as far as
California, and then struck across the ocean to India, and thence
_via_ the Cape of Good Hope to England; this voyage took him
nearly three years to complete.
His good ship, the _Golden Hind_, though much battered and
wounded with war and weather, was received with great honour at
Deptford. The Queen herself went on board, and while there she showed
such pleasure at Drake's good work that she knighted him, using his
own well-worn sword to make him Sir Francis Drake.
Soon after this King Philip of Spain began to prepare an enormous
fleet, and though he told Queen Elizabeth that it was not intended to
be used against England, Sir Francis Drake, who was now in command of
a small fleet of British ships, maintained that it could be for no
other purpose.
[Illustration: DRAKE'S SHIP, THE "GOLDEN HIND."]
And a secret letter was shortly afterwards intercepted which proved
that his suspicions were right.
Drake went off with his fleet and sailed up and down the Spanish coast
destroying their ships and stores wherever he could find them, and
thus he hindered their preparations for war. In this way he sank or
burnt some 12,000 tons of shipping, which meant a great many ships in
those days.
He merely described it in his report as, "singeing the Spanish King's
beard."
At the end of 1588, the great Spanish fleet--the Armada--was ready,
and sailed against England. But there were a fine lot of British
admirals and men awaiting it, for besides Lord Charles Howard of
Effingham, the Lord High Admiral, there were Frobisher, and Davis,
Walter Raleigh, and Francis Drake.
It is true they had only 67 ships with which to oppose the 130 of the
Spaniards, but they sallied out and tackled them at once before the
Spaniards were really ready for them, and drove them into Dunkirk.
Here the Spaniards felt secure and would not come out till one night
the English sent fire ships in among them which forced them to put to
sea. Then ensued a tremendous sea fight, in which Drake, in the
_Revenge_, took the lead.
The battle lasted all day, with guns roaring and ships foundering or
exploding.
At length the Spaniards drew off northward to the German Ocean, the
only line of escape open to them. Round the north of Scotland and
Ireland they went, damaged by shot and beset by a gale, so that in the
end, out of the magnificent fleet of 130 sail which had set out for
the conquest of England, only 53 got back, with only about 9000 out of
the original 30,000 men.
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