to waft him on his way, and it was reported at the Spanish court that he
had gone toward the Indies. The consternation was universal. The Marquis
of Santa Cruz, high admiral of Spain and the most renowned naval officer
in Europe, declared that not only the African islands, but the whole
Pacific coast, the Spanish Main, and the West Indies were at the
corsair's mercy, and told his master that a fleet of forty sail must be
instantly equipped for the pursuit. But though for another fortnight
Drake rode defiantly at the Bayona anchorage, not a limb of Philip's
inert machinery could be moved against him; and, while the chivalry of
Spain chafed under their sovereign's deliberation, the second blow was
struck.
Madeira was passed by and the Canaries spared; for Palma, which Drake
intended should revictual him, showed so bold a front that he would not
waste time in trying to reduce it. It was on another point that his
implacable glance was fixed.
Five years ago at Santiago, the chief town of the Cape Verd Islands,
young William Hawkins, a personal adherent of Drake's, had been made the
victim of some such treachery as his father and captain had suffered
together at Vera Cruz. From that hour it was doomed. In the middle of
November the fleet arrived in the road and the troops landed. Threatened
by Carleill from the heights above the valley where it lies, and from
the sea by Drake, without a blow the town was abandoned to its fate. For
ten days the island was scoured for plunder and provisions, and ere the
month was out the anchorage was desolate and Santiago a heap of ashes.
Drake's vengeance was complete, and, exulting like Gideon in the
devastation that marked his course, he led his ships across the
Atlantic. Is there a moment in history more tragic than that? For the
first time since the ages began, a hostile fleet was passing the
ocean--the pioneer of how many more that have gone and are yet to
go--the forerunner of how much glory and shame and misery! What wonder
if the curse of God seemed upon it? Hardly had it lost sight of land
when it was stricken with sickness. In a few days some three hundred men
were dead, and numbers of others prostrate and useless; but in unshaken
faith, and with reverent wonder at the inscrutable will of Heaven, Drake
never flinched or paused. His only thought was how to check the evil. At
Dominica he got fresh provisions from the natives, and refreshed his
sick with a few days on shore. At St. Christopher he again halted to
spend Christmas and elaborate the details of his next move.
The point where Philip was now to feel the weight of his arm was the
fair city of Santo Domingo in Española. It was by far the most serious
operation Drake had yet undertaken. Hitherto his exploits had been
against places that were little more than struggling settlements, but
Santo Domingo was indeed a city, stone-built and walled, and flanked
with formidable batteries. It was held by a powerful garrison, as Drake
learned from a captured frigate, and a naval force had been concentrated
in the harbor for its defence. As the oldest town in the Indies, its
renown had hitherto secured it from attack, and in Spain it was held the
queen city of the colonial empire. The moral effect of its capture would
be profound, and, besides, from Virginia the governor of Raleigh's new
colony had sent home a fabulous report of its wealth. Drake was fully
alive to the gravity of the task before him. His dispositions had never
been so elaborate, and they evince at least a touch of that military
genius which the strategists of the next century denied him. While the
sick were recruiting he sent forward a squadron to reconnoitre, and, if
possible, to open communications with the maroons who infested the
hills. For three days the garrison was thus exhausted with constant
alarms, and then on January 1, 1586, the whole fleet appeared in the
bay.
Night fell, and, as darkness closed the eyes of the harassed garrison,
with the fleet all was activity. In boats and pinnaces the troops were
being rapidly embarked, and soon Drake in person was piloting the
flotilla for the surf-beaten shore. At a point within the bay, but some
ten miles from the town, a practicable landing-place had been found.
Watch-houses overlooked it, but watchmen there were none. Drake had got
touch with the maroons. By his directions a party of them had stolen
down from the hills, and as the sentries came out from the city in the
evening, swiftly and silently they had been every one despatched. Thus,
unseen and unmolested, the troops were successfully landed, and then,
with pious and cheery farewells to Carleill, Drake returned to the fleet
to prepare the ground for the surprise.
In the morning he anchored in the road, ran out his guns, and proceeded
to threaten a landing at a point close to that side of the town upon
which Carleill was stealthily approaching in two parallel columns. As
the Spaniards saw the fleet preparing the advance of the boats and
pinnaces, the whole of the horse and a large force of foot marched out
of the town to oppose the threatened attack, and took up a position
fronting the sea, with their left resting on the town and the other
flank exposed in the line of Carleill's advance. It was exactly what had
been foreseen, and, ere the Spaniards had discovered that the movement
from the fleet was merely a feint, the horse which were covering their
exposed flank were flying before Carleill's musketeers.
The surprise was complete. Taken in flank by Carleill, and threatened in
the rear by his second column under Powell, the chief of the staff, the
infantry could make no real resistance; and so rapidly was the English
advance pushed home that the struggling mass of friend and foe entered
pell-mell through the open gates of the town. For an hour, alarms of
drum and trumpet mingling confusedly with the sounds of street-fighting
reached the listening fleet as the two columns forced their way to meet
upon the Plaza. But how they fared none could tell, till on a tower a
white staff suddenly appeared, and in another moment the cross of St.
George fluttered gayly out upon the breeze. With a roar of triumph the
ships' guns saluted the signal of victory. The town was won.
Though the garrison fled panic-stricken across the river on the far side
of the city, and the citadel was evacuated in the night, the place was
far too large to be occupied by the force at Drake's command. Following,
therefore, the same tactics that had been successful at Nombre de Dios,
he ordered the troops to intrench themselves in the Plaza and to occupy
the principal batteries. In this way he held the city for a month. The
plunder was disappointing. The city was already a hundred years old, and
its day was done; for the reckless native policy of the colonists had
almost ruined the island. It remained but to treat for a ransom. The
Governor at once declared himself unable to meet the extravagant demands
of the English admiral, and in order to bring him to terms Drake began
to burn the town piecemeal. But so well was it built that little harm
could be done, and every day his impatience increased.
Once, in the course of the negotiations, he sent a boy with a flag of
truce to the Spanish camp. A Spaniard, meeting the lad, so ill-treated
him that he could barely crawl back to die at the admiral's feet. Then
all the fury of Drake's nature burst forth. Two friars who were among
the prisoners were immediately sent ashore and hanged by the
provost-marshal on the scene of the crime. Another was despatched to the
Spanish camp to declare that two more would be executed every morning
until the offender was brought down and hanged on the spot by his own
authorities. In hasty alarm the demand was complied with, and then the
international dinners and the negotiations went on more smoothly.
Convinced at last of the poverty of the colony, Drake accepted a ransom
of twenty-five thousand ducats. The sum, which is equal to about fifty
thousand pounds of our money, though little enough to satisfy the
shareholders, was very serious for the enemy. For besides this loss the
town had been stripped of everything worth carrying away by the troops
and seamen. Two hundred forty guns were taken on board the English
ships; and not only were they thoroughly refurnished from the Spanish
stores, but for a month the whole expedition had lived in free quarters
at the enemy's expense. The entire fleet which lay in the harbor fell
into Drake's hands, and, with the exception of four of the finest
galleons, was given to the flames. Besides the vessels which the
Spaniards themselves had scuttled, two galleys with their tenders,
fifteen frigates, and a galleon were thus destroyed, and hundreds of
galley-slaves set free.
"It was such a cooling to King Philip," said one in Europe as the news
leaked out, "as never happened to him since he was King of Spain." But
as yet Drake was far from done. In the middle of February, with his
force recruited by the English prisoners he had freed, and with a troop
of attendant prizes laden with his spoil, in undiminished strength he
appeared before Cartagena. No city in America was more difficult of
approach, but the memories of the old hard days were still green, when,
storm-beaten, drenched, and chilled, without food or shelter, he had
ridden in the harbor day after day in despite of all the Spaniards could
do, and he knew it all like a pilot. The city was built close to the
shore fronting west, and directly from its southern face an inlet of the
sea stretched many leagues southward along the coast, forming a large
lagoon. The long spit of land which separated this sheet of water from
the sea was pierced by two natural channels. At the far end was the
dangerous Bocca Chica, and some three miles from the city was a larger
entrance known as the Bocca Grande. Between this entrance and the town a
tongue of land ran out at right angles from the spit to the opposite
shore, forming an inner harbor and barring all approach to the city from
the outer part of the lagoon, except by a narrow channel which lay under
the guns of a powerful fort on the mainland.
On its northern and eastern faces the city was encircled by a broad
creek, which ran round it from the inner harbor to the sea in such a way
as to form a wide natural moat, rendering the city unapproachable from
the mainland except by a bridge. This bridge was also commanded by the
harbor fort, nor were land operations possible at any other point except
from that part of the spit which lay between the city and the Bocca
Grande. So finely, however, did this narrow down before the city could
be reached, that between the inner harbor and the sea it was but fifty
paces wide, and here the Spaniards had had time to prepare defences that
looked impregnable. From shore to shore a formidable entrenchment
completely barred the way; and not only was its front so staked and
encumbered as to render a night attack impossible, but its approaches
were swept by the guns and small-arms of a great galeas and two galleys
which lay in the inner harbor.
To a man so tender as Drake ever was for the lives of his men and the
safety of his ships, to attack such a place might well have appeared
hopeless; but the originality of the amphibious corsair at once descried
a hole which had escaped all the science of the Spanish martialists.
Instead of entering by the Bocca Grande, with consummate skill and
daring he piloted the whole fleet through the dangerous channel at the
extreme end of the lagoon. The only impression which so hazardous a
movement could create in the minds of the Spaniards was that he was
about to repeat his Santo Domingo operations, and land his troops there
to attack from the mainland. Such an impression must have been confirmed
as, moving up the lagoon, he anchored opposite the Bocca Grande and
threatened the harbor fort with his boats; but Drake's project was far
different. Instead of being landed on the mainland, Carleill with eight
companies was quietly slipped ashore in the Bocca Grande, with
instructions to make his way diagonally through the woods that covered
the spit till he reached the seashore, and then, instead of advancing on
the front of the intrenchments, to wade along through the wash of the
surf till he was within striking distance of the Spanish position.
Meanwhile Frobisher advanced with the flotilla against the harbor fort,
and as soon as Carleill was heard in contact with the enemy's pickets he
opened fire. The boat-attack was repulsed--indeed, it may only have been
intended as what soldiers then called "a hot alarm"--but Carleill was
completely successful. By the march through the surf he had not only
evaded the obstacles which the enemy had so carefully prepared, but he
had been covered from the fire of the galleys in the harbor, and had
never so much as entered the fire-area of the heavily armed
intrenchments. After a desperate struggle at push of pike, the position
was carried by assault, and once more so hotly was the advantage pursued
that in one rush the whole town was captured. The garrison fled across
the bridge to the hills, and the next day, when Drake brought up the
fleet to bear upon the fort, that also was evacuated.
No success was ever better earned and few more richly rewarded.
Cartagena was the capital of the Spanish Main, and though much younger
than Santo Domingo it was far wealthier. It yielded rich loot for the
men; and for his shareholders Drake, after a long negotiation, succeeded
in exacting a ransom of a hundred ten thousand ducats, besides what he
got for an adjacent monastery. Though to all this plunder Drake could
add the consolation that he had destroyed the galleys and shipping which
crowded the port, and blown up the harbor fort which the Spaniards had
forgotten to include in the convention, he was still unsatisfied. Well
knowing that by an advance up the Chagres River in his boats Panama lay
at his mercy, he was resolved with its capture to crown the campaign;
but as he lay in Cartagena the sickness, which had never really ceased,
broke out again with new virulence, and made such havoc with his force
that he had reluctantly to confess that Panama must wait. To capture it
with the crippled means at his command was impossible, and the only
question was whether Cartagena should be held till he could return with
reënforcements.
The soldiers declared themselves ready to undertake the task; but in a
full council of war it was finally decided that no strategical advantage
would be gained at all proportional to the risk that would be run in
further weakening the fleet, and on the last day of March the signal to
make sail home was flying from the Elizabeth Bonaventura. So severely,
however, did they suffer from the weather and want of water that it was
nearly two months before they reached the coast of Florida. Still Drake
found time and energy to destroy and plunder the Spanish settlement at
St. Augustine, and relieve Raleigh's exhausted colony in Virginia. With
the remnants of the settlers on board, he weighed for England, and on
July 28, 1586, he was writing from Plymouth to Lord Burghley laconically
reporting his return; and, apologizing for having missed the Plate fleet
by only twelve hours' sail--"the reason best known to God"--he declared
that he and his fleet were ready at once to strike again in any
direction the Queen would be pleased to indicate.
"There is a very great gap opened," said Drake in his letter to
Burghley, "very little to the liking of the King of Spain." That, with
the calm request for orders, was his comment on a feat which changed the
destinies of Europe. At its fullest flood he had stemmed the tide of
Spanish empire. It was no less a thing than that.
A few months ago all Europe had been cowering in confused alarm before
the shadow of a new Roman empire. Ever since the first triumph of
Luther, the cause of Reformation had been Steadily losing ground; on
England and the Low Countries hung its only hope, and with the fall of
Antwerp Europe saw itself on the eve of that "last great battle in the
west" which must decide its fate for centuries. In despair of the
result, each trembling power was trying to hide behind the other; each
was thrusting its neighbor forward to break the coming blow; and Philip
led the cheating till his hour should come. He was bent on crushing
Elizabeth; and then, with one foot on the ruins of her kingdom, he meant
to stamp down his rebellious Netherlands into the gloomy Catholicism in
which his own dark soul was sunk. As the fruit of his splendid
deliberation ripened, he strove to cheat Elizabeth into inactivity by a
hope that peace might yet be purchased by the betrayal of the
Netherlands.
Then in laughing gusts came over the Atlantic the rumors of his
exploits, till the full gale they heralded swept over Europe, whirling
into oblivion a hundred intrigues and bending the prestige of Spain like
a reed. The limitless possibilities of the new-born naval warfare had
been demonstrated, and the lesson startled Europe like a revelation. An
unmeasured force was added to statecraft, and a new power had arisen.
The effect was immediate. Men saw the fountain of Spanish trade at
England's mercy; they knew how narrowly the Plate fleet had escaped, and
a panic palsied Philip's finance. The Bank of Seville broke; that of
Venice was in despair; and the King of Spain, pointed at as a bankrupt,
failed to raise a loan of half a million ducats. Parma was appalled.
With his brilliant capture of Antwerp he had seen himself on the brink
of that great exploit with which he hoped to crown his career; and now,
instead of a host armed at all points for the invasion of England, he
saw around him a broken army it was impossible to supply. In Germany the
Protestant princes raised their heads, and, seeing dawn at last, began
to shake off the lethargy into which despair had plunged them. England
was wild with joy. Burghley himself was almost startled from his
caution, and cried out with half a shudder that Drake was a fearful man
to the King of Spain.
For two years Philip had been at work upon his Armada. His ports were
crowded with its details; his storehouses were bursting with its
furniture; and Walsingham at last was able to convince the Queen, by a
paper stolen from the very closet of the Pope, that it was upon her head
the great engine was to crash. Her eyes were opened; and, infected for a
moment with the warlike spirit into which her people and her Parliament
had lashed themselves, she ordered Drake in 1587 to the coast of Spain.
It was no longer as a privateer that he was to act. He held the rank of
her majesty's admiral-at-the-seas, and William Borough, the comptroller
of the navy, was his vice-admiral. Four of the Queen's largest
battle-ships and two of her pinnaces were under his command, and the
London merchants committed to his flag ten fine cruisers, with the
famous Merchant Royal at their head. Besides these, he had six hundred
tons of his own shipping, as well as some of the lord admiral's. In all,
exclusive of tenders, there were twenty-three sail--five battle-ships,
two first-class cruisers, seven of the second class, and nine gunboats
large and small. With this fine force he was instructed to proceed to
Cape St. Vincent, and by every means in his power to prevent the
concentration of the several divisions of the Armada by cutting off
their victuallers, and even destroying them in the ports where they lay.
If the enemy sailed for England or Ireland, he was to hang on their
skirts, cut off stragglers, and prevent a landing; and, finally, he was
given a free hand to act against the East and West India convoys.
Elizabeth was in a resolute mood. Drake's ideas of naval warfare were
developing a step further, and the Queen for the moment listened. He was
beginning dimly to grasp that the command of the sea was the first
object for a naval power to aim at. It was because he had not command of
the seas that he had been unable to retain his hold of Cartagena, for
the troops which should have formed its garrison were wanted to defend
his fleet. Wiser for the lesson, his aim was now to crush the Spanish
navy, and then, in undisputed control of the sea, to gather in his
harvest. The opposition were thoroughly alarmed, and, while Drake in hot
haste was driving on his preparations, they left no stone unturned to
get his orders modified. They tampered with his men, they whispered
slanders in his mistress' ear, they frightened her with threats from
abroad, they tempted her with offers of peace from Parma on the old
disgraceful terms. For Walsingham, who, through thick and thin, was
always at Drake's back, it was an unequal fight; with the stanchest of
his party in disgrace for Mary's premature execution, he was
single-handed against a host, and at last the friends of Spain
prevailed. Early in April a messenger sped down to Plymouth with orders
that operations were to be confined to the high seas. As Philip's ships
were all snug in port, and could well remain there as long as Drake's
stores allowed him to keep the sea, it was a complete triumph for Spain.
But when the messenger dashed into Plymouth with the fatal packet he
found the roadstead empty. Drake was gone.
In vain at the last moment a number of his sailors had been induced to
desert; he had filled their places with soldiers. In vain a swift
pinnace was despatched in pursuit; Drake had taken care no orders should
catch him, and, with his squadron increased by two warships from Lyme,
was already off Finisterre, battling with a gale which drove the pinnace
home. For seven days it raged and forced the fleet far out to sea. Still
Drake held on in its teeth, and so well had he his ships in hand that on
the 16th, within twenty-four hours after the gale had blown itself out,
the whole fleet in perfect order was sailing gayly eastward past Cape
St. Vincent.
Eastward--for he had intelligence that Cadiz harbor was full of
transports and store-ships, and on the afternoon of the 19th, as he
entered the bay, he saw a forest of masts in the road behind the city. A
council of war was summoned at once, and without asking their opinion he
quietly told them he was going to attack. It was his usual manner of
holding a council, but it took Borough's breath away. It shocked the old
Queen's officer, and outraged his sense of what was due to his own
reputation and experience and the time-honored customs of war. He wanted
to talk about it and think about it, and find out first whether it was
too dangerous. And there was certainly some excuse for his caution.
Cadiz stands on a precipitous rock at the end of a low and narrow neck
of land, some five miles in length, running parallel to the coast.
Within this natural breakwater are enclosed an outer and an inner port;
and so cumbered with shoals and rocks was the entrance from the sea that
no ship could get in without passing under the guns of the town
batteries, while access from the outer to the inner port was only to be
gained by the Puntal passage, half a mile wide.
Opposite Cadiz, on the other side of the outer harbor, was Port St.
Mary, and within the Puntal channel, at the extreme end of the inlet,
stood Port Royal. Both places, however, were so protected by shoals as
to be unapproachable except to the port pilots. It was an ideal scene of
action for galleys to develop their full capabilities. Two had already
appeared to reconnoitre, and how many more there were no one could tell.
Galleys, it must be remembered, were then considered the most formidable
warships afloat, and quite invincible in confined waters or calms. By
all the rules of war, on which Borough was the first authority in the
service, to attack was suicide; but Drake had spent his life in breaking
rules. He did not care. The enemy was there, his authority was in his
pocket, the wind was fair, his officers believed in him, and as the sun
sank low behind them the fleet went in.