We must now turn back for a moment to 1545, the year in which the Old
World, after the discovery of the mines of Potosi, first awoke to the
illimitable riches of the New; the year in which King Henry assembled
his epoch-making fleet; the year, too, in which the British National
Anthem was, so to say, born at sea, when the parole throughout the
waiting fleet was _God save the King!_ and the answering countersign
was _Long to reign over us!_
In the same year, at Crowndale by Tavistock in Devon, was born Francis
Drake, greatest of sea-dogs and first of modern admirals. His father,
Edmund Drake, was a skipper in modest circumstances. But from time
immemorial there had been Drakes all round the countryside of Tavistock
and the family name stood high. Francis was called after his godfather,
Francis Russell, son and heir of Henry's right-hand reforming peer,
Lord Russell, progenitor of the Dukes of Bedford down to the present
day.
Though fortune thus seemed to smile upon Drake's cradle, his boyhood
proved to be a very stormy one indeed. He was not yet five when the
Protestant zeal of the Lord Protector Somerset stirred the Roman
Catholics of the West Country into an insurrection that swept the
anti-Papal minority before it like flotsam before a flood. Drake's
father was a zealous Protestant, a 'hot gospeller,' much given to
preaching; and when he was cast up by the storm on what is now Drake's
Island, just off Plymouth, he was glad to take passage for Kent. His
friends at court then made him a sort of naval chaplain to the men who
took care of His Majesty's ships laid up in Gillingham Reach on the
River Medway, just below where Chatham Dockyard stands to-day. Here, in
a vessel too old for service, most of Drake's eleven brothers were born
to a life as nearly amphibious as the life of any boy could be. The
tide runs in with a rush from the sea at Sheerness, only ten miles
away; and so, among the creeks and marshes, points and bends, through
tortuous channels and hurrying waters lashed by the keen east wind of
England, Drake reveled in the kind of playground that a sea-dog's son
should have.
During the reign of Mary (1553-58) 'hot gospellers' like Drake's father
were of course turned out of the Service. And so young Francis had to
be apprenticed to 'the master of a bark, which he used to coast along
the shore, and sometimes to carry merchandise into Zeeland and France.'
It was hard work and a rough life for the little lad of ten. But Drake
stuck to it, and 'so pleased the old man by his industry that, being a
bachelor, at his death he bequeathed his bark unto him by will and
testament.' Moreover, after Elizabeth's accession, Drake's father came
into his own. He took orders in the Church of England, and in 1561,
when Francis was sixteen, became vicar of Upchurch on the Medway, the
same river on which his boys had learned to live amphibious lives.
No dreams of any Golden West had Drake as yet. To the boy in his teens
_Westward Ho!_ meant nothing more than the usual cry of London boatmen
touting for fares up-stream. But, before he went out with Sir John
Hawkins, on the 'troublesome' voyage which we have just followed, he
must have had a foretaste of something like his future raiding of the
Spanish Main; for the Channel swarmed with Protestant privateers, no
gentler, when they caught a Spaniard, than Spaniards were when they
caught them. He was twenty-two when he went out with Hawkins and would
be in his twenty-fourth year when he returned to England in the little
_Judith_ after the murderous Spanish treachery at San Juan de Ulua.
Just as the winter night was closing in, on the 20th of January, 1569,
the _Judith_ sailed into Plymouth. Drake landed. William Hawkins,
John's brother, wrote a petition to the Queen-in-Council for
letters-of-marque in reprisal for Ulua, and Drake dashed off for London
with the missive almost before the ink was dry. Now it happened that a
Spanish treasure fleet, carrying money from Italy and bound for
Antwerp, had been driven into Plymouth and neighboring ports by
Huguenot privateers. This money was urgently needed by Alva, the very
capable but ruthless governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who, having
just drowned the rebellious Dutch in blood, was now erecting a colossal
statue to himself for having 'extinguished sedition, chastised
rebellion, restored religion, secured justice, and established peace.'
The Spanish ambassador therefore obtained leave to bring it overland to
Dover.
But no sooner had Elizabeth signed the order of safe conduct than in
came Drake with the news of San Juan de Ulua. Elizabeth at once saw
that all the English sea-dogs would be flaming for revenge. Everyone
saw that the treasure would be safer now in England than aboard any
Spanish vessel in the Channel. So, on the ground that the gold, though
payable to Philip's representative in Antwerp, was still the property
of the Italian bankers who advanced it, Elizabeth sent orders down
post-haste to commandeer it. The enraged ambassador advised Alva to
seize everything English in the Netherlands. Elizabeth in turn seized
everything Spanish in England. Elizabeth now held the diplomatic
trumps; for existing treaties provided that there should be no
reprisals without a reasonable delay; and Alva had seized English
property before giving Elizabeth the customary time to explain.
John Hawkins entered Plymouth five days later than Drake and started
for London with four pack horses carrying all he had saved from the
wreck. By the irony of fate he travelled up to town in the rear of the
long procession that carried the commandeered Spanish gold.
The plot thickened fast; for England was now on the brink of war with
France over the secret aid Englishmen had been giving to the Huguenots
at La Rochelle. But suddenly Elizabeth was all smiles and affability
for France. And when her two great merchant fleets put out to sea, one,
the wine-fleet, bound for La Rochelle, went with only a small naval
escort, just enough to keep the pirates off; while the other, the big
wool-fleet, usually sent to Antwerp but now bound for Hamburg, went
with a strong fighting escort of regular men-of-war.
Aboard this escort went Francis Drake as a lieutenant in the Royal
Navy. Home in June, Drake ran down to Tavistock in Devon; wooed, won,
and married pretty Mary Newman, all within a month. He was back on duty
in July.
For the time being the war cloud passed away. Elizabeth's tortuous
diplomacy had succeeded, owing to dissension among her enemies. In the
following year (1570) the international situation was changed by the
Pope, who issued a bull formally deposing Elizabeth and absolving her
subjects from their allegiance to her. The French and Spanish monarchs
refused to publish this order because they did not approve of
deposition by the Pope. But, for all that, it worked against Elizabeth
by making her the official standing enemy of Rome. At the same time it
worked for her among the sea-dogs and all who thought with them. 'The
case,' said Thomas Fuller, author of _The Worthies of England_, 'the
case was clear in _sea divinitie_.' Religious zeal and commercial
enterprise went hand in hand. The case _was_ clear; and the English
navy, now mobilized and ready for war, made it much clearer still.
_Westward Ho!_ in chief command, at the age of twenty-five, with the
tiny flotilla of the _Dragon_ and the _Swan_, manned by as good a lot
of daredevil experts as any privateer could wish to see! Out and back
in 1570, and again in 1571, Drake took reprisals on New Spain, made
money for all hands engaged, and gained a knowledge of the American
coast that stood him in good stead for future expeditions.
It was 1572 when Drake, at the age of twenty-seven, sailed out of
Plymouth on the Nombre de Dios expedition that brought him into fame.
He led a Lilliputian fleet: the _Pascha_ and the _Swan_, a hundred tons
between them, with seventy-three men, all ranks and ratings, aboard of
them. But both vessels were 'richly furnished with victuals and
apparels for a whole year, and no less heedfully provided with all
manner of ammunition, artillery [which then meant every kind of firearm
as well as cannon], artificers' stuff and tools; but especially three
dainty pinnaces made in Plymouth, taken asunder all in pieces,' and
stowed aboard to be set up as occasion served.
Without once striking sail Drake made the channel between Dominica and
Martinique in twenty-five days and arrived off a previously chosen
secret harbor on the Spanish Main towards the end of July. To his
intense surprise a column of smoke was rising from it, though there was
no settlement within a hundred miles. On landing he found a leaden
plate with this inscription: 'Captain Drake! If you fortune to come to
this Port, make hast away! For the Spaniards which you had with you
here, the last year, have bewrayed the place and taken away all that
you left here. I depart hence, this present 7th of July, 1572. Your
very loving friend, John Garrett.' That was fourteen days before.
Drake, however, was determined to carry out his plan. So he built a
fort and set up his pinnaces. But others had now found the secret
harbor; for in came three sail under Ranse, an Englishman, who asked
that he be taken into partnership, which was done.
Then the combined forces, not much over a hundred strong, stole out and
along the coast to the Isle of Pines, where again Drake found himself
forestalled. From the negro crews of two Spanish vessels he discovered
that, only six weeks earlier, the Maroons had annihilated a Spanish
force on the Isthmus and nearly taken Nombre de Dios itself. These
Maroons were the descendants of escaped negro slaves intermarried with
the most warlike of the Indians. They were regular desperadoes, always,
and naturally, at war with the Spaniards, who treated them as vermin to
be killed at sight. Drake put the captured negroes ashore to join the
Maroons, with whom he always made friends. Then with seventy-three
picked men he made his dash for Nombre de Dios, leaving the rest under
Ranse to guard the base.
Nombre de Dios was the Atlantic terminus, as Panama was the Pacific
terminus, of the treasure trail across the Isthmus of Darien. The
Spaniards, knowing nothing of Cape Horn, and unable to face the
appalling dangers of Magellan's straits, used to bring the Peruvian
treasure ships to Panama, whence the treasure was taken across the
isthmus to Nombre de Dios by _recuas_, that is, by mule trains under
escort.
At evening Drake's vessel stood off the harbor of Nombre de Dios and
stealthily approached unseen. It was planned to make the landing in the
morning. A long and nerve-racking wait ensued. As the hours dragged on,
Drake felt instinctively that his younger men were getting demoralized.
They began to whisper about the size of the town—'as big as
Plymouth'—with perhaps a whole battalion of the famous Spanish
infantry, and so on. It wanted an hour of the first real streak of
dawn. But just then the old moon sent a ray of light quivering in on
the tide. Drake instantly announced the dawn, issued the orders: 'Shove
off, out oars, give way!' Inside the bay a ship just arrived from sea
was picking up her moorings. A boat left her side and pulled like mad
for the wharf. But Drake's men raced the Spaniards, beat them, and made
them sheer off to a landing some way beyond the town.
Springing eagerly ashore the Englishmen tumbled the Spanish guns off
their platforms while the astonished sentry ran for dear life. In five
minutes the church bells were pealing out their wild alarms, trumpet
calls were sounding, drums were beating round the general parade, and
the civilians of the place, expecting massacre at the hands of the
Maroons, were rushing about in agonized confusion. Drake's men fell
in—they were all well-drilled—and were quickly told off into three
detachments. The largest under Drake, the next under Oxenham—the hero
of Kingsley's _Westward Ho!_—and the third, of twelve men only, to
guard the pinnaces. Having found that the new fort on the hill
commanding the town was not yet occupied, Drake and Oxenham marched
against the town at the head of their sixty men, Oxenham by a flank,
Drake straight up the main street, each with a trumpet sounding, a drum
rolling, fire-pikes blazing, swords flashing, and all ranks yelling
like fiends. Drake was only of medium stature. But he had the strength
of a giant, the pluck of a bulldog, the spring of a tiger, and the cut
of a man that is born to command. Broad-browed, with steel-blue eyes
and close-cropped auburn hair and beard, he was all kindliness of
countenance to friends, but a very 'Dragon' to his Spanish foes.
As Drake's men reached the Plaza, his trumpeter blew one blast of
defiance and then fell dead. Drake returned the Spanish volley and
charged immediately, the drummer beating furiously, pikes levelled, and
swords brandished. The Spaniards did not wait for him to close; for
Oxenham's party, fire-pikes blazing, were taking them in flank. Out
went the Spaniards through the Panama gate, with screaming townsfolk
scurrying before them. Bang went the gate, now under English guard, as
Drake made for the Governor's house. There lay a pile of silver bars
such as his men had never dreamt of: in all, about four hundred tons of
silver ready for the homeward fleet—enough not only to fill but sink
the _Pascha_, _Swan_, and pinnaces. But silver was then no more to
Drake than it was once to Solomon. What he wanted were the diamonds and
pearls and gold, which were stored, he learned, in the King's Treasure
House beside the bay.
A terrific storm now burst. The fire-pikes and arquebuses had to be
taken under cover. The wall of the King's Treasure House defied all
efforts to breach it. And the Spaniards who had been shut into the
town, discovering how few the English were, reformed for attack. Some
of Drake's men began to lose heart. But in a moment he stepped to the
front and ordered Oxenham to go round and smash in the Treasure House
gate while he held the Plaza himself. Just as the men stepped off,
however, he reeled aside and fell. He had fainted from loss of blood
caused by a wound he had managed to conceal. There was no holding the
men now. They gave him a cordial, after which he bound up his leg, for
he was a first-rate surgeon, and repeated his orders as before. But
there were a good many wounded; and, with Drake no longer able to lead,
the rest all begged to go back. So back to their boats they went, and
over to the Bastimentos or Victualling Islands, which contained the
gardens and poultry runs of the Nombre de Dios citizens.
Here they were visited, under a flag of truce, by the Spanish officer
commanding the reinforcement just sent across from Panama. He was all
politeness, airs, and graces, while trying to ferret out the secret of
their real strength. Drake, however, was not to be outdone either in
diplomacy or war; and a delightful little comedy of prying and veiling
courtesies was played out, to the great amusement of the English
sea-dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up, the Spanish
officer departed, pouring forth a stream of high-flown compliments,
which Drake, who was a Spanish scholar, answered with the like. Waving
each other a ceremonious adieu the two leaders were left no wiser than
before.
Nombre de Dios, now strongly reinforced and on its guard, was not an
easy nut to crack. But Panama? Panama meant a risky march inland and a
still riskier return by the regular treasure trail. But with the help
of the Maroons, who knew the furtive byways to a foot, the thing might
yet be done. Ranse thought the game not worth the candle and retired
from the partnership, much to Drake's delight.
A good preliminary stroke was made by raiding Cartagena. Here Drake
found a frigate deserted by its crew, who had gone ashore to see fair
play in a duel fought about a seaman's mistress. The old man left in
charge confessed that a Seville ship was round the point. Drake cut her
out at once, in spite of being fired at from the shore. Next, in came
two more Spanish sail to warn Cartagena that 'Captain Drake has been at
Nombre de Dios and taken it, and if a blest bullet hadn't hit him in
the leg he would have sacked it too.'
Cartagena, however, was up in arms already; so Drake put all his
prisoners ashore unhurt and retired to reconsider his position, leaving
Diego, a negro fugitive from Nombre de Dios, to muster the Maroons for
a raid overland to Panama. Then Drake, who sank the _Swan_ and burnt
his prizes because he had only men enough for the _Pascha_ and the
pinnaces, disappeared into a new secret harbor. But his troubles were
only beginning; for word came that the Maroons said that nothing could
be done inland till the rains were over, five months hence. This meant
a long wait; however, what with making supply depots and picking up
prizes here and there, the wet time might pass off well enough.
One day Oxenham's crew nearly mutinied over the shortness of
provisions. 'Have ye not as much as I,' Drake called to them, 'and has
God's Providence ever failed us yet?' Within an hour a Spanish vessel
hove in sight, making such very heavy weather of it that boarding her
was out of the question. But 'We spent not two hours in attendance till
it pleased God to send us a reasonable calm, so that we might use our
guns and approach her at pleasure. We found her laden with victuals,
which we received as sent of God's great mercy.' Then 'Yellow Jack'
broke out, and the men began to fall sick and die. The company
consisted of seventy-three men; and twenty-eight of these perished of
the fever, among them the surgeon himself and Drake's own brother.
But on the 3d of February, 1573, Drake was ready for the dash on
Panama. Leaving behind about twenty-five men to guard the base, he
began the overland march with a company of fifty, all told, of whom
thirty-one were picked Maroons. The fourth day out Drake climbed a
forest giant on the top of the Divide, saw the Atlantic behind him and
the Pacific far in front, and vowed that if he lived he would sail an
English ship over the great South Sea. Two days more and the party left
the protecting forest for the rolling pampas where the risk of being
seen increased at every step. Another day's march and Panama was
sighted as they topped the crest of one of the bigger waves of ground.
A clever Maroon went ahead to spy out the situation and returned to say
that two _recuas_ would leave at dusk, one coming from Venta Cruz,
fifteen miles northwest of Panama, carrying silver and supplies, and
the other from Panama, loaded with jewels and gold. Then a Spanish
sentry was caught asleep by the advanced party of Maroons, who smelt
him out by the match of his fire-lock. In his gratitude for being
protected from the Maroons, this man confirmed the previous
information.
The excitement now was most intense; for the crowning triumph of a
two-years' great adventure was at last within striking distance of the
English crew. Drake drew them up in proper order; and every man took
off his shirt and put it on again outside his coat, so that each would
recognize the others in the night attack. Then they lay listening for
the mule-bells, till presently the warning tinkle let them know that
_recuas_ were approaching from both Venta Cruz and Panama. The first,
or silver train from Venta Cruz, was to pass in silence; only the
second, or gold train from Panama, was to be attacked. Unluckily one of
the Englishmen had been secretly taking pulls at his flask and had just
become pot-valiant when a stray Spanish gentleman came riding up from
Venta Cruz. The Englishman sprang to his feet, swayed about, was
tripped up by Maroons and promptly sat upon. But the Spaniard saw his
shirt, reined up, whipped round, and galloped back to Panama. This took
place so silently at the extreme flank in towards Panama that it was
not observed by Drake or any other Englishman. Presently what appeared
to be the gold train came within range. Drake blew his whistle; and all
set on with glee, only to find that the Panama _recua_ they were
attacking was a decoy sent on to spring the trap and that the gold and
jewels had been stopped.
The Spaniards were up in arms. But Drake slipped away through the
engulfing forest and came out on the Atlantic side, where he found his
rear-guard intact and eager for further exploits. He was met by Captain
Têtu, a Huguenot just out from France, with seventy men. Têtu gave
Drake news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and this drew the French
and English Protestants together. They agreed to engage in further
raiding of Spaniards, share and share alike by nationalities, though
Drake had now only thirty-one men against Têtu's seventy. Nombre de
Dios, they decided, was not vulnerable, as all the available Spanish
forces were concentrated there for its defence, and so they planned to
seize a Spanish train of gold and jewels just far enough inland to give
them time to get away with the plunder before the garrison could reach
them. Somewhere on the coast they established a base of operations and
then marched overland to the Panama trail and lay in wait.
This time the marauders were successful. When the Spanish train of gold
and jewels came opposite the ambush, Drake's whistle blew. The leading
mules were stopped. The rest lay down, as mule-trains will. The guard
was overpowered after killing a Maroon and wounding Captain Têtu. And
when the garrison of Nombre de Dios arrived a few hours later the gold
and jewels had all gone.
For a day and a night and another day Drake and his men pushed on,
loaded with plunder, back to their rendezvous along the coast, leaving
Têtu and two of his devoted Frenchmen to be rescued later. When they
arrived, worn out, at the rendezvous, not a man was in sight. Drake
built a raft out of unhewn tree trunks and, setting up a biscuit bag as
a sail, pushed out with two Frenchmen and one Englishman till he found
his boats. The plunder was then divided up between the French and the
English, while Oxenham headed a rescue party to bring Têtu to the
coast. One Frenchman was found. But Têtu and the other had been caught
by Spaniards.
The _Pascha_ was given to the accumulated Spanish prisoners to sail
away in. The pinnaces were kept till a suitable, smart-sailing Spanish
craft was found, boarded, and captured to replace them; whereupon they
were broken up and their metal given to the Maroons. Then, in two
frigates, with ballast of silver and cargo of jewels and gold, the
thirty survivors of the adventure set sail for home. 'Within 23 days we
passed from the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived
at Plymouth on Sunday about sermon time, August 9, 1573, at what time
the news of our Captain's return, brought unto his friends, did so
speedily pass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire
to see him, that very few or none remained with the preacher, all
hastening to see the evidence of God's love and blessing towards our
Gracious Queen and country, by the fruit of our Captain's labour and
success. _Soli Deo Gloria._'