Drake in disfavor after 1589 seems a contradiction that nothing can
explain. It can, however, be quite easily explained, though never
explained away. He had simply failed to make the Lisbon Expedition
pay—a heinous offence in days when the navy was as much a revenue
department as the customs or excise. He had also failed to take Lisbon
itself. The reasons why mattered nothing either to the disappointed
government or to the general public.
But, six years later, in 1595, when Drake was fifty and Hawkins
sixty-three, England called on them both to strike another blow at
Spain. Elizabeth was helping Henry IV of France against the League of
French and Spanish Catholics. Henry, astute as he was gallant, had
found Paris 'worth a mass' and, to Elizabeth's dismay, had gone
straight over to the Church of Rome with terms of toleration for the
Huguenots. The war against the Holy League, however, had not yet ended.
The effect of Henry's conversion was to make a more united France
against the encroaching power of Spain. And every eye in England was
soon turned on Drake and Hawkins for a stroke at Spanish power beyond
the sea.
Drake and Hawkins formed a most unhappy combination, made worse by the
fact that Hawkins, now old beyond his years, soured by misfortune, and
staled for the sea by long spells of office work, was put in as a check
on Drake, in whom Elizabeth had lost her former confidence. Sir Thomas
Baskerville was to command the troops. Here, at least, no better choice
could have possibly been made. Baskerville had fought with rare
distinction in the Brest campaign and before that in the Netherlands.
There was the usual hesitation about letting the fleet go far from
home. The 'purely defensive' school was still strong; Elizabeth in
certain moods belonged to it; and an incident which took place about
this time seemed to give weight to the arguments of the defensivists. A
small Spanish force, obliged to find water and provisions in a hurry,
put into Mousehole in Cornwall and, finding no opposition, burnt
several villages down to the ground. The moment these Spaniards heard
that Drake and Hawkins were at Plymouth they decamped. But this
ridiculous raid threw the country into doubt or consternation.
Elizabeth was as brave as a lion for herself. But she never grasped the
meaning of naval strategy, and she was supersensitive to any strong
general opinion, however false. Drake and Hawkins, with Baskerville's
troops (all in transports) and many supply vessels for the West India
voyage, were ordered to cruise about Ireland and Spain looking for
enemies. The admirals at once pointed out that this was the work of the
Channel Fleet, not that of a joint expedition bound for America. Then,
just as the Queen was penning an angry reply, she received a letter
from Drake, saying that the chief Spanish treasure ship from Mexico had
been seen in Porto Rico little better than a wreck, and that there was
time to take her if they could only sail at once. The expedition was on
the usual joint-stock lines and Elizabeth was the principal
shareholder. She swallowed the bait whole; and sent sailing orders down
to Plymouth by return.
And so, on the 28th of August, 1595, twenty-five hundred men in
twenty-seven vessels sailed out, bound for New Spain. Surprise was
essential; for New Spain, taught by repeated experience, was well
armed; and twenty-five hundred men were less formidable now than five
hundred twenty years before. Arrived at the Canaries, Las Palmas was
found too strong to carry by immediate assault; and Drake had no time
to attack it in form. He was two months late already; so he determined
to push on to the West Indies.
When Drake reached Porto Rico, he found the Spanish in a measure
forewarned and forearmed. Though he astonished the garrison by standing
boldly into the harbor and dropping anchor close to a masked battery,
the real surprise was now against him. The Spanish gunners got the
range to an inch, brought down the flagship's mizzen, knocked Drake's
chair from under him, killed two senior officers beside him, and
wounded many more. In the meantime Hawkins, worn out by his exertions,
had died. This reception, added to the previous failures and the
astonishing strength of Porto Rico, produced a most depressing effect.
Drake weighed anchor and went out. He was soon back in a new place,
cleverly shielded from the Spanish guns by a couple of islands. After
some more manoeuvres he attacked the Spanish fleet with fire-balls and
by boarding. When a burning frigate lit up the whole wild scene, the
Spanish gunners and musketeers poured into the English ships such a
concentrated fire that Drake was compelled to retreat. He next tried
the daring plan of running straight into the harbor, where there might
still be a chance. But the Spaniards sank four of their own valuable
vessels in the harbor mouth—guns, stores, and all—just in the nick of
time, and thus completely barred the way.
Foiled again, Drake dashed for the mainland, seized La Hacha, burnt it,
ravaged the surrounding country, and got away with a successful haul of
treasure; then he seized Santa Marta and Nombre de Dios, both of which
were found nearly empty. The whole of New Spain was taking the
alarm—_The Dragon's back again!_ Meanwhile a fleet of more than twice
Drake's strength was coming out from Spain to attack him in the rear.
Nor was this all, for Baskerville and his soldiers, who had landed at
Nombre de Dios and started overland, were in full retreat along the
road from Panama, having found an impregnable Spanish position on the
way. It was a sad beginning for 1596, the centennial year of England's
first connection with America.
'Since our return from Panama he never carried mirth nor joy in his
face,' wrote one of Baskerville's officers who was constantly near
Drake. A council of war was called and Drake, making the best of it,
asked which they would have, Truxillo, the port of Honduras, or the
'golden towns' round about Lake Nicaragua. 'Both,' answered
Baskerville, 'one after the other.' So the course was laid for San Juan
on the Nicaragua coast. A head wind forced Drake to anchor under the
island of Veragua, a hundred and twenty-five miles west of Nombre de
Dios Bay and right in the deadliest part of that fever-stricken coast.
The men began to sicken and die off. Drake complained at table that the
place had changed for the worse. His earlier memories of New Spain were
of a land like a 'pleasant and delicious arbour' very different from
the 'vast and desert wilderness' he felt all round him now. The wind
held foul. More and more men lay dead or dying. At last Drake himself,
the man of iron constitution and steel nerves, fell ill and had to keep
his cabin. Then reports were handed in to say the stores were running
low and that there would soon be too few hands to man the ships. On
this he gave the order to weigh and 'take the wind as God had sent it.'
So they stood out from that pestilential Mosquito Gulf and came to
anchor in the fine harbor of Puerto Bello, which the Spaniards had
chosen to replace the one at Nombre de Dios, twenty miles east. Here,
in the night of the 27th of January, Drake suddenly sprang out of his
berth, dressed himself, and raved of battles, fleets, Armadas, Plymouth
Hoe, and plots against his own command. The frenzy passed away. He fell
exhausted, and was lifted back to bed again. Then 'like a Christian, he
yielded up his spirit quietly.'
His funeral rites befitted his renown. The great new Spanish fort of
Puerto Bello was given to the flames, as were nearly all the Spanish
prizes, and even two of his own English ships; for there were now no
sailors left to man them. Thus, amid the thunder of the guns whose
voice he knew so well, and surrounded by consuming pyres afloat and on
the shore, his body was committed to the deep, while muffled drums
rolled out their last salute and trumpets wailed his requiem.
APPENDIX — NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING
In the sixteenth century there was no hard-and-fast distinction between
naval and all other craft. The sovereign had his own fighting vessels;
and in the course of the seventeenth century these gradually evolved
into a Royal Navy maintained entirely by the country as a whole and
devoted solely to the national defence. But in earlier days this modern
system was difficult everywhere and impossible in England. The English
monarch, for all his power, had no means of keeping up a great army and
navy without the help of Parliament and the general consent of the
people. The Crown had great estates and revenues; but nothing like
enough to make war on a national scale. Consequently king and people
went into partnership, sometimes in peace as well as war. When fighting
stopped, and no danger seemed to threaten, the king would use his
men-of-war in trade himself, or even hire them out to merchants. The
merchants, for their part, furnished vessels to the king in time of
war. Except as supply ships, however, these auxiliaries were never a
great success. The privateers built expressly for fighting were the
only ships that could approach the men-of-war.
Yet, strangely enough, King Henry's first modern men-of-war grew out of
a merchant-ship model, and a foreign one at that. Throughout ancient
and medieval times the 'long ship' was the man-of-war while the 'round
ship' was the merchantman. But the long ship was always some sort of
galley, which, as we have seen repeatedly, depended on its oars and
used sails only occasionally, and then not in action, while the round
ship was built to carry cargo and to go under sail. The Italian naval
architects, then the most scientific in the world, were trying to
evolve two types of vessel: one that could act as light cavalry on the
wings of a galley fleet, the other that could carry big cargoes safely
through the pirate-haunted seas. In both types sail power and fighting
power were essential. Finally a compromise resulted and the galleasse
appeared. The galleasse was a hybrid between the galley and the sailing
vessel, between the 'long ship' that was several times as long as it
was broad and the 'round ship' that was only two or three times as long
as its beam. Then, as the oceanic routes gained on those of the inland
seas, and as oceanic sea power gained in the same proportion, the
galleon appeared. The galleon had no oars at all, as the hybrid
galleasses had, and it gained more in sail power than it lost by
dropping oars. It was, in fact, the direct progenitor of the old
three-decker which some people still alive can well remember.
At the time the Cabots and Columbus were discovering America the
Venetians had evolved the merchant-galleasse for their trade with
London: they called it, indeed, the _galleazza di Londra_. Then, by the
time Henry VIII was building his new modern navy, the real galleon had
been evolved (out of the Italian new war- and older
merchant-galleasses) by England, France, and Scotland; but by England
best of all. In original ideas of naval architecture England was
generally behind, as she continued to be till well within living
memory. Nelson's captains competed eagerly for the command of French
prizes, which were better built and from superior designs. The American
frigates of 1812 were incomparably better than the corresponding
classes in the British service were; and so on in many other instances.
But, in spite of being rather slow, conservative, and rule-of-thumb,
the English were already beginning to develop a national sea-sense far
beyond that of any other people. They could not, indeed, do otherwise
and live. Henry's policy, England's position, the dawn of oceanic
strategy, and the discovery of America, all combined to make her navy
by far the most important single factor in England's problems with the
world at large. As with the British Empire now, so with England then:
the choice lay between her being either first or nowhere.
Henry's reasoning and his people's instinct having led to the same
resolve, everyone with any sea-sense, especially shipwrights like
Fletcher of Rye, began working towards the best types then obtainable.
There were mistakes in plenty. The theory of naval architecture in
England was never both sound and strong enough to get its own way
against all opposition. But with the issue of life and death always
dependent on sea power, and with so many men of every class following
the sea, there was at all events the biggest rough-and-tumble school of
practical seamanship that any leading country ever had. The two
essential steps were quickly taken: first, from oared galleys with very
little sail power to the hybrid galleasse with much more sail and much
less in the way of oars; secondly, from this to the purely sailing
galleon.
With the galleon we enter the age of sailing tactics which decided the
fate of the oversea world. This momentous age began with Drake and the
English galleon. It ended with Nelson and the first-rate, three-decker,
ship-of-the-line. But it was one throughout; for its beginning differed
from its end no more than a father differs from his son.
One famous Tudor vessel deserves some special notice, not because of
her excellence but because of her defects. The _Henry Grace à Dieu,_ or
_Great Harry_ as she was generally called, launched in 1514, was
Henry's own flagship on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in
1520. She had a gala suit of sails and pennants, all made of damasked
cloth of gold. Her quarters, sides, and tops were emblazoned with
heraldic targets. Court artists painted her to show His Majesty on
board wearing cloth of gold, edged with the royal ermine; as well as
bright crimson jacket, sleeves, and breeches, with a long white feather
in his cap. Doubtless, too, His Majesty of France paid her all the
proper compliments; while every man who was then what reporters are
to-day talked her up to the top of his bent. No single vessel ever had
greater publicity till the famous first _Dreadnought_ of our own day
appeared in the British navy nearly four hundred years later.
But the much advertised _Great Harry_ was not a mighty prototype of a
world-wide-copied class of battleships like the modern _Dreadnought_.
With her lavish decorations, her towering superstructures fore and aft,
and her general aping of a floating castle, she was the wonder of all
the landsmen in her own age, as she has been the delight of picturesque
historians ever since. But she marked no advance in naval architecture,
rather the reverse. She was the last great English ship of medieval
times. Twenty-five years after the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Henry
was commanding another English fleet, the first of modern times, and
therefore one in which the out-of-date _Great Harry_ had no proper
place at all. She was absurdly top-hampered and over-gunned. And, for
all her thousand tons, she must have bucketed about in the chops of the
Channel with the same sort of hobby-horse, see-sawing pitch that
bothered Captain Concas in 1893 when sailing an exact reproduction of
Columbus's flagship, the _Santa Maria_, across the North Atlantic to
the great World's Fair at Chicago.
In her own day the galleon was the 'great ship,' 'capital ship,'
'ship-of-the-line-of-battle,' or 'battleship' on which the main fight
turned. But just as our modern fleets require three principal kinds of
vessels—battleships, cruisers, and 'mosquito' craft—so did the fleets
of Henry and Elizabeth. The galleon did the same work as the old
three-decker of Nelson's time or the battleship of to-day. The
'pinnace' (quite different from more modern pinnaces) was the frigate
or the cruiser. And, in Henry VIII's fleet of 1545, the 'row-barge' was
the principal 'mosquito' craft, like the modern torpedo-boat,
destroyer, or even submarine. Of course the correspondence is far from
being complete in any class.
The English galleon gradually developed more sail and gun power as well
as handiness in action. Broadside fire began. When used against the
Armada, it had grown very powerful indeed. At that time the best guns,
some of which are still in existence, were nearly as good as those at
Trafalgar or aboard the smart American frigates that did so well in
'1812.' When galleon broadsides were fired from more than a single
deck, the lower ones took enemy craft between wind and water very
nicely. In the English navy the portholes had been cut so as to let the
guns be pointed with considerable freedom, up or down, right or left.
The huge top-hampering 'castles' and other soldier-engineering works on
deck were modified or got rid of, while more canvas was used and to
much better purpose.
The pinnace showed the same sort of improvement during the same
period—from Drake's birth under Henry VIII in 1545 to the zenith of his
career as a sea-dog in 1588. This progenitor of the frigate and the
cruiser was itself descended from the long-boat of the Norsemen and
still used oars as occasion served. But the sea-dogs made it primarily
a sailing vessel of anything up to a hundred tons and generally
averaging over fifty. A smart pinnace, with its long, low, clean-run
hull, if well handled under its Elizabethan fighting canvas of foresail
and main topsail, could play round a Spanish galleasse or absurdly
castled galleon like a lancer on a well-trained charger round a
musketeer astraddle on a cart horse.[4] Henry's pinnaces still had
lateen sails copied from Italian models. Elizabeth's had square sails
prophetic of the frigate's. Henry's had one or a very few small guns.
Elizabeth's had as many as sixteen, some of medium size, in a
hundred-tonner.
[4: Fuller in his _Worthies_ (1662) writes: 'Many were the wit-combats
betwixt him [Shakespeare] and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld like a
Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson (like
the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his
performances. Shakespeare, like the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk,
but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take
advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.']
The 'mosquito' fleet of Henry's time was represented by 'row-barges' of
his own invention. Now that the pinnace was growing in size and sail
power, while shedding half its oars, some new small rowing craft was
wanted, during that period of groping transition, to act as a tender or
to do 'mosquito' work in action. The mere fact that Henry VIII placed
no dependence on oars except for this smallest type shows how far he
had got on the road towards the broadside-sailing-ship fleet. On the
16th of July, 1541, the Spanish Naval Attaché (as we should call him
now) reported to Charles V that Henry had begun 'to have new oared
vessels built after his own design.' Four years later these same
'row-barges'—long, light, and very handy—hung round the sterns of the
retreating Italian galleys in the French fleet to very good purpose,
plying them with bow-chasers and the two broadside guns, till Strozzi,
the Italian galley-admiral, turned back on them in fury, only to see
them slip away in perfect order and with complete immunity.
By the time of the Armada the mosquito fleet had outgrown these little
rowing craft and had become more oceanic. But names, types, and the
evolution of one type from another, with the application of the same
name to changed and changing types, all tend to confusion unless the
subject is followed in such detail as is impossible here.
The fleets of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth did far more to improve both
the theory and practice of naval gunnery than all the fleets in the
world did from the death of Drake to the adoption of rifled ordnance
within the memory of living men. Henry's textbook of artillery,
republished in 1588, the year of the Armada, contains very practical
diagrams for finding the range at sea by means of the gunner's half
circle—yet we now think range-finding a very modern thing indeed. There
are also full directions for making common and even something like
shrapnel shells, 'star shells' to light up the enemy at night,
armor-piercing arrows shot out of muskets, 'wild-fire' grenades, and
many other ultra-modern devices.
Henry established Woolwich Dockyard, second to none both then and now,
as well as Trinity House, which presently began to undertake the duties
it still discharges by supervising all aids to navigation round the
British Isles. The use of quadrants, telescopes, and maps on Mercator's
projection all began in the reign of Elizabeth, as did many other
inventions, adaptations, handy wrinkles, and vital changes in strategy
and tactics. Taken together, these improvements may well make us of the
twentieth century wonder whether we are so very much superior to the
comrades of Henry, Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Bacon, Raleigh, and Drake.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
A complete bibliography concerned with the first century of
Anglo-American affairs (1496-1596) would more than fill the present
volume. But really informatory books about the sea-dogs proper are very
few indeed, while good books of any kind are none too common.
Taking this first century as a whole, the general reader cannot do
better than look up the third volume of Justin Winsor's _Narrative and
Critical History of America_ (1884) and the first volume of Avery's
_History of the United States and its People_ (1904). Both give
elaborate references to documents and books, but neither professes to
be at all expert in naval or nautical matters, and a good deal has been
written since.
THE CABOTS. Cabot literature is full of conjecture and controversy.
G.P. Winship's _Cabot Bibliography_ (1900) is a good guide to all but
recent works. Nicholls' _Remarkable Life of Sebastian Cabot_ (1869)
shows more zeal than discretion. Harrisse's _John Cabot and his son
Sebastian_ (1896) arranges the documents in scholarly order but draws
conclusions betraying a wonderful ignorance of the coast. On the whole,
Dr. S.E. Dawson's very careful monographs in the _Transactions of the
Royal Society of Canada_ (1894, 1896, 1897) are the happiest blend of
scholarship and local knowledge. Neither the Cabots nor their crews
appear to have written a word about their adventures and discoveries.
Consequently the shifting threads of hearsay evidence soon became
inextricably tangled. Biggar's _Precursors of Cartier_ is an able and
accurate work.
ELIZABETH. Turning to the patriot queen who had to steer England
through so many storms and tortuous channels, we could find no better
short guide to her political career than Beesley's volume about her in
'Twelve English Statesmen.' But the best all-round biography is _Queen
Elizabeth_ by Mandell Creighton, who also wrote an excellent epitome,
called _The Age of Elizabeth_, for the 'Epochs of Modern History.'
_Shakespeare's England_, published in 1916 by the Oxford University
Press, is quite encyclopaedic in its range.
LIFE AFLOAT. The general evolution of wooden sailing craft may be
traced out in Part I of Sir George Holmes's convenient little treatise
on _Ancient and Modern Ships_. There is no nautical dictionary devoted
to Elizabethan times. But a good deal can be picked up from the two
handy modern glossaries of Dana and Admiral Smyth, the first being an
American author, the second a British one. Smyth's _Sailor's Word Book_
has no alternative title. But Dana's _Seaman's Friend_ is known in
England under the name of _The Seaman's Manual_. Technicalities change
so much more slowly afloat than ashore that even the ultra-modern
editions of Paasch's magnificent polyglot dictionary, _From Keel to
Truck_, still contain many nautical terms which will help the reader
out of some of his difficulties.
The life of the sea-dogs, gentlemen-adventurers, and
merchant-adventurers should be studied in Hakluyt's collection of
_Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques, and Discoveries_; though
many of his original authors were landsmen while a few were civilians
as well. This Elizabethan Odyssey, the great prose epic of the English
race, was first published in a single solemn folio the year after the
Armada—1589. In the nineteenth century the Hakluyt Society reprinted
and edited these _Navigations_ and many similar works, though not
without employing some editors who had no knowledge of the Navy or the
sea. In 1893 E.J. Payne brought out a much handier edition of the
_Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America_ which gives the very
parts of Hakluyt we want for our present purpose, and gives them with a
running accompaniment of pithy introductions and apposite footnotes.
Nearly all historians are both landsmen and civilians whose sins of
omission and commission are generally at their worst in naval and
nautical affairs. But James Anthony Froude, whatever his other faults
may be, did know something of life afloat, and his _English Seamen in
the Sixteenth Century_, despite its ultra-Protestant tone, is well
worth reading.
HAWKINS. _The Hawkins Voyages_, published by the Hakluyt Society, give
the best collection of original accounts. They deal with three
generations of this famous family and are prefaced by a good
introduction. _A Sea-Dog of Devon_, by R.A.J. Walling (1907) is the
best recent biography of Sir John Hawkins.
DRAKE. Politics, policy, trade, and colonization were all dependent on
sea power; and just as the English Navy was by far the most important
factor in solving the momentous New-World problems of that awakening
age, so Drake was by far the most important factor in the English Navy.
_The Worlde Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake_ and _Sir Francis Drake
his Voyage_, 1595, are two of the volumes edited by the Hakluyt
Society. But these contemporary accounts of his famous fights and
voyages do not bring out the supreme significance of his influence as
an admiral, more especially in connection with the Spanish Armada. It
must always be a matter of keen, though unavailing, regret that Admiral
Mahan, the great American expositor of sea power, began with the
seventeenth, not the sixteenth, century. But what Mahan left undone was
afterwards done to admiration by Julian Corbett, Lecturer in History to
the (British) Naval War College, whose _Drake and the Tudor Navy_
(1912) is absolutely indispensable to any one who wishes to understand
how England won her footing in America despite all that Spain could do
to stop her. Corbett's _Drake_ (1890) in the 'English Men of Action'
series is an excellent epitome. But the larger book is very much the
better. Many illuminative documents on _The Defeat of the Spanish
Armada_ were edited in 1894 by Corbett's predecessor, Sir John
Laughton. The only other work that need be consulted is the first
volume of _The Royal Navy: a History_, edited by Sir William Laird
Clowes (1897). This is not so good an authority as Corbett; but it
contains many details which help to round the story out, besides a
wealth of illustration.
RALEIGH. Gilbert, Cavendish, Raleigh, and the other
gentlemen-adventurers, were soldiers, not sailors; and if they had gone
afloat two centuries later they would have fought at the head of
marines, not of blue-jackets; so their lives belong to a different kind
of biography from that concerned with Hawkins, Frobisher. and Drake.
Edwards's _Life of Sir Walter Raleigh_ (1868) contains all the most
interesting letters and is a competent work of its own kind. Oldys'
edition of Raleigh's _Works_ still holds the field though its eight
volumes were published so long ago as 1829. Raleigh's _Discovery of
Guiana_ is the favorite for reprinting. The Hakluyt Society has
produced an elaborate edition (1847) while a very cheap and handy one
has been published in Cassell's National Library. W.G. Gosling's _Life
of Sir Humphry Gilbert_ (1911) is the best recent work of its kind.
The likeliest of all the Hakluyt Society's volumes, so far as its title
is concerned, is one which has hardly any direct bearing on the subject
of our book. Yet the reader who is disappointed by the text of _Divers
Voyages to America_ because it is not devoted to Elizabethan sea-dogs
will be richly rewarded by the notes on pages 116-141. These quaint
bits of information and advice were intended for quite another purpose,
But their transcriber's faith in their wider applicability is fully
justified. Here is the exact original heading under which they first
appeared: _Notes in Writing besides More Privie by Mouth that were
given by a Gentleman, Anno 1580, to M. Arthure Pette and to M. Charles
Jackman, sent by the Marchants of the Muscovie Companie for the
discouerie of the northeast strayte, not all together vnfit for some
other enterprises of discouerie hereafter to bee taken in hande._
See also in _The Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th Ed. the articles on
_Henry VIII_, _Elizabeth_, _Drake_, _Raleigh_, etc.
Index
Alva, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, 98 et seq.
Amadas, in America (1584), 151, 210
America; an obstacle to the circumnavigation of the world, 11;
—as a reputed source of gold and silver, 65
_Angel_, The, ship, 86
Anton, Señor Juan de, 133
Antonio, Don, pretender to the throne of Portugal, 164; and the English
at Lisbon, 194
Antwerp, 98, 99, 100
Armada, 145, 150, 153, 156, 164, 165, 172, 191, 214
Aviles, Don Pedro Menendez de, 86
Azores, 150, 169, 194
Baber, Sultan in the Moluccas, 141
Bacon, Francis, Lord, 62, 210
Balboa crosses Isthmus of Panama (1513), 19
Barlow, in America (1584), 151, 210
Baskerville, Sir Thomas, 224, 227 et seq.
Bazan, Don Alonzo de, 197, 200
Bible, authorized version of, 49, 216
'Bond of Association,' 152 Brazil, voyage of Hawkins to, 33-4
Bristol, Cabot settles in, 3
Burleigh, Lord, 87, 119, 144, 156, 162, 167, 206
Cabot, John, transfers allegiance from Genoa to Venice (1476), 1;
—Cabottággio, 2;
—reaches Cape Breton (1497), 7;
—returns to Bristol, 7;
—receives a present of £10 from Henry VII, 8;
—disappears at sea (1498),8-9, 14;
—believes America the eastern limit of the Old World, 11;
—bibliography, 241
Cabot, Sebastian, second son of John, 9;
—takes command of expedition to America, 9;
—leaves men to explore Newfoundland, 9;
—coasts Greenland, 12;
—explores Atlantic Coast, 12;
—enters service of Ferdinand of Spain as Captain of the Sea,' 15;
—Charles V makes him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of Pilots,' 15;
—determines longitude of Moluccas, 15;
—voyage to South America, 15;
—makes a map of the world, 15;
—leaves Spain for England(1548), 16;
—receives pension from Edward VI, 16;
—feasts at Gravesend with the _Serchthrift_, 16-17;
—Governor of Muscovy Company, 16, 31;
—sailing of the _Serchthrift_, 32;
—bibliography, 241
Cadiz, 165 et seq.
California, 137, 138, 212
Canaries, 157, 226
Cape Breton, Cabot reaches (1497), 7
Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama sails around, 18
Cape St. Vincent, Drake plans to capture, 167
Caribs, 80, 158
Carleill, 154, 156, 157, 160
Cartagena, 88, 108 et seq., 156, 159
Cartier, Jacques, second voyage (1535), 12;
—discovers St. Lawrence, 71
Cathay, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11;
—Sir Hugh Willoughby tries to find Northeast passage to, 30
Cavendish, Thomas, 212
Cecil, Sir Robert, 206
Charles V of Spain, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22-25;
—his dominions, 23;
—feud with France, 23-24;
—hostile to England, 29;
—Spanish dominion, 71;
—father of Don John of Austria, 117
Chesapeake Bay, 220
Cockeram, Martin, 34
Coligny, Admiral, 207
Columbus, Christopher, citizen of Genoa, 1-2;
—visit to Iceland, 3;
—fame eclipses that of the Cabots, 13;
—reasons for his significance, 13;
—400th anniversary of his discovery, 14;
—replica of the _Santa Maria_, 235
_Complaynt of Scotland_, The, 42
_Cordial Advice_, 40
Corunna, 178, 192
Cosa, Juan de la, makes first dated (1500) map of America, 14
Croatoan Island, 213 et seq.
Crowndale, Drake's birthplace, 95
Cumberland, Earl of, 197
Cuttyhunk Island, 216
Dare, Virginia, 215
_Delight_, The, ship, 209
De Soto, 19, 81
Doughty, Thomas, 116, 120, 123 et seq., 127
_Dragon_, The, ship, 101
Drake, Sir Francis, born the same year as modern sea-power (1545), 28;
—on the _Minion_, 92;
—Son of Edmund Drake, 95;
—boyhood, 96 et seq.;
—as lieutenant, on escort to wool-fleet, 100;
—marries Mary Newman, 100;
—sails on Nombre de Dios expedition, 101 et seq.;
—Drake and Nombre de Dios, 104;
—sees the Pacific, 110;
—attacks a Spanish treasure train, 111 et seq.;
—returns to England (1573), 114;
—goes to Ireland, 115;
—recalled for consultation, 118;
—audience with the Queen, 119;
—plans to raid the Pacific, 119;
—sails ostensibly for Egypt, 120;
—his _Famous Voyage_ (1577), 121;
—has trouble with Doughty, 124;
—whom he puts to death, 125;
—winters in Patagonia, 125;
—overcomes disaffection of his men, 126;
—sails through Straits of Magellan, 128;
—enters Pacific, 128;
—takes the _Grand Captain of the South_, 129;
—scours the Pacific taking prizes, 130;
—at Lima, 130;
—pursues Spanish treasure ship, 131;
—captures Don Juan de Anton, 133;
—sails north, 137;
—considered a god by the Indians, 138 et seq.;
—arrives at Moluccas, 141;
—lays foundation of English diplomacy in Eastern seas, 142;
—_Golden Hind_ aground, 142;
—uncertainty at home as to his fate, 144;
—arrives at Plymouth, 145;
—knighted by Elizabeth, 148;
—plans a raid on New Spain, 151;
—prepares for Indies voyage of 1585, 153;
—calls at Vigo, 155;
—plans a
—raid on New Spain, 156;
—captures Santiago and San Domingo, 157;
—takes Cartagena, 159;
—calls at Roanoke, 162;
—arrives at Plymouth, (1580), 162;
—expedition to Cadiz, 165;
—arrests Borough, 167;
—conquers Sagres Castle, 167;
—takes Spanish treasure ship, 169;
—defeats the Armada, 172-191;
—undertakes Lisbon expedition (1589), 192;
—his achievement, 201;
—in disfavor, 223;
—in unhappy combination with Hawkins, 224;
—West Indies voyage, 225;
—seizes La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, 227;
—his last days, 228;
—his death, 229;
—bibliography, 243-4
Drake, Edmund, 95
Drake, Jack, 121, 132
Drake's Bay, 138
East India Company, 63, 171, 215
Edward VI, 29, 50
Elizabeth, the England of, 48 et seq.;
—early life, 50;
—and Mary, 51;
—and Anne of Cleves, 51;
—ascends the throne, 52;
—difficulty of her position, 53;
—and finance, 55;
—her court, 68;
—her love of luxury, 68-69;
—commandeers Spanish gold, 99;
—deposed by Pope, 100;
—tortuous Spanish policy, 117;
—consults Drake, 119;
—receives Drake on his return, 146;
—banquets on the _Golden Hind_, 148;
—knights Drake, 148;
—Babington Plot again, 163;
—beheads Mary Queen of Scots, 165;
—the Armada, 176 et seq.;
—the Lisbon expedition, 192;
—dies, 216;
—bibliography, 242
_Elizabeth_, The, ship, 121
Essex, Earl of, 116, 118
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 234
Fleming, Captain, 179, 190
Fletcher, Chaplain, 125, 128, 143
Fletcher of Rye, discovers the art of tacking, 26;
—as a shipwright, 233
Florida, 81, 82, 162
Francis I, of France, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22, 24, 71
Frobisher, Martin, 120, 154, 160, 220
Fuller, Thomas, author of _The Worthies of England_, 101, 237
Gamboa, Don Pedro Sarmiento de, 135
Genoa, the home of Cabot and Columbus, 2
_George Noble_, The, ship, 198
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 208-210
Gilbert, Raleigh, 219
_God Save the King!_ 95
_Golden Hind_, The, ship, 121, 127, 129, 132 et seq., 136, 141, 142,
144, 145, 147, 154, 179
Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 217
Gosnold, Bartholomew, 216
_Grand Captain of the South_, The, ship, 129
Gravelines, battle at, 32, 190
_Great Harry_, The, ship, 234
Grenville, Sir Richard, 195 et seq., 220
Gresham, Sir Thomas, 60
_Hakluyt's Voyages_, 33
Hakluyt Society, 242 et seq.
Harriot, Thomas, 212
Harrison's description of England, 69-70
Hatton, Sir Christopher, 127, 146
Hawkins, Sir John, son of William Hawkins, 34;
—enters slave trade with New Spain (1562), 74;
—takes 300 slaves at Sierra
—Leona, 75;
—second expedition (1564), 75;
—issues sailing orders, 76;
—John Sparke's account, 77;
—at Teneriffe, 77;
—meets Peter de Ponte, 78;
—Arbol Santo tree, 78;
—takes many Sapies, 79;
—at Sambula, 79;
—island of the Cannibals, 80;
—makes for Florida, 80;
—finds French settlement, 82 et seq.;
—sells the _Tiger_, 85;
—sails north to Newfoundland, 85;
—arrives at Padstow, Cornwall (1565), 85;
—a favorite at court, 85;
—watched by Spain, 86;
—sets out on third voyage (1567), 86;
—begins the sea-dog fighting with Spain, 86;
—Drake joins the expedition, 86;
—disasters, 87;
—crosses from Africa to West Indies, 88;
—clashes with Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha, 88;
—at Cartagena, 89;
—at St. John de Ulua, 89;
—fight with the Spaniards, 90 et seq.;
—parted from Drake in a storm, 93;
—leaves part of his men ashore, 93;
—voyage ends in disaster, 94;
—strikes another blow at Spain (1595), 223;
—unhappily combined with Drake, 224;
—sails for New Spain 226;
—dies, 226;
—bibliography, 243
Hawkins, Sir Richard, grandson of William Hawkins, 35
Hawkins, William, story of, in Hakluyt _Voyages_, 33 et seq.;
—father of Sir John Hawkins, 34;
—grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, 35,
—and of the second William Hawkins, 35
Hawkins, William, the Second, grandson of William Hawkins, 35
Henry IV of France, 223
Henry VII, Cabot enters service of, 3;
—refuses to patronize Columbus, 4;
—gives patent to the Cabots, 4-6
Henry VIII, the monarch of the sea, 20;
—establishes a modern fleet and the office of the Admiralty, 21;
—a patron of sailors, 22;
—menaced by Scotland, France, and Spain, 25;
—defies the Pope, 25;
—defies Francis I, 26;
—birth of modern sea-power (1545), 28;
—and the voyage of Hawkins, 33-34;
—as a patron of the Navy, 232 et seq.
_Henry Grace à Dieu_, The, ship, 234
Honduras, 156, 228
Hore, his voyage to America, 33 et seq.
Hortop, Job, 94
Howard of Effingham, Lord, 31, 176, 189, 197
Hudson Strait, Sebastian Cabot misses, 12
India, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11
Ingram, David, 94
Inquisition, Spanish, 29, 73
Ireland, 147, 191
Jackman, 122
James I of England, 216, 218
Jefferys, Thomas, 66
_Jesus_, The, ship, see _Jesus of Lubeck_
_Jesus of Lubeck_, The, ship, 75, 76, 86, 89, 91 et seq.
_Judith_, The, ship, 86, 92 et seq., 98
Knollys, 154
_La Dragontea_, by Lope de Vega, 157
La Hacha, 156, 227
Lane, Ralph, 162, 196, 212
La Rochelle, 100
Laudonnière, René de, 82 et seq.
Leicester, Earl, of, 146, 164, 176
Lepanto, 117, 185
Lima, 130, 135, 144
Lines of Torres Vedras, 194
Lisbon, 144, 168, 192, 223 et seq.
Lloyd's, 59-61
London merchants, 144, 140, 171, 218
Lope de Vega, 157
Madrid, 86, 172
Magellan, Strait of, 120, 127, 128
Manoa, 221, 222
Map, Juan de la Cosa's earliest
—dated (1500) map of America,
—14; of world by Sebastian
—Cabot (1544), 15; of America
—by Thomas Jefferys, 66
Marigold, The, ship, 121, 126, 128, 129
Martin, Don, 134, 153
Mary, Queen of Scots, 31, 50
—et seq., 117, 121, 149, 152,
—163, 164, 216
_Matthew_, The, ship, 7
Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 175
Mendoza, 119
Menendez, 115, 150
Middleton, Captain, 197
_Minion_, The, ship, 86, 91 et seq.
Monopoly, 58, 66
Moone, Tom, 129, 154, 161
Mosquito, Lopez de, 141
Mountains of Bright Stones, 86, 221, 222
Muscovy Company, 16, 31
Navigation, encouraged by Henry
—VIII, 21, 25, 27; art of tacking
—discovered, 26; birth of modern
—sea-power, 28; sea-songs, 37
—et seq.; nautical terms, 42 et seq.;
—Pette and Jackman's
—advice to traders, 122-123
—ftn.; Francisco de Zarate's
—account of Drake's _Golden
—Hind_, 136-137; appendix; note
—on Tudor shipping, 231-239;
—bibliography, 242
New Albion, 136, 140
Newfoundland fisheries, Bacon on, 62
New France, 72, 205
Nombre de Dios, 101 et seq., 12O, 135, 156, 227
Norreys, Sir John, 176, 193
Northwest Passage, 120, 137
Oxenham, John, 105, 109, 116, 144
Pacific Ocean, taken possession
—of by Balboa (1513), 18;
—Drake enters, 128 et seq.
Panama, 19, 103, 108, 120, 132, 135, 156, 227
Parma, 172 et seq., 189
_Pascha_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 114
Pedro de Valdes, Don, 188
_Pelican_, The, ship, 121, 127
Philip of Spain, marries Queen
—Mary, 31; protests against
—Drake's actions, 87; plans to
—seize Scilly Isles, 115; soldiers
—sack Antwerp, 116; seizes
—Portugal, 144; prepares a
—fleet, 150; Paris plot with
—Mary, 150; seizes English
—merchant fleet, 152; duped
—by Hawkins, 153; his credit
—low, 163; resumes mobilization,
—172; prepares the Armada,
—174 et seq.
Philippines, Vasco da Gama reaches, 19;
—Drake sails to, 141
Pines, Isle of, 103
Plymouth, 96, 98, 114, 145, 162, 178-180, 217, 225
Plymouth Company, 218
Pole of _Plimmouth_, The, ship, 33
Ponte, Peter de, 78
Popham, George, 219
Porto Rico, 225, 226
Potosi, 28, 73, 95, 130
_Primrose_, The, ship, 152
Pring, Martin, 217
Puerto Bello. 229
Purchas, Samuel, 203
Ralegh, City of, in Virginia, 213
_Raleigh_, The, ship, 209
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 195, 205-222;
—bibliography, 244-245
Ranse, 103, 108
_Revenge_, The, ship, 188, 192-204
Ribaut, Jean, 82
Roanoke Island, 162, 210 et seq.
Sagres Castle, 167
St. Augustine, 86, 162
San Domingo, 156, 157, 161
_San Felipe_, The, ship, 197 et seq.
San Francisco, 137, 138
San Juan de Ulua, 89, 98, 99, 153
_Santa Anna_, The, ship, 212
Santa Cruz, 150, 172 et seq.
Santa Marta, 156, 227
Scilly Isles, 114, 115, 153
_Serchthrift_, The, ship, 16-17, 32
Shipping, note on Tudor, 231-239
Sidney, Sir Philip, 155, 164, 195
Slave Trade, 74 et seq.
_Solomon_, The, ship, 76
Somerset, 29-30, 53, 96
Southampton, Earl of, 217
Spain, rights of discovery, 6;
—Spanish Inquisition, 29, 73;
—breach with England, 72;
—Spanish gold in London, 73;
—Spaniards in Florida, 81-82;
—the 'Spanish Fury' of 1576, 116;
—Drake clips the wings of Spain, 149-171;
—Drake and the Spanish Armada, 172-191;
—Lisbon expedition, 192 et seq.;
—the last fight of the _Revenge_, 197 et seq.
Sparke, John, his account of Sir John Hawkins's Voyage to Florida, 77
et seq.
_Spitfire_, The, ship, 132
_Squirrel_, The, ship, 210
_Swallow_, The, ship, 86
_Swan_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 121, 129
Teneriffe, 77-78
Ternate, Island of, 141, 142
Têtu, Capt., 112 et seq.
Throgmorton, Elizabeth, 220
_Tiger_, The, ship, 60, 85, 154
Torres Vedras, Lines of, 194
Vasco da Gama finds sea route to India (1498), 18
Venice, importance in trade, 2;
—Cabot becomes a citizen of, 2
Venta Cruz, 111
Vera Cruz, 89
Verrazano, 71
Virginia, 62, 151. 196, 205, 210, 219
Walsingham, Sir Francis, 118, 146
West Indies, 84, 157, 201, 208, 219, 225 et seq.
_Westward Ho!_ Kingsley's, 105
Weymouth, George, 218
White, John, 212 et seq.
_William and John_, The, ship, 86
William of Orange, 152, 207.
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, tries to find Northwest Passage, 30;
—dies in Lapland, 30
Woolwich, 153, 238
_Worthies of England_, The, by Thomas Fuller, 101, 237
Zarate, Don Francisco de, 136