Francis Drake, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was born
in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted: with respect to
the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, our annalists,
Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told that Drake
was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the care of a
kinsman, the well-known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden, on the
other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says that he was
bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of Kent, who, dying
unmarried, in reward of his industry, bestowed his bark upon him as a
legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1667 he went with Hawkins to the
West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its colour to the rest of
his life. Their little squadron was obliged by stress of weather to put
into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of Mexico; where, after being
received with a show of amity, it was beset and attacked by a superior
force, and only two vessels escaped. To make amends for his losses in
this adventure, in the quaint language of the biographer Prince, in his
‘Worthies of Devon,’ “Mr. Drake was persuaded by the minister of his
ship that he might lawfully recover the value of the King of Spain by
reprisal, and repair his losses upon him any where else. The case was
clear in sea divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe in
doctrines which make for their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a
poor private man, undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a
monarch.”
[Illustration:
_Engraved by W. Holl._