petitioned for incorporation with England; as a counter-stroke and a
warning, Philip had arrested the English corn ships and imprisoned the
owners and the crews. Her own fleet was nothing. The safety of the
English shores depended on the spirit of the adventurers, and she could
not afford to check the anger with which the news was received. To
accept the offer of the States was war, and war she would not have.
Herself, she would not act at all; but in her usual way she might let
her subjects act for themselves, and plead, as Philip pleaded in excuse
for the Inquisition, that she could not restrain them. And thus it was
that in September 1585, Sir Francis Drake found himself with a fleet of
twenty-five privateers and 2,500 men who had volunteered to serve with
him under his own command. He had no distinct commission. The expedition
had been fitted out as a private undertaking. Neither officers nor crews
had been engaged for the service of the Crown. They received no wages.
In the eye of the law they were pirates. They were going on their own
account to read the King of Spain a necessary lesson and pay their
expenses at the King of Spain's cost. Young Protestant England had taken
fire. The name of Drake set every Protestant heart burning, and hundreds
of gallant gentlemen had pressed in to join. A grandson of Burghley had
come, and Edward Winter the Admiral's son, and Francis Knolles the
Queen's cousin, and Martin Frobisher, and Christopher Carlile. Philip
Sidney had wished to make one also in the glory; but Philip Sidney was
needed elsewhere. The Queen's consent had been won from her at a bold
interval in her shifting moods. The hot fit might pass away, and
Burghley sent Drake a hint to be off before her humour changed. No word
was said. On the morning of the 14th of September the signal flag was
flying from Drake's maintop to up anchor and away. Drake, as he admitted
after, 'was not the most assured of her Majesty's perseverance to let
them go forward.' Past Ushant he would be beyond reach of recall. With
light winds and calms they drifted across the Bay. They fell in with a
few Frenchmen homeward-bound from the Banks, and let them pass
uninjured. A large Spanish ship which they met next day, loaded with
excellent fresh salt fish, was counted lawful prize. The fish was new
and good, and was distributed through the fleet. Standing leisurely on,
they cleared Finisterre and came up with the Isles of Bayona, at the
mouth of Vigo Harbour. They dropped anchor there, and 'it was a great
matter and a royal sight to see them.' The Spanish Governor, Don Pedro
Bemadero, sent off with some astonishment to know who and what they
were. Drake answered with a question whether England and Spain were at
war, and if not why the English merchants had been arrested. Don Pedro
could but say that he knew of no war, and for the merchants an order had
come for their release. For reply Drake landed part of his force on the
islands, and Don Pedro, not knowing what to make of such visitors, found
it best to propitiate them with cartloads of wine and fruit. The
weather, which had been hitherto fine, showed signs of change. The wind
rose, and the sea with it. The anchorage was exposed, and Drake sent
Christopher Carlile, with one of his ships and a few pinnaces, up the
harbour to look out for better shelter. Their appearance created a panic
in the town. The alarmed inhabitants took to their boats, carrying off
their property and their Church plate. Carlile, who had a Calvinistic
objection to idolatry, took the liberty of detaining part of these
treasures. From one boat he took a massive silver cross belonging to the
High Church at Vigo; from another an image of Our Lady, which the
sailors relieved of her clothes and were said, when she was stripped, to
have treated with some indignity. Carlile's report being satisfactory,
the whole fleet was brought the next day up the harbour and moored above
the town. The news had by this time spread into the country. The
Governor of Galicia came down with all the force which he could collect
in a hurry. Perhaps he was in time to save Vigo itself. Perhaps Drake,
having other aims in view, did not care to be detained over a smaller
object. The Governor, at any rate, saw that the English were too strong
for him to meddle with. The best that he could look for was to persuade
them to go away on the easiest terms. Drake and he met in boats for a
parley. Drake wanted water and fresh provisions. Drake was to be allowed
to furnish himself undisturbed. He had secured what he most wanted. He
had shown the King of Spain that he was not invulnerable in his own
home dominion, and he sailed away unmolested. Madrid was in
consternation. That the English could dare insult the first prince in
Europe on the sacred soil of the Peninsula itself seemed like a dream.
The Council of State sat for three days considering the meaning of it.
Drake's name was already familiar in Spanish ears. It was not
conceivable that he had come only to inquire after the arrested ships
and seamen. But what could the English Queen be about? Did she not know
that she existed only by the forbearance of Philip? Did she know the
King of Spain's force? Did not she and her people quake? Little England,
it was said by some of these councillors, was to be swallowed at a
mouthful by the King of half the world. The old Admiral Santa Cruz was
less confident about the swallowing. He observed that England had many
teeth, and that instead of boasting of Spanish greatness it would be
better to provide against what she might do with them. Till now the
corsairs had appeared only in twos and threes. With such a fleet behind
him Drake might go where he pleased. He might be going to the South
Seas again. He might take Madeira if he liked, or the Canary Islands.
Santa Cruz himself thought he would make for the West Indies and Panama,
and advised the sending out there instantly every available ship that
they had.
The gold fleet was Drake's real object. He had information that it would
be on its way to Spain by the Cape de Verde Islands, and he had learnt
the time when it was to be expected. From Vigo he sailed for the
Canaries, looked in at Palma, with 'intention to have taken our pleasure
there,' but found the landing dangerous and the town itself not worth
the risk. He ran on to the Cape de Verde Islands. He had measured his
time too narrowly. The gold fleet had arrived and had gone. He had
missed it by twelve hours, 'the reason,' as he said with a sigh, 'best
known to God.' The chance of prize-money was lost, but the political
purpose of the expedition could still be completed. The Cape de Verde
Islands could not sail away, and a beginning could be made with Sant
Iago. Sant Iago was a thriving, well-populated town, and down in Drake's
book as specially needing notice, some Plymouth sailors having been
recently murdered there. Christopher Carlile, always handy and
trustworthy, was put on shore with a thousand men to attack the place on
the undefended side. The Spanish commander, the bishop, and most of the
people fled, as at Vigo, into the mountains with their plate and money.
Carlile entered without opposition, and flew St. George's Cross from the
castle as a signal to the fleet. Drake came in, landed the rest of his
force, and took possession. It happened to be the 17th of November--the
anniversary of the Queen's accession--and ships and batteries, dressed
out with English flags, celebrated the occasion with salvoes of cannon.
Houses and magazines were then searched and plundered. Wine was found in
large quantities, rich merchandise for the Indian trade, and other
valuables. Of gold and silver nothing--it had all been removed. Drake
waited for a fortnight, hoping that the Spaniards would treat for the
ransom of the city. When they made no sign, he marched twelve miles
inland to a village where the Governor and the bishop were said to have
taken refuge. But the village was found deserted. The Spaniards had
gone to the mountains, where it was useless to follow them, and were too
proud to bargain with a pirate chief. Sant Iago was a beautifully built
city, and Drake would perhaps have spared it; but a ship-boy who had
strayed was found murdered and barbarously mutilated. The order was
given to burn. Houses, magazines, churches, public buildings were turned
to ashes, and the work being finished Drake went on, as Santa Cruz
expected, for the Spanish West Indies. The Spaniards were magnificent in
all that they did and touched. They built their cities in their new
possessions on the most splendid models of the Old World. St. Domingo
and Carthagena had their castles and cathedrals, palaces, squares, and
streets, grand and solid as those at Cadiz and Seville, and raised as
enduring monuments of the power and greatness of the Castilian monarchs.
To these Drake meant to pay a visit. Beyond them was the Isthmus, where
he had made his first fame and fortune, with Panama behind, the depôt of
the Indian treasure. So far all had gone well with him. He had taken
what he wanted out of Vigo; he had destroyed Sant Iago and had not lost
a man. Unfortunately he had now a worse enemy to deal with than Spanish
galleons or Spanish garrisons. He was in the heat of the tropics. Yellow
fever broke out and spread through the fleet. Of those who caught the
infection few recovered, or recovered only to be the wrecks of
themselves. It was swift in its work. In a few days more than two
hundred had died. But the north-east trade blew merrily. The fleet sped
on before it. In eighteen days they were in the roads at Dominica, the
island of brooks and rivers and fruit. Limes and lemons and oranges were
not as yet. But there were leaves and roots of the natural growth, known
to the Caribs as antidotes to the fever, and the Caribs, when they
learnt that the English were the Spaniards' enemies, brought them this
precious remedy and taught them the use of it. The ships were washed and
ventilated, and the water casks refilled. The infection seemed to have
gone as suddenly as it appeared, and again all was well.
Christmas was kept at St. Kitts, which was then uninhabited. A council
of war was held to consider what should be done next. St. Domingo lay
nearest to them. It was the finest of all the Spanish colonial cities.
It was the capital of the West Indian Government, the great centre of
West Indian commerce. In the cathedral, before the high altar, lay
Columbus and his brother Diego. In natural wealth no island in the world
outrivals Espinola, where the city stood. A vast population had
collected there, far away from harm, protected, as they supposed, by the
majesty of the mother country, the native inhabitants almost
exterminated, themselves undreaming that any enemy could approach them
from the ocean, and therefore negligent of defence and enjoying
themselves in easy security.
Drake was to give them a new experience and a lesson for the future. On
their way across from St. Kitts the adventurers overhauled a small
vessel bound to the same port as they were. From the crew of this vessel
they learnt that the harbour at St. Domingo was formed, like so many
others in the West Indies, by a long sandspit, acting as a natural
breakwater. The entrance was a narrow inlet at the extremity of the
spit, and batteries had been mounted there to cover it. To land on the
outer side of the sandbank was made impossible by the surf. There was
one sheltered point only where boats could go on shore, but this was ten
miles distant from the town.
Ten miles was but a morning's march. Drake went in himself in a pinnace,
surveyed the landing-place, and satisfied himself of its safety. The
plan of attack at Sant Iago was to be exactly repeated. On New Year's
Eve Christopher Carlile was again landed with half the force in the
fleet. Drake remained with the rest, and prepared to force the entrance
of the harbour if Carlile succeeded. Their coming had been seen from the
city. The alarm had been given, and the women and children, the money in
the treasury, the consecrated plate, movable property of all kinds, were
sent off inland as a precaution. Of regular troops there seem to have
been none, but in so populous a city there was no difficulty in
collecting a respectable force to defend it. The hidalgos formed a body
of cavalry. The people generally were unused to arms, but they were
Spaniards and brave men, and did not mean to leave their homes without
a fight for it. Carlile lay still for the night. He marched at eight in
the morning on New Year's Day, advanced leisurely, and at noon found
himself in front of the wall. So far he had met no resistance, but a
considerable body of horse--gentlemen and their servants
chiefly--charged down on him out of the bush and out of the town. He
formed into a square to receive them. They came on gallantly, but were
received with pike and shot, and after a few attempts gave up and
retired. Two gates were in front of Carlile, with a road to each leading
through a jungle. At each gate were cannon, and the jungle was lined
with musketeers. He divided his men and attacked both together. One
party he led in person. The cannon opened on him, and an Englishman next
to him was killed. He dashed on, leaving the Spaniards no time to
reload, carried the gate at a rush, and cut his way through the streets
to the great square. The second division had been equally successful,
and St. Domingo was theirs except the castle, which was still untaken.
Carlile's numbers were too small to occupy a large city. He threw up
barricades and fortified himself in the square for the night. Drake
brought the fleet in at daybreak, and landed guns, when the castle
surrendered. A messenger--a negro boy--was sent to the Governor to learn
the terms which he was prepared to offer to save the city from pillage.
The Spanish officers were smarting with the disgrace. One of them struck
the lad through the body with a lance. He ran back bleeding to the
English lines and died at Drake's feet. Sir Francis was a dangerous man
to provoke. Such doings had to be promptly stopped. In the part of the
town which he occupied was a monastery with a number of friars in it.
The religious orders, he well knew, were the chief instigators of the
policy which was maddening the world. He sent two of these friars with
the provost-marshal to the spot where the boy had been struck, promptly
hanged them, and then despatched another to tell the Governor that he
would hang two more every day at the same place till the officer was
punished. The Spaniards had long learnt to call Drake the Draque, the
serpent, the devil. They feared that the devil might be a man of his
word. The offender was surrendered. It was not enough. Drake insisted
that they should do justice on him themselves. The Governor found it
prudent to comply, and the too hasty officer was executed.
The next point was the ransom of the city. The Spaniards still
hesitating, 200 men were told off each morning to burn, while the rest
searched the private houses, and palaces, and magazines. Government
House was the grandest building in the New World. It was approached by
broad flights of marble stairs. Great doors opened on a spacious gallery
leading into a great hall, and above the portico hung the arms of
Spain--a globe representing the world, a horse leaping upon it, and in
the horse's mouth a scroll with the haughty motto, 'Non sufficit orbis.'
Palace and scutcheon were levelled into dust by axe and gunpowder, and
each day for a month the destruction went on, Drake's demands steadily
growing and the unhappy Governor vainly pleading impossibility.
Vandalism, atrocity unheard of among civilised nations, dishonour to the
Protestant cause, Drake deserving to swing at his own yardarm; so
indignant Liberalism shrieked, and has not ceased shrieking. Let it be
remembered that for fifteen years the Spaniards had been burning English
seamen whenever they could catch them, plotting to kill the Queen and
reduce England itself into vassaldom to the Pope. The English nation,
the loyal part of it, were replying to the wild pretension by the hands
of their own admiral. If Philip chose to countenance assassins, if the
Holy Office chose to burn English sailors as heretics, those heretics
had a right to make Spain understand that such a game was dangerous,
that, as Santa Cruz had said, they had teeth and could use them.
It was found in the end that the Governor's plea of impossibility was
more real than was at first believed. The gold and silver had been
really carried off. All else that was valuable had been burnt or taken
by the English. The destruction of a city so solidly built was tedious
and difficult. Nearly half of it was blown up. The cathedral was spared,
perhaps as the resting-place of Columbus. Drake had other work before
him. After staying a month in undisturbed occupation he agreed to
accept 25,000 ducats as a ransom for what was left and sailed away.
It was now February. The hot season was coming on, when the climate
would be dangerous. There was still much to do and the time was running
short. Panama had to be left for another opportunity. Drake's object was
to deal blows which would shake the faith of Europe in the Spanish
power. Carthagena stood next to St. Domingo among the Spanish West
Indian fortresses. The situation was strong. In 1740 Carthagena was able
to beat off Vernon and a great English fleet. But Drake's crews were in
high health and spirits, and he determined to see what he could do with
it. Surprise was no longer to be hoped for. The alarm had spread over
the Caribbean Sea. But in their present humour they were ready to go
anywhere and dare anything, and to Carthagena they went.
Drake's name carried terror before it. Every non-combatant--old men,
women and children--had been cleared out before he arrived, but the rest
prepared for a smart defence. The harbour at Carthagena was formed, as
at St. Domingo and Port Royal, by a sandspit. The spit was long,
narrow, in places not fifty yards wide, and covered with prickly bush,
and along this, as before, it was necessary to advance to reach the
city. A trench had been cut across at the neck, and a stiff barricade
built and armed with heavy guns; behind this were several hundred
musketeers, while the bush was full of Indians with poisoned arrows.
Pointed stakes--poisoned also--had been driven into the ground along the
approaches, on which to step was death. Two large galleys, full of men,
patrolled inside the bank on the harbour edge, and with these
preparations the inhabitants hoped to keep the dreadful Drake from
reaching them. Carlile, as before, was to do the land fighting. He was
set on shore three miles down the spit. The tide is slight in those
seas, but he waited till it was out, and advanced along the outer shore
at low-water mark. He was thus covered by the bank from the harbour
galleys, and their shots passed over him. Two squadrons of horse came
out, but could do nothing to him on the broken ground. The English
pushed on to the wall, scarcely losing a man. They charged, scaled the
parapets, and drove the Spanish infantry back at point of pike. Carlile
killed their commander with his own hand. The rest fled after a short
struggle, and Drake was master of Carthagena. Here for six weeks he
remained. The Spaniards withdrew out of the city, and there were again
parleys over the ransom money. Courtesies were exchanged among the
officers. Drake entertained the Governor and his suite. The Governor
returned the hospitality and received Drake and the English captains.
Drake demanded 100,000 ducats. The Spaniards offered 30,000, and
protested that they could pay no more. The dispute might have lasted
longer, but it was cut short by the re-appearance of the yellow fever in
the fleet, this time in a deadlier form. The Spanish offer was accepted,
and Carthagena was left to its owners. It was time to be off, for the
heat was telling, and the men began to drop with appalling rapidity.
Nombre de Dios and Panama were near and under their lee, and Drake threw
longing eyes on what, if all else had been well, might have proved an
easy capture. But on a review of their strength, it was found that
there were but 700 fit for duty who could be spared for the service, and
a council of war decided that a march across the Isthmus with so small a
force was too dangerous to be ventured. Enough had been done for glory,
enough for the political impression to be made in Europe. The King of
Spain had been dared in his own dominions. Three fine Spanish cities had
been captured by storm and held to ransom. In other aspects the success
had fallen short of expectation. This time they had taken no _Cacafuego_
with a year's produce of the mines in her hold. The plate and coin had
been carried off, and the spoils had been in a form not easily turned to
value. The expedition had been fitted out by private persons to pay its
own cost. The result in money was but 60,000_l._ Forty thousand had to
be set aside for expenses. There remained but 20,000_l._ to be shared
among the ships' companies. Men and officers had entered, high and low,
without wages, on the chance of what they might get. The officers and
owners gave a significant demonstration of the splendid spirit in which
they had gone about their work. They decided to relinquish their own
claims on the ransom paid for Carthagena, and bestow the same on the
common seamen, 'wishing it were so much again as would be a sufficient
reward for their painful endeavour.'
Thus all were well satisfied, conscious all that they had done their
duty to their Queen and country. The adventurers' fleet turned homewards
at the beginning of April. What men could do they had achieved. They
could not fight against the pestilence of the tropics. For many days the
yellow fever did its deadly work among them, and only slowly abated.
They were delayed by calms and unfavourable winds. Their water ran
short. They had to land again at Cape Antonio, the western point of
Cuba, and sink wells to supply themselves. Drake himself, it was
observed, worked with spade and bucket, like the meanest person in the
whole company, always foremost where toil was to be endured or honour
won, the wisest in the devising of enterprises, the calmest in danger,
the first to set an example of energy in difficulties, and, above all,
the firmest in maintaining order and discipline. The fever slackened as
they reached the cooler latitudes. They worked their way up the Bahama
Channel, going north to avoid the trades. The French Protestants had
been attempting to colonise in Florida. The Spaniards had built a
fortress on the coast, to observe their settlements and, as occasion
offered, cut Huguenot throats. As he passed by Drake paid this fortress
a visit and wiped it out. Farther north again he was in time to save the
remnant of an English settlement, rashly planted there by another
brilliant servant of Queen Elizabeth.
Of all the famous Elizabethans Sir Walter Raleigh is the most
romantically interesting. His splendid and varied gifts, his chequered
fortunes, and his cruel end, will embalm his memory in English history.
But Raleigh's great accomplishments promised more than they performed.
His hand was in everything, but of work successfully completed he had
less to show than others far his inferiors, to whom fortune had offered
fewer opportunities. He was engaged in a hundred schemes at once, and in
every one of them there was always some taint of self, some personal
ambition or private object to be gained. His life is a record of
undertakings begun in enthusiasm, maintained imperfectly, and failures
in the end. Among his other adventures he had sent a colony to Virginia.
He had imagined, or had been led by others to believe, that there was an
Indian Court there brilliant as Montezuma's, an enlightened nation
crying to be admitted within the charmed circle of Gloriana's subjects.
His princes and princesses proved things of air, or mere Indian savages;
and of Raleigh there remains nothing in Virginia save the name of the
city which is called after him. The starving survivors of his settlement
on the Roanoke River were taken on board by Drake's returning squadron
and carried home to England, where they all arrived safely, to the glory
of God, as our pious ancestors said and meant in unconventional
sincerity, on the 28th of July, 1586.
The expedition, as I have said, barely paid its cost. In the shape of
wages the officers received nothing, and the crews but a few pounds a
man; but there was, perhaps, not one of them who was not better pleased
with the honour which he had brought back than if he had come home
loaded with doubloons.