(1540-1596)
[Illustration: Francis Drake. [TN]]
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, the
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 1567 he went
with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its
color 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 anywhere 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."
In the years 1570-71 Drake made two voyages to the West Indies,
apparently to gain a more precise acquaintance with the seas, the
situation, strength, and wealth of the Spanish settlements. In 1572 he
sailed with two ships, one of seventy-five tons, the other of
twenty-five tons, their united crews mustering only seventy-three men
and boys, all volunteers. His object was to capture the now ruined
city of Nombre de Dios, situated on the Isthmus of Panama, a few miles
east of Porto Bello, then the great repository of all the treasure
conveyed from Mexico to Spain. Off this coast of America his little
armament was augmented by an English bark, with thirty men on board;
so that, deducting those whom it was necessary to leave in charge of
the ships, his available force fell short of a hundred men. This
handful of bold men attacked the town, which was unwalled, on the
night of July 22d, and found their way to the marketplace, where the
captain received a severe wound. He concealed his hurt until the
public treasury was reached; but before it could be broken open, he
became faint from loss of blood, and his disheartened followers
abandoned the attempt, and carried him perforce on board ship. Such at
least, is the account of the English; there is a Portuguese statement
in "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii., p. 525, less favorable both to the
daring and success of the assailants.
Failing in this attempt, Drake continued for some time on the coast,
visiting Carthagena and other places, and making prize of various
ships; and if we wonder at his hardihood in adventuring with such
scanty means to remain for months in the midst of an awakened and
inveterate enemy, how much more surprising is it that the wealthy,
proud, and powerful monarchy of Spain should so neglect the care of
its most precious colonies, as to leave them unable to crush so slight
a foe! The English appear to have felt perfectly at their ease; they
cruised about, formed an intimate alliance with an Indian tribe, named
Symerons, the bond of union being a common hatred of the Spaniards,
and built a fort on a small island of difficult access, at the mouth
of a river, where they remained from September 24 to February 3, 1573.
On the latter day, Drake set forth with one portion of his associates,
under the conduct of the Symerons, to cross the isthmus. On the fourth
day they reached a central hill, where stood a remarkable "goodly and
great high tree, in which the Indians had cut and made divers steps to
ascend up neere unto the top, where they had also made a convenient
bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sitt; and from thence
wee might without any difficulty plainly see the Atlantic Ocean,
whence now wee came, and the South Atlantic (_i.e._, Pacific), so much
desired. After our captain had ascended to this bower with the chief
Symeron, and having, as it pleased God at that time, by reason of the
brize, a very faire day, had seen that sea of which he had heard such
golden reports, he besought Almighty God of his goodness to give him
life and leave to sayle once in an English ship in that sea." We quote
from a tract entitled "Sir Francis Drake Revived," written by some of
Drake's companions, corrected, it is said, by himself, and published
by his nephew in 1626, which contains a full and interesting account
of this adventurous expedition. Drake's present object was to
intercept a convoy of treasure on the way from Panama to Nombre de
Dios. By this route the treasures of Peru and Chili, as well as
Mexico, were brought to Europe, for the passage round Cape Horn was
then unknown, and no ship but Magellan's had yet accomplished the
passage round the world to Europe. Guided by the Symerons, the English
approached Panama, learned that a valuable treasure was expected to
pass, and beset the lonely forest road which it had to travel. But the
haste of one drunken man gave a premature alarm, in consequence of
which the march of the caravan was stopped; and Drake with his party,
their golden hopes being thus defeated, forced their way through Venta
Cruz, and returned by a shorter route to their encampment, after a
toilsome and fruitless journey of three weeks. It was not till April
1st, that the long-desired opportunity presented itself, on which day
they took a caravan of mules laden with silver and a small quantity of
gold. They carried off part of the spoil, and buried about fifteen
tons of silver; but on returning for it, they found that it had been
recovered by the Spaniards.
Drake returned to England, August 9, 1573. In dividing the treasure he
showed the strictest honor, and even generosity; yet his share was
large enough to pay for fitting out three ships, with which he served
as a volunteer in Ireland, under the Earl of Essex, and "did excellent
service both by sea and land in the winning of divers strong forts."
In 1577, he obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth to conduct a
squadron into the South Seas. What was the purport of the commission
we do not find; it appears from subsequent passages that it gave to
Drake the power of life and death over his followers; but it would
seem from the queen's hesitation in approving his proceedings, that it
was not intended to authorize (at least formally) his depradations on
Spanish property.
With five ships, the largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden,
the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164
men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas
where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or
adventure worthy of notice, the fleet arrived at Port St. Julian, on
the coast of Patagonia, June 20, 1578. Here the discoverer Magellan
had tried and executed his second in command on the charge of mutiny,
and the same spot did Drake select to perform a similar tragedy. He
accused the officer next to himself, Thomas Doughty, of plots to
defeat the expedition and take his life; plots undertaken, he said,
before they had left England. "Proofs were required and alleged, so
many and so evident, that the gentleman himself, stricken with
remorse, acknowledged himself to have deserved death;" and of three
things presented to him, either immediate execution, or to be set on
shore on the main, or to be sent home to answer for his conduct, he
chose the former; and having at his own request received the
sacrament, together with Drake, and dined with him in further token
of amity, he cheerfully laid his head on the block, according to the
sentence pronounced by forty of the chiefest persons in the fleet.
Such is the account published by Drake's nephew, in "The World
Encompassed," of which we shall only observe, without passing judgment
on the action, that Drake's conduct in taking out a person whom he
knew to be ill affected to him, was as singular as is the behavior and
sudden and acute penitence attributed to Doughty. But we have no
account from any friend of the sufferer. It is fair to state the
judgment of Camden, who says, "that the more unprejudiced men in the
fleet thought Doughty had been guilty of insubordination, and that
Drake in jealousy removed him as a rival. But some persons, who
thought they could see farther than others, said that Drake had been
ordered by the Earl of Leicester to take off Doughty, because he
spread a report that Leicester had procured the death of the Earl of
Essex."
Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15th, they sailed for
the Straits, reached them August 20th, and passed safely into the
Pacific, September 6th, with three ships, having taken out the men and
stores, and abandoned the two smaller vessels. But there arose on the
7th a dreadful storm, which dispersed the ships. The Marigold was no
more heard of, while the dispirited crew of the Elizabeth returned to
England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through
Magellan's Strait. Drake's ship was driven southward to the
fifty-sixth degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme
south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the
fifty-sixth degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the
honor of having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7th to October
28th, the adventurers were buffeted by one continued and dreadful
storm; and in estimating the merits of our intrepid seamen, it is to
be considered that the seas were utterly unknown, and feared by all,
those who had tried to follow in Magellan's course having seldom
succeeded, and then with much pain and loss, and little fruit of their
voyage; that their vessels were of a class which is now hardly used
for more than coasting service; and that the imperfection of
instruments and observations laid them under disadvantages which are
now removed by the ingenuity of our artists. Add to this, that as the
Spaniards gave out that it was impossible to repass the Straits, there
remained no known way to quit the hostile shores of America, but by
traversing the unexplored Pacific.
The storm at length ceased, and the lonely Pelican (which Drake,
however, had renamed the Golden Hind) ran along the coast of Lima and
Peru, reaping a golden harvest from the careless security of those who
never thought to see an enemy on that side of the globe. There is
something rather revolting, but very indicative of the temper of the
age, in the constant reference to the guidance and protection of God,
mixed with a quiet jocularity with which "Master Francis Fletcher,
preacher in this employment," from whose notes the "World
Encompassed," which is a narrative of this voyage, was compiled,
speaks of acts very little different from highway robbery, such as
would now be held disgraceful in open war; as for instance, on
meeting a Spaniard driving eight llamas, each laden with one hundred
pounds' weight of silver, "they offered their service without
entreaty, and became drovers, not enduring to see a gentleman Spaniard
turned carrier." Enriched by the most valuable spoil, jewels, gold,
and silver, Drake steered to the northward, hoping to discover a
homeward passage in that quarter. In the forty-eighth degree of north
latitude, in what is now the State of Washington, he was stopped by
the cold; and, determining to traverse the Pacific, he landed,
careened his ship, and, in the queen's name, took possession of the
country, which he named New Albion, September 29, 1579; he sailed
again, and reached the Molucca Islands November 4th. In his passage
thence to the island of Celebes, he incurred the most imminent danger
of the whole voyage. The ship struck, as they were sailing before a
fair wind, on a reef of rocks, so precipitous that it was impossible
to lay out an anchor to heave her off. They stuck fast in this most
hazardous situation for eight hours. At the end of that time the wind
shifted, and the ship, lightened of part of her guns and cargo, reeled
off into deep water, without serious injury. Had the sea risen, she
must have been wrecked. This was Drake's last mishap. He reached
Plymouth in the autumn of 1580, after nearly three years' absence.
Accounts differ as to the exact date of his arrival.
Since Drake had for this voyage the queen's commission, by which we
must suppose the license to rob the Spaniards to have been at least
tacitly conceded, he seems to have been rather hardly used, in being
left from November to April in ignorance how his bold adventure was
received at court. Among the people it created a great sensation, with
much diversity of opinion; some commending it as a notable instance of
English valor and maritime skill, and a just reprisal upon the
Spaniards for their faithless and cruel practices; others styling it a
breach of treaties, little better than piracy, and such as it was
neither expedient nor decent for a trading nation to encourage. During
this interval, Drake must have felt his situation unpleasant and
precarious; but the queen turned the scale in his favor by going,
April 4, 1581, to dine on board his ship at Deptford, on which
occasion she declared her entire approbation of his conduct, and
conferred on him the honor, and such it then was, of knighthood. His
ship she ordered to be preserved as a monument of his glory. Having
fallen to decay, it was at length broken up: a chair, made out of its
planks, was presented to the University of Oxford, and probably is
still to be seen in the Bodleian Library. Cowley wrote a Pindaric ode
upon it.
[Illustration: The admiral of the Spanish Armada surrenders to Drake.]
Drake had now established his reputation as the first seaman of the
day; and in 1585 the queen, having resolved on war, intrusted him with
the command of an expedition against the Spanish colonies. He burnt or
put to ransom the cities of St. Jago, near Cape Verde, St. Domingo,
Carthagena, and others, and returned to England, having fully answered
the high expectations which were entertained of him. He was again
employed with a larger force of thirty ships, in 1587, with which he
entered the port of Cadiz, burnt ten thousand tons of shipping, which
were to form part of the Armada, took the castle of Cape St. Vincent,
and sailing to the Azores, made prize of a large and wealthy ship
on its way from the Indies. Still more eminent were his services
against the Armada in the following year, in which he served as
vice-admiral under Lord Howard of Effingham. But these are well-known
passages of history, and we have shortened our account of them, to
relate at more length the early incidents of Drake's adventurous life.
In 1589 Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris were joined in the
command of an expedition, meant to deliver Portugal from the dominion
of Spain. This failed, as many expeditions have done in which the sea
and land services were meant to act together; and as usual, each party
threw the blame on the other. Drake's plan appears to have been most
judicious: it was at least accordant with his character, downright and
daring. He wished to sail straight for Lisbon and surprise the place;
but Norris was bent on landing at Corunna, where he did indeed some
harm to the Spaniards, but no service toward the real objects of the
expedition. When the land forces did at last besiege Lisbon, Drake was
unwilling or unable to force his way up the Tagus to co-operate with
them, and for this he was afterward warmly blamed by Norris. He
defended himself by stating that the time misspent by the English at
Corunna, had been well employed by the Spaniards in fortifying Lisbon;
and we fully believe that neither fear nor jealousy would have made
him hesitate at anything which he thought to be for the good of the
service. This miscarriage, though for a time it cast something of a
cloud upon Drake's fame, did not prevent his being again employed in
1595, when the queen, at the suggestion of himself and Sir John
Hawkins, determined to send out another expedition against Spanish
America, under those two eminent navigators, the expenses of which
were in great part to be defrayed by themselves and their friends.
Great hope was naturally conceived of this expedition, the largest
which had yet been sent against that quarter, for it consisted of
thirty vessels and 2,500 men. The chief object was to sail to Nombre
de Dios, march to Panama, and there seize the treasure from Peru. But
the blow, which should have been struck immediately, was delayed by a
feint on the part of the Spaniards to invade England; the Plate fleet
arrived in safety, and the Spanish colonies were forewarned. Hawkins
died, it was said of grief at the ruined prospects of the expedition,
November 12th, while the fleet lay before Porto Rico; and on the same
evening Drake had a narrow escape from a cannon-ball, which carried
the stool from under him as he sat at supper and killed two of his
chief officers. Repulsed from Porto Rico, the admiral steered for the
Spanish main, where he burnt several towns, and among them Nombre de
Dios. He then sent a strong detachment of 750 men against Panama; but
they found the capture of that city impracticable. Soon afterward he
fell sick of a fever, and died January 28, 1596. His death, like that
of his coadjutor, is attributed to mental distress, and nothing is
more probable than that disappointment may have made that noxious
climate more deadly. Hints of poisoning were thrown out, but this is a
surmise easily and often lightly made. "Thus," says Fuller, in his
"Holy State," "an extempore performance, scarce heard to be begun
before we hear it is ended, comes off with better applause, or
miscarries with less disgrace, than a long-studied and openly
premeditated action. Besides, we see how great spirits, having mounted
up to the highest pitch of performance, afterward strain and break
their credits in trying to go beyond it. We will not justify all the
actions of any man, though of a tamer profession than a sea-captain,
in whom civility is often counted preciseness. For the main, we say
that this our captain was a religious man toward God, and his houses,
generally speaking, churches, where he came chaste in his life, just
in his dealings, true of his word, and merciful to those that were
under him, hating nothing so much as idleness." To these good
qualities we may add that he was kind and considerate to his sailors,
though strict in the maintenance of discipline; and liberal on fit
occasions, though a strict economist. He cut a water-course from
Buckland Abbey to Plymouth, a distance of seven miles in a straight
line, and thirty by the windings of the conduit, to supply the latter
town with fresh water, which before was not to be procured within the
distance of a mile. He is honorably distinguished from the atrocious
race of buccaneers, to whom his example in some sort gave rise, by the
humanity with which he treated his prisoners. And it should be
mentioned, as a proof of his judicious benevolence, that in
conjunction with Sir John Hawkins, he procured the establishment of
the Chest at Chatham for the relief of aged or sick seamen, out of
their own voluntary contributions. The faults ascribed to him are
ambition, inconstancy in friendship, and too much desire of
popularity.
In person Drake was low, but strongly made, "well favoured, fayre, and
of a cheerefull countenance." He left no issue: his nephew was created
a baronet by James I., and the title is still extant.