twenty-fourth of May, 1572, with intent first to raid Nombre de Dios, on
the north coast of the Isthmus of Darien, then “the granary of the West
Indies wherein the golden harvest brought from Peru and Mexico was
hoarded up till it could be conveyed into Spain.” On the sixth of July
the high land of Santa Marta was sighted, and six days later the ships
were anchored in a secret harbour within the Gulf of Darien, framed in a
luxuriant mass of trees and vine, which Drake had discovered on his
second reconnoitering voyage, and called “Port Pheasant,” "by reason of
the great store of these goodly fowls which he and his company did then
daily kill and feed upon" here. It is supposed to have been the Puerto
Escondido, or “Hidden Haven” of the Spaniards. Upon entering it was seen
that the nest had very recently been occupied, and, landing, Drake found
nailed to a great tree a lead plate upon which was posted a warning that
their rendezvous had been discovered by the Spaniards, signed John
Gannet, and dated five days before. Gannet was presumably the former
master of the “Minion,” of Hawkins’s ill-fortuned fleet. He had come out
to the Spanish Main on a voyage of his own shortly before the sailing of
Drake. Undisturbed by this warning Drake put his carpenters to work at
setting up the pinnaces, and the rest of the company at fortifying the
place with ramparts of trees. In the meantime there sailed into the snug
harbour another English bark. This was captained by James Rouse, the
former master of the lost “William and John” of the Hawkins expedition.
He also had sailed on a part trading and part buccaneering voyage before
Drake had left Plymouth. His company numbered thirty men, some of whom
had been in Drake’s second reconnoitring voyage. They brought in two
small prizes, one a caravel of Seville, a despatch boat, bound for
Nombre de Dios, which they had captured the previous day, the other a
shallop taken at Cape Blanc. Rouse joined forces with Drake.
Having got the pinnaces and all things in readiness within a week’s
time, the fleet was off for their first foray. Coming to the Isla de
Pinos (Isles of Pines), a group at the mouth of the Gulf of Darien
(called by them “Port Plenty”), they found here two frigates for Nombre
de Dios lading planks and timber, with a number of black men on board at
work. These blacks were half-breeds, belonging to a local tribe sprung
from self-freed Negro slaves and native Indians, known as “Cimaroons,”
or “Maroons,” as the English sailors termed them, enrolled under two
chiefs, and constant enemies of the Spanish. The frigates were seized,
and the black men were taken to the mainland and set ashore to join
their tribe and gain their liberty if they would, or, if they were
disposed to warn Nombre de Dios, to make the troublesome journey
overland, which they could not finish before the Englishmen could reach
the place by sea. Then leaving the three ships with the prize in charge
of Captain Rouse, and taking fifty-three of his own men and twenty of
Rouse’s band, and adding Rouse’s shallop to his fleet of pinnaces, Drake
“hastened his own going with speed and secrecy.” Five days later they
had arrived at the island of “Cativaas” (Catives), off the mouth of the
St. Francis, to the westward of which Nombre de Dios lay. Here they
landed and spent part of a day making ready for the assault. Drake
distributed the arms among the men and delivered a heartening speech
setting before them the “greatness of the hope of good things” in this
store house of treasure which might be theirs for the taking. That
afternoon they again set sail and at sunset they were alongside the
main. Keeping “hard aboard the shore” that they might not be “descried
of the Watch House,” they made their cautious way till they had come
within two leagues of the port. At this point they anchored till after
dark. Then again “rowing hard aboard shore,” as quietly as they could,
they attained a sheltered place in the harbour under high land, where
they lay “all silent,” purposing to make the attack at daylight. When,
however, talk of the “greatness of the town” and of its strength for
defence, based upon stories told by the blacks at the Isles of Pines,
was found to be spreading among the men, Drake “thought it best to put
these conceits out of their heads,” by prompter action, taking advantage
of the rising of the moon that night which he would persuade them “was
the day dawning.” By this strategy the advance was begun at three
o’clock, a “large houre sooner than first was purposed.”
The surprise of the town was complete. As the four pinnaces were sailing
forward, the rowers noiselessly plying their oars, a Spanish ship laden
with Canary wines, newly arrived in the bay, espied them, and
immediately sent off one of her boats townward, evidently to give an
alarm. But Drake dexterously checked this move by cutting “betwixt her
and the Towne forcing her to goe to the other side of the bay.” At the
landing place a platform was found fortified with “six great pieces of
ordnance mounted upon the carriages,” but only a single gunner on guard.
The gunner fled to arouse the town, while Drake’s men dismantled the
guns. Then Drake marched his men up a neighbouring hill, where he had
heard that ordnance was to be placed that night, to dismantle it if
found. But none had yet been set, and he hurried back now to make direct
for the town’s treasure. Leaving a guard at the platform to secure the
pinnaces, and a trumpeter to sound his trumpet at intervals while the
other trumpeters were sounding theirs in other parts, to give an
impression of a large force of besiegers, Drake divided his men into two
companies. One, of sixteen men, under his brother John, was to execute a
flank movement upon the King’s Treasure House near by; the other, led by
himself, was to march up the broad main street to the Market Place,
where the two were to come together. Meanwhile the alarm-bell of the
church had been set a-ringing by an official of the town, drums were
beating, and the startled people were mustering in the Market Place,
their first thought being that their common enemy, the Cimaroons, were
upon them.
Drake led his men with trumpets playing and drums beating, and their
“firepikes” lighting the way, into the Market Place, and were here
“saluted” by a body of Spanish soldiers and people lined up near the
Governor’s House, with a “jolly hot volley of shot.” The Englishmen
returned this “greeting” with a flight of arrows. Then they brought
their firepikes and their short weapons into effective play, and soon
routed the town’s defenders, who fled out of the gate—the only gate of
the town—leading toward Panama. In this skirmish Drake received a
painful wound in the leg. But he valiantly concealed his hurt, “knowing
if the generall’s heart stoops the men’s will fail.” Now making their
stand in the Market Place, Drake commanded two or three Spaniards whom
he had taken prisoner in the flight to conduct him with a detachment to
the Governor’s House. It was here that the long teams of mules bringing
the king’s treasure from Panama were unladen and the silver placed,
while the gold, pearls, and jewels were deposited in the stronger-built
(of lime and stone) King’s Treasure House. The door of the Governor’s
House was found open, and before it a fine Spanish horse, ready saddled.
Entering, by means of a lighted candle on the stairs, they saw a vast
heap of silver in the lower room. This consisted of silver bars piled up
against the wall, some “seventy feet in length, ten in breadth, and
twelve in height, each bar between thirty and forty pounds weight,” as
they calculated, about the value of “a million sterling.” Drake ordered
his men not to attempt to take any of this plunder, for the town was so
full of people that it would be impossible to remove it; but at the
King’s Treasure House, near the water side, he told them there was “more
gold and jewels than all of” their “four pinnaces could carry away”; and
he would presently send out a force to break it open.
Accordingly they returned to the Market Place, thence to go for the
Treasure House. Back in the Market Place they received a startling
report that their pinnaces were in danger of capture. John Drake was
hurried to the landing with a guard to meet this emergency. He found the
force there much alarmed by a report of a Negro spy that the Spanish
soldiers which the blacks at the Isles of Pines had told them had been
ordered from Panama, to defend the town from an expected attack of the
Cimaroons, had arrived. John Drake quieted their fears. Now a new
trouble arose. A “mighty shower of rain” with a “terrible storm of
thunder and lightning” burst upon the town. Drake and his men sought
shelter near the King’s Treasure House. But before they had got under
cover some of their bow-strings were wet, and their match and powder
hurt. Some of the men began “harping on the reports lately brought” and
“muttering of the forces of the town.” Thereupon Drake exclaimed that
here he had brought them to the “mouth of the Treasure of the World,”
and if they did not gain it they “might henceforth blame nobody but
themselves.” So soon as the fury of the storm had abated Drake ordered
John Drake and John Oxenham, another officer, to break open the Treasure
House, the rest to follow him to “keep the strength” of the Market Place
till their work was done. But as he stepped forward he suddenly fell
prone in a swoon from loss of blood from his wound, which to this moment
he had successfully concealed. This produced consternation among the
band. Upon his revival his scarf was bound about the wound, and he was
entreated to go aboard his pinnace to have it dressed. He persistently
refused, and finally, “with force mingled with fair entreaty” he was
seized and borne to his boat. Then all hurriedly embarked and got away,
with what little plunder a few had managed to pick up.
So was abandoned “a rich spoil for the present,” but “only to preserve
their captain’s life.” It was afterward admitted by the Spaniards that
but for the mishap to Drake necessitating their precipitate departure,
the buccaneers would have fully succeeded in sacking the town.
It was but daybreak when they left. They had besides the captain “many
of their men wounded, though none slain but one trumpeter.” On their way
out of the harbour they tarried long enough to capture, “without much
resistance,” the Spanish ship lying there with her cargo of wines, “for
the more comfort of the company.” Before they had quite cleared the
haven the Spaniards on shore had got one of the great guns into play
upon them. But the shot fell short of their boats. They landed with
their prize at the Isle of Bartimentos, or, as they called it, the “Isle
of Victuals,” westward of Nombre de Dios. Here they stayed through the
next two days to “cure their wounded and refresh themselves” in the
“goodly gardens” they found “abounding with great store of all dainty
roots and fruits, besides great plenty of poultry and other fowls no
less strange and delicate.” Return was then made to the Isles of Pines,
where Captain Rouse with their ships was joined.
Thus the incident of the famous raid upon Nombre de Dios, the first
object of the expedition, closed with small gain. Hakluyt gives a brief
and incomplete account of it, written and recorded, as his title
relates, by “one Lopez Vaz a Portugall, borne in the citie of Elvas, in
maner follow: which Portugale, with the discourse about him, was taken
in the River of Plate by the ships set foorth by the Right Honourable
the Earle of Cumberland, in the yeere 1586.” The larger account, which
Drake himself is said to have “reviewed,” or edited, was not published
until more than half a century after the event. It then appeared in a
history of the expedition, brought out in 1626, under this inspiriting
title: _Sir Francis Drake Revived; Calling upon this Dull or Effeminate
Age to follow his noble steps for Gold and Silver, By this Memorable
Relation of the Rare Occurrences (never yet declared to the world) in a
third voyage made by him unto the West Indies, in the years 1572 & 1573
when Nombre de Dios was by him, and 52 others only in his company,
Surprised_.
Subsequent exploits made up for the failure to loot the “Treasure of the
World.” Shortly after the return to the Isles of Pines Captain Rouse
parted company with the expedition and went his own way, while Drake
continued his enterprise alone, as he had originally planned. His next
assault was to be against Cartagena. Toward this port he at once sailed
his own fleet, the two ships and the three pinnaces. Arriving in the
harbour he found here a “great ship of Seville” making ready to sail for
San Domingo. This he took in sight of the town, but beyond the reach of
its “great guns,” which opened upon him. The next morning he captured
two frigates from Nombre de Dios for Cartagena, on board of which were
two “Scrivanos” (escribano, a notary), with letters reporting his attack
on Nombre de Dios and his continued presence on the coast, warning the
Cartagenians to “prepare for him.” From them ascertaining that he was
now discovered to the chief places along the main, he made no further
advance upon Cartagena, but sought instead a good hiding-place till the
“bruit” of his being here “might cease”; intending later to make an
alliance with the Cimaroons and raid the treasure route between Panama
and Nombre de Dios. Meanwhile the “Swan” was scuttled in order
thoroughly to man the pinnaces, and the “Pasha” was utilized as a
storehouse. During the next two months roving the coast with the
pinnaces, many Spanish ships were seized and relieved of their cargoes,
mostly provisions for “victualling” Nombre de Dios and Cartagena, and
also the fleets to and from Spain. Such quantities of provisions of all
kinds were thus obtained that the company built and stocked at different
points, on islands and on the main, four storehouses; and there was
sufficient as the season advanced to supply besides themselves, the
Cimaroons, and also two French ships that fell in with them in “extreme
want.” Later their rendezvous was at the mouth of the Rio Diego, where
they built a fort which they called “Fort Diego.” In October, while
attempting to take a frigate, John Drake was killed. Early in January
the “calenture,” or hot fever, broke out among the company, and several
died, among them Drake’s younger brother Joseph.
On the third of February the land journey across the isthmus toward
Panama was begun. At that time twenty-eight of the company had died, and
several were yet ill. Since it was necessary to leave a few sound men
with the sick ones, the number that made this march was only eighteen.
The rest of the band were Cimaroons, thirty in all. The highest point of
the dividing ridge was reached on the eleventh of February when Drake,
from a tree top, got his first sight of the Pacific and uttered his
earnest prayer familiar in the histories, to be permitted once to sail
an English ship upon it. The chronicler of the voyage thus well portrays
the animating scene:
"The fourth day following we came to the height of the desired hill, a
very high hill lying East and West, like a ridge between the two seas,
about ten of the clock; where the chiefest of these Cimaroons took our
Captain by the hand and prayed him to follow him if he was desirous to
see at once the two seas, which he had so longed for. Here was that
goodly and great high Tree in which they had cut and made divers steps
to ascend up near unto the top, where they had also made a convenient
bower wherein ten or twelve men might easily sit: and from thence we
might without any difficulty plainly see the Atlantic Ocean whence now
we came and the South Atlantic [Pacific Ocean] so much desired. South
and north of this Tree they had felled certain trees that the prospect
might be the clearer.... After our Captain had ascended to this bower
with the chief Cimaroon, and having, as it pleased God, at this time by
reason of the breeze a very fair 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 sail once in an English ship in that Sea!’
And then calling up all the rest of our [seventeen English] men he
acquainted John Oxnam [Oxenham] especially with this his petition and
purpose, if it would please God to grant him that happiness. Who
understanding it presently protested that ‘unless our Captain did beat
him from his company he would follow him by God’s grace.’"
Drake’s outlook is supposed to have been near the spot where Balboa, the
discoverer, sixty years earlier, had “thanked God” that he was “the
first Christian man to behold that sea”; and it is presumed that Drake
had Balboa’s thanksgiving in mind when he framed his ardent prayer.
Two days later the band had come to the open region of savannas over
which savage herds of black cattle roamed, whence glimpses of Panama
(the old city north of the present one) were had. As they marched on,
Drake saw the Spanish ships riding in the harbour; the Pacific beyond
stretching placidly to the horizon. Now they were within a day’s journey
of the city. Toward sunset they reached the shelter of a grove through
which the road ran, about a league from Panama. Here they rested while
Drake despatched a spy, disguised as a Negro servant, into the city—a
Cimaroon who had once served a master there and so was familiar with the
place—to learn all about the movements of the “recuas:” the mule
treasure and merchandise teams. The spy returned after dark with the
joyous word that that very night a string of mule teams was to come out.
The richest was to head the line accompanying the Spanish treasurer of
Lima, Peru, on the way with his family to Nombre de Dios, there to take
an “advice ship” in waiting for Spain. This team comprised fourteen
mules, of which eight were laden with gold and one with jewels. Two
others immediately to follow were each of fifty mules, and were to carry
provisions for the fleet at Nombre de Dios, with a small quantity of
silver. They were to make the journey in the cool of the night, and to
take the route by way of Venta Cruz (Cruces, on the left bank of the
Chagres River). With this information Drake determined to intercept the
whole string and take off the richest treasure. Accordingly the march
was resumed away from Panama and toward Venta Cruz, some four leagues
distant.
They came to a halt in a secluded spot about two leagues south of the
town. Near by one of the Cimaroons scented out a Spanish soldier, whom
they literally caught napping. He was one of the guard hired to protect
the Lima treasurer’s train outward from Venta Cruz, and while waiting,
knowing that he could get no rest till their safe arrival at Nombre de
Dios, he had lain down in the grass and dropped asleep. He was
terrorized at falling into the hands of the merciless Cimaroons, and
being brought into the presence of Drake he plead for protection. He
assured the captain, on the honour of a soldier, that that night he
might have, if he would, “more gold, besides jewels and pearls of great
price” than all his men could carry, and for his own part he asked only
as much of the plunder as would suffice for himself and wife to live on
comfortably. Holding the soldier for what service he might render, Drake
divided his band into two companies and ambushed in long grass on either
side of the road. He headed one company, and John Oxenham, with the
chief of the Cimaroons, the other. Drake’s lay on one side of the road
some fifty paces above Oxenham’s on the opposite side. The foremost
company were to seize the mules by their heads as the team came up,
while the “hindmost” secured the rear: for the mules tied together were
always driven one after the other. The Englishmen all drew their shirts
over their apparel by Drake’s order that they might be sure to know each
other in the “pell mell of the night.”
The two sections had thus lain for above an hour when the notes of deep
sounding bells, which the mule teams invariably bore, were heard in the
distance in both directions, betokening the approach of trains from and
to Venta Cruz. Then the nearer sound of a horse trotting over the road
fell on the listening ears. As it was passing the ambuscade one of the
Englishmen, a sailor who had taken too much wine and become reckless,
crept up close to the road and raised himself and gazed at the rider. He
was a cavalier, well mounted, with a page running at his stirrup. A
Cimaroon quickly pulled the sailor down and sat on him. But it was too
late. The cavalier had caught sight of the white-shirted object, had
recognized it as an Englishman of Drake’s crew, and had put spurs to his
horse and galloped off to warn the approaching treasurer’s team of
danger. Meeting it on the road the cavalier reported what he had seen,
and his conjecture that Drake was in the neighbourhood for plunder of
treasure teams to recompense himself for his failure at Nombre de Dios;
and he persuaded the treasurer to turn his train out of the way, and let
the others that were to follow pass first. Their loss, if “worse befel,”
would be of far less account, while they would serve to discover the
party in ambush. And just this happened. As the others with the lesser
treasure reached the ambush the captains blew their whistles for the
attack, and both teams were speedily taken; but the spoil, besides the
provisions, netted not more than two “horse-loads” of silver, and
Drake’s game was fully discovered. One of the chief carriers told him
how their ambush had been exposed by the imprudent sailor and how the
cavalier had spread the warning, and counselled his party to “shift for
themselves betimes” unless they were able to combat the whole force of
Panama before daybreak.
Instead, however, of following this advice Drake took that of the chief
of the Cimaroons, which was that he should boldly march on to the town
and “make a way with his sword through the enemies.” So, after enjoying
a full supper of meat and drink from the captured provisions, the march
upon Venta Cruz was begun. The band mounted the mules and thus made the
journey comfortably. When within a mile of the town and in a deep woods
they dismounted, and leaving the muleteers here, bidding them not to
follow at their peril, made the remainder of the way on foot. Half a
mile beyond a couple of Cimaroons of the advance guard discovered a
Spanish force in ambush in a jungle at the side of the road. They were a
body of soldiers with a number of fighting friars of a monastery at
Venta Cruz. With this news Drake cautioned his men to move quietly, and
pressed on. As they neared the ambuscade the Spanish captain appeared in
the roadway before them and called out “Hoo!” Drake replied with the
sailor’s response to a hail, “Hallo!” The Spaniard queried, “Que gente?”
Drake answered, “Englishmen.” The Spaniard demanded their surrender, "in
the name of the ‘King, his master,’" with the promise, as a “gentleman
soldier,” of courteous treatment. Drake demanded passage “for the honour
of the Queen, his mistress,” and advancing toward the Spaniard fired his
pistol in the air. This was taken as a signal by the men in ambush and
they let off a volley. Drake was scratched, and several of his men were
wounded, one fatally. He blew his whistle, and the English returned shot
for shot, with a flight of arrows. Then the Cimaroons took a hand, and
under the combined Indian and English warfare the Spaniards were routed.
Close by the town gate they made another stand. Drake’s men again
scattered them, and with a rush entered the town. Guards were placed at
the entrances at either end that the raiders might be secure while here.
They stayed only an hour and a half. Drake ordered his men to take no
heavy plunder, for they had a long march to make back to their ships,
and they were yet in danger of attack. Still, many of them and the
Cimaroons managed to make “some good pillage.”