II
But it is really in the lesser sea encounters, though they probably had just as great results, that we become enthralled by Drake's adventurous voyages. The Armada affair was more like the battle of Trafalgar, one of the differences being that in the latter engagement the Spanish ships did not risk going far into the open sea, but wisely kept Cadiz open for retreat, which they availed themselves of after receiving a dreadful pounding. Drake's voyage in the Pelican excelled anything that had ever been accomplished by previous sea rovers, and his expedition to the West Indies was a great feat. He always had trouble with Queen Elizabeth about money when organizing his voyages. Her Spanish brother-in-law's power was always in her thoughts. He never allowed her to forget that if he were provoked he would invade England, and notwithstanding her retort that England had a long arm which he would do well to fear, her courage alternated with some nervousness at times. Elizabeth was not so much concerned about his threat of excommunication of her as the sly tricks in conjunction with the Pope in spreading the spirit of rebellion in Ireland, and in other ways conspiring against her. Her mood was at one time to defy him, and at another conciliatory and fearful lest her pirate chiefs should do anything to provoke Spanish susceptibilities. Drake was much hampered by her moods when he wanted to get quickly to business, and never lost an opportunity of slipping out of her reach when his eloquence on the acquisition of untold wealth and the capture of some of Philip's distant colonies had appealed to her boundless avarice and made her conscience easy. His expedition to the West Indies might never have been undertaken had he not been a dare-devil fellow, to whom Burleigh's wink was as good as a nod to be off. He slipped out of port unknown to her, and his first prize was a large Spanish ship loaded with salt fish. He pounced upon her after passing Ushant, and the excellent cargo was suitably distributed amongst the fleet.
There were 25 privateers, and a company of 2,500 men on this expedition. All were volunteers, and represented every grade of society, high and low. There was never any difficulty in getting a supply of men. On this occasion the applications largely outnumbered the posts available. Drake could always depend upon volunteers, and, like all men of superb action, he had no liking for conscription. He knew that in the performance and carrying out of great deeds (and nearly all of his were terrific) it is men aflame with courage and enthusiasm that carry the day, and take them as a whole, conscripts are never wholehearted. The two great characteristics of the British race—initiative and endurance—are due to this burning flame of voluntarism.
The West India expedition was organized and all expenses guaranteed by private individuals. The capital was £60,000, and its allocation was £40,000 for expenses and £20,000 to be distributed amongst those who had volunteered to serve. Both men and officers had signed on without any stipulation for wages. They knew they were out for a piratical cruise, and welcomed any danger, great or small, that would give them a chance of making it not only a monetary success, but one that would give Spanish autocracy another shattering blow. These ancient mariners never trifled with life, and no sombre views or fatal shadows disturbed their spirited ambition or caused them to shrink from their strenuous and stupendous work. They went forth in their cockleshell fleet as full of hope and confidence as those who are accustomed to sail and man a transatlantic liner of the present day. Some of their vessels were but little larger than a present-day battleship's tender. Neither roaring forties nor Cape Horn hurricanes intimidated them. It is only when we stop to think, that we realize how great these adventurers were, and how much we owe to their sacred memories.
In addition to being ridiculously small and shabby in point of efficiency in rigging, sails, and general outfit, it will always be a mystery how it was that so few were lost by stress of weather or even ordinary navigable risks. They were veritable boxes in design, and their rig alone made it impossible for them to make rapid passages, even if they had wished to do so. As I write these lines, and think of my own Western Ocean experiences in well-designed, perfectly equipped, large and small sailing vessels during the winter hurricane months, when the passages were made literally under water and every liquid mountain seemed to forebode immediate destruction, it taxes my nautical knowledge to understand how these inferior and smaller craft which Drake commanded did not succumb to the same elements that have carried superior vessels in later years to their doom. One reason that occurs to me is that they were never deeply laden, and they were accustomed to ride hurricanes out when they had plenty of sea room at their sea anchors.
But nothing can detract from what our generation may describe as their eccentric genius in combining navigation with piracy and naval and military art. Talk about "human vision"! What is the good of it if it turns out nothing but unrestrained confusion? The men of the period I am writing about had real "vision," and applied it with accuracy without disorganizing the machinery of life and making the world a miserable place to live in. They were all for country and none for self.
After the capture of the Spanish ship and the appropriation of her cargo of fish, Drake's fleet went lounging along towards Vigo. In due course he brought his ships to anchor in the harbour, and lost no time in coming in contact with Don Pedro Bendero, the Spanish governor, who was annoyed at the British Admiral's unceremonious appearance. Don Pedro said that he was not aware that his country was at war with Britain. Drake quickly disillusioned him, and demanded, "If we are not at war, why have English merchants been arrested?" Don Pedro said an order had come for their release. Drake landed forthwith a portion of his force, and seeing that he meant business that foreboded trouble, the governor sent him wine, fruit, and other luxurious articles of food in abundance. The ships were anchored in a somewhat open roadstead, so Drake resolved to take them farther up the waterway where they would lie comfortably, no matter from what direction the threatening storm might break. But he had another shrewd object in view, which was to make a beginning in acquiring any of the valuable and treasured possessions adorning the churches. A trusted officer who was in his confidence, and a great admirer of his wisdom and other personal qualities, was sent to survey the passage and to find a suitable anchorage. He was a man of enterprise, with a strong dislike to the Roman Catholic faith, and never doubted that he was perfectly justified in relieving the churches of plate and other valuables. These were, in his eyes, articles of idolatry that no man of puritanic and Protestant principles could refrain from removing and placing under the safe keeping of his revered chief, who was no more averse to robbing a church than he was to robbing a ship carrying gold or fish.
As the vessel in charge of this intrepid officer, whose name was Carlile, approached the town where it was proposed to anchor the fleet the inhabitants fled, taking with them much of the church plate and other things which the British had covetously thought an appropriate prize of theirs. Carlile, being a man of resource, soon laid hold of other church treasure, which amply compensated for the loss of that which was carried off by the fleeing inhabitants at the mouth of the harbour. The day following Christopher Carlile's satisfactory survey the fleet was anchored off the town. The sight of it threw the whole district into panic. A pompous governor of Galicia hastened to Vigo, and on his arrival there he took fright at the number of ships and the dreaded name of the pirate chief who was in command. It would be futile to show fight, so he determined to accommodate himself to the Admiral's terms, which were that he should have a free hand to replenish the fleet with water and provisions, or any other odds and ends, without interference. This being accomplished, he agreed to sail, and no doubt the governor thought he had made a judicious bargain in getting rid of him so easily. But Drake all the time had the Spanish gold fleet in his mind. Sacrifices must be made in order that it may be captured, so off he went for the Cape de Verde islands, and found when he got there that the treasure-ships had arrived and sailed only a few hours before. The disappointment was, according to custom, taken with Christian composure. He had the aptitude of switching his mind from one form of warfare to another. As I have said, he would just as soon attack and plunder a city as a church or a ship. Drake had missed the gold fleet, so he turned his attention to the treasures of Santiago. When the governor and population were made aware that the distinguished visitor to their island was the terrible "El Draque," they and their spiritual advisers as usual flew to the mountains, without neglecting to take their money and priceless possessions with them. Drake looted as much as was left in the city of wine and other valuables, but he got neither gold nor silver, and would probably have left Santiago unharmed but for the horrible murder of one of his sailor-boys, whose body was found hacked to pieces. This settled the doom of the finest built city in the Old World. "El Draque" at once set fire to it and burnt it to ashes, with that thoroughness which characterized all such dealings in an age when barbaric acts justified more than equivalent reprisals.
It would have been a wiser course for the governor to have treated for the ransom of the town than to have murdered a poor sailor lad who was innocently having a stroll. It is balderdash to talk of the Spaniards as being too proud to treat with a person whom they believed to be nothing better than a pirate. The Spaniards, like other nationalities, were never too proud to do anything that would strengthen or maintain their supremacy. Their apparent pride in not treating with Drake at Santiago and on other rare occasions was really the acme of terror at hearing his name; there was neither high honour nor grandee dignity connected with it. As to Philip's kingly pride, it consisted in offering a special reward of £40,000 to have Elizabeth's great sailor assassinated or kidnapped. There were many to whom the thought of the bribe was fascinating. Numerous attempts were made, but whenever the assassins came within sound of his name or sight of him or his ships they became possessed of involuntary twitchy sensations, and fled in a delirium of fear, which was attributed to his being a magician.
As soon as Drake had avenged the sailor-boy's murder he sailed for the West Indies. When he got into the hot latitudes the plague of yellow fever appeared, and nearly three hundred of his men died in a few days. Arriving at Dominica, they found the Caribs had a deadly hatred of the Spanish, and when they learned that the British were at war with Spain they offered to prescribe a certain cure for yellow jack which was eminently effectual. After disinfecting the ships, and getting supplied with their requirements, the fleet left for San Domingo, via St. Kitts, which was uninhabited at that time. Domingo was one of the most beautiful and most wealthy islands in the world. Columbus and his brother, Diego, are buried in the cathedral there. The population believed themselves to be immune from harm or invasion on this distant island home, but Drake soon disillusioned them. His devoted lieutenant, Christopher Carlile, was selected as usual to find a suitable channel and landing, a hazardous and almost unattainable quest, but in his and Drake's skilful hands their object was accomplished. The ships were brought into port, and in his usual direct way Drake demanded that the garrison of the castle should surrender without parley, and it was done. Drake was not finished with them yet; he wished to know from the governor what terms he was prepared to offer in order that the city should be saved from pillage. A negro boy was sent with this dispatch, and raging with the disgrace of surrendering to the British Admiral, an officer ran a lance through the boy's body. The poor boy was just able to get back, and died immediately, close to where Drake was. The Spaniards had allowed their vicious pride to incite them to commit murder and to insult the British Admiral, who promptly avenged both deeds by having two friars taken to the place where the boy had been stabbed, and there hanged. "El Draque" sent a further note to the governor informing him that unless the officer who murdered his messenger was executed at once by the Spanish authorities he would hang two friars for every day that it was put off. Needless to say, no more friars were hung, as the officer paid the penalty of his crime without further delay. The lacerated dignity of the Spaniards was still further tried by the demand for the ransom of the city, and their procrastination cost them dear.
Drake's theology was at variance with that of the Founder of our faith. His method was rigid self-assertion, and the power of the strong. The affront he conceived to have been laid upon him and upon the country he represented could only be wiped out by martial law. Theoretic babbling about equality had no place in his ethics of the universe. He proceeded to raid and burn both private dwellings, palaces, and magazines; and the Government House, which was reputed to be the finest building in the world, was operated upon for a month, until it was reduced to dust. These are some of the penalties that would have gladdened the heart of the gallant Beresford and his Albert Hall comrades of our time had they been carried out against the Germans, who have excelled the Spaniards of Philip's reign in cultured murder and other brutalities in a war that has cost William II his throne and brought the period of civilization perilously near its end. It may be that the instability of petty statesmanship is to disappear, and that Providence may have in unseen reserve a group of men with mental and physical powers capable of subduing human virulence and re-creating out of the chaos the Germans have made a new and enduring civilization; and when they shall appear their advent will be applauded by the stricken world.
Incidentally, it may be added that the German nation, which has endangered the existence of civilization, would never have been despised or thought ill of on account of its defeat by the Allies. It is their unjustifiable method of beginning the war, and the dirty brutal tricks by which they sought to win it, which have created enduring mistrust and animosity against them. The law of human fairness is no more exacting to small communities or individuals than it is to nations.
Drake continued his relentless reprisals against San Domingo. The burning of British sailors as heretics possessed his mind. The distracted governor would have given his soul to get rid of him, but Drake demanded money, and this the governor pleaded was not available, but he was ultimately forced to provide 25,000 ducats, equalling £50,000. This was accepted after the town had been shattered to pieces and the shipping destroyed. The cathedral was the only important building left intact, the probable reason being that the remains of the great navigator, Columbus, were entombed there. Already the mortality amongst Drake's crew had been alarmingly heavy, and he was too wise a man to gamble with their lives until the bad season came on, so he settled up and hurried away into the fresh sea breezes, determined to give many more Spanish possessions a thorough shaking up. The news that the freebooters were near at hand, and that they were committing shocking deeds of theft and destruction on the way, had filtered to the Carribean Sea, and struck the somnolent population with terror. Carthagena, a magnificent city and the capital of the Spanish Main, was Drake's next objective. He had large hopes of doing well there. The health of most of his crew had improved and was now robust, and their fighting spirits had been kindled to a high pitch by their gallant chief, whose eye of genius was centred on a big haul of material things. On arrival off the port, Carlile, whose resource and courage were always in demand, was put in charge of a strong force. He led the attack, mounted the parapets, drove the Spanish garrison away in confusion, killed the commander, and subsequently destroyed a large number of ships which were lazily lying in the port. Many English prisoners were released, which was a godsend in filling the places of those who had died.
The combative pretensions of the governor had received a severe shock. He was beaten, and Drake, like a true sportsman, asked him and his suite to dine with him, and with an air of Spanish dignity he accepted. The occasion was memorable for the royal way the distinguished guests were treated. The governor was studiously cordial, and obviously wished to win the favour of his remorseless visitors, so asked Drake and his officers to do him the honour of accepting his hospitality in return, which they did. What form the interchange of civilities took is not quite clear, but the governor's apparent amiableness did not in any way move Drake to exercise generosity. His object was ransom, and if this was agreed to good-naturedly, all the better for the Spaniards, but he was neither to be bought nor sold by wily tactics, nor won over by golden-tongued rhetoric. The price of the rugged Devonshire sailor's alternative of wild wrath and ruin was the modest sum of 100,000 ducats in hard cash. Mutual convivialities and flowing courtesies were at an end; these were one thing and reparation for the incarceration and burning of unoffending British sailors as heretics was another.
"Deeds of blood and torture can never be atoned for in money or destruction of property. I am Drake, 'El Draque' if you like, and if you don't comply with my terms, you shall be destroyed."
It was his habit openly to express himself in this way to Philip's subjects, whether hostile or not, and we can imagine that similar views were uttered in the Carthagena negotiations. The Spaniards regarded his terms as monstrous impiety; they were aghast, pleaded poverty, and protested and swore by the Holy Office that the total amount they could find in the whole city was only 30,000 ducats. Drake, with commendable prudence, seeing that he wished to get away from the fever zone without delay, appears to have accepted this amount, though authorities are at variance on this point. Some say that he held out for his first claim and got it. I have not been able to verify which is the correct amount, but in all probability he got the 100,000 ducats. In any case, he piously charged them with deception in their plea of poverty, but came to terms, declaring, no doubt, that his own magnanimity astonished him.
But for the sudden outbreak of sickness amongst his crew, the Carthagenians would not have fared nearly so well. The city might have been, not only pillaged, but laid in ruins. As it was, he had emptied a monastery and blown the harbour forts to pieces.
Drake's intention was to visit Panama, but the fever had laid heavy hands on his men. Only a third of those who commenced the voyage with him were well enough to do work at all, notwithstanding the replenishment by released prisoners, so he was forced to abandon further enterprises and shape his course homewards as quickly as skilful navigation and the vagaries of wind and weather would allow. Great deeds, even on this trip, stood to the credit of himself and crew. The accomplishments were far below what was expected at the outset in point of money value, but the priceless feature of the voyage was the enhanced respect for Drake's name which had taken possession of the Spanish race in every part of the world and subsequently made the defeat of the Armada an easier task.
This eager soul, who was really the pioneer of a new civilization, had still to face hard fate after the reluctant abandonment of his intention to visit Panama. The sufferings of the adventurers from bad weather and shortness of water was severely felt on the passage to Florida. But the rough leader never lost heart or spared himself in any way. He was obliged to heave-to at Cape Antonio (Cuba), and here with indomitable courage went to work, putting heart into his men by digging with pick and shovel in a way that would have put a navvy to the blush, and when their efforts were rewarded he took his ships through the Bahama Channel, and as he passed a fort which the Spaniards had constructed and used as a base for a force which had murdered many French Protestant colonists in the vicinity, Drake landed, found out the murderous purpose of the fort, and blew it to pieces. But that was not all. He also had the satisfaction of saving the remainder of an unsuccessful English settlement founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and of taking possession of everything that he could lay hands on from the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine. This was the last episode of plunder connected with an expedition that was ripe with thrilling incidents, and added to the fame of the most enterprising figure of the Elizabethan reign.
In point of profit to those who had financed the voyage it was not a success; but its political and ultimate commercial advantages were enormous. These early seamen of the seventeenth century, many of them amateurs, laid the foundation of the greatest navy and mercantile marine of the world. It is to these fascinating adventurers, too, that the generations which followed are indebted for the initiative in human comforts and progress. The superficial self-righteous critic may find it an agreeable pursuit to search out their blemishes; but these men cannot be airily dismissed in that manner. They towered above their fellows, the supreme product of the spirit of their day in adventure and daring; they fulfilled their great destiny, and left their indelible mark upon the life of their nation and of the world. Their great emancipating heroism and reckless self-abnegation more than counterbalanced the faults with which the modern mind, judging their day by ours, is too prone to credit them, and whatever their deeds of perfidy may have been, they were imbued more with the idea of patriotism than with that of avarice. They were remarkable men, nor did they come into the life of the nation by chance, but for a purpose, and their memories are enshrined in human history.
Drake sailed for home as soon as he had embarked what was left of Raleigh's colonists at Roanoke River, Virginia, and after a protracted and monotonous passage, arrived at Plymouth on the 28th July, 1586. The population received the news with acclamation. Drake wrote to Lord Burleigh, bemoaning his fate in having missed the gold fleet by a few hours, and again placing his services at the disposal of his Queen and country.
The most momentous of all his commissions, especially to his own country, was in 1587, when he destroyed a hundred ships in Cadiz Harbour. It was a fine piece of work, this "singeing of the King of Spain's beard" as he called it, and by far excelled anything he had previously done. He captured the San Philip, the King of Spain's ship, which was the largest afloat. Her cargo was valued at over one million sterling, in addition to which papers were found on board revealing the wealth of the East India trade. The knowledge of this soon found a company of capitalists, who formed the East India Company, out of which our great Indian Empire was established. When the San Philip was towed into Dartmouth Harbour, and when it became known generally, the whole country was ablaze with excitement, and people travelled from far and near to see the leviathan.
Drake bore himself on this occasion with that sober modesty that characterized him always under any circumstances. His reputation stood higher now than ever, and it was no detriment to him that Philip should shudder, and when he became virtuously agitated speak of him as "that fearful man Drake." Everywhere he was a formidable reality, strong, forbidding and terrible; his penetrating spirit saw through the plans of the enemies of his country and his vigorous counter-measures were invariably successful. The exalted part he took in the defeat of the Armada has been briefly referred to in another part of this book. He was then at the height of his imposing magnificence and fame, but owing to the caprice of his royal mistress, who had an insatiable habit of venting her Tudor temper indiscriminately, he fell under her displeasure, and for a time was in disgrace; but she soon discovered that his services, whatever his lack of success on apparently rash enterprises may have been, were indispensable at so critical a moment. He was recalled, and soon after sent on his melancholy last voyage. He had worn himself out in the service of his country. Born at Tavistock in 1539, his eager spirit passed into the shadows off Puerto Bello on the 28th January, 1596, and, as previously stated, he was buried three miles out at sea, and two of his prizes were sunk and laid beside him.
The following beautiful lines of Sir Henry Newbolt not only describe his patriotic and heroic end, but breathe the very spirit of the man who was one of the most striking figures of the Elizabethan age:—
DRAKE'S DRUM.
3rd Verse:
Drake, he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?)
Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade's plyin', and the old flag flyin',
They shall find him ware an' wakin',
As they found him long ago!
