Having remained at Port St. Julian until August 15, they sailed for the Straits, reached them August 20, and passed safely into the Pacific, September 6, 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.[[7]] Drake’s ship was driven southwards to the 56th degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme south of America. He fixes the farthest land to be near the 56th degree of south latitude, and thus appears to claim the honour of having discovered Cape Horn. From September 7 to October 28, 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 Magalhaens’ 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.
[7]. This is the general statement: but in the ‘Lives of Early English Navigators,’ in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, vol. v., it is said that a Spaniard named Ladrilleros had made the passage twenty years before.
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 lamas, each laden with 100 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 48th degree of latitude 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 4. 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 near 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 valour 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 favour 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 honour, 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.
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 10,000 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 towards 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 afterwards 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 any thing 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 2500 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 parts 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 12, 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 afterwards 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, afterwards 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 towards 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 watercourse 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 honourably 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.” The scarf and jewel which he wears in our portrait (which is engraved from a picture in the possession of Sir Trayton Drake, of Nutwell Court, near Exeter, the present representative of the family) were given him by Queen Elizabeth; the former when he took leave of her before sailing to meet the Armada. The jewel contains a portrait of herself: these relics are still in the possession of the family. Drake left no issue: his nephew was created a baronet by James I., and the title is still extant.
The collection of voyages by Hakluyt, and the accounts published by Drake’s nephew, quoted in this memoir, contain the fullest accounts of Drake’s adventurous history. Prince’s ‘Worthies of Devon,’ Dr. Johnson’s ‘Life of Drake,’ Kippis’s ‘Biographia Britannica,’ and the ‘Edinburgh Cabinet Library,’ vol. v., all give satisfactory accounts of this eminent ornament of the British navy.
[From “a drawn Plan of Her Majestie’s (Elizabeth) Harbour at Berwick.” Cottonian MSS.
Augustus, vol. ii., in British Museum.]