They were all delighted to go with their gallant admiral, but they had not been two days at sea when a great storm scattered his fleet. In three days only three battleships and half-a-dozen pinnaces could be seen; and the Golden Lion, Burrows' flag-ship, was missing. Drake wrote home to Burghley on the 21st of May: "Burrows hath not carried himself in this action so well as I wish he had done, for his own sake; and his persisting hath committed a double offence, not only against me, but it toucheth further." Captain Marchant had been put in charge of the Lion, but when they reached St. Michael's on the 8th of June, Drake heard that the crew of Burrows' ship had mutinied and gone home.
Then Drake in his anger, believing that Burrows was a traitor, called a court-martial, the first we are told that was ever held in our navy, and Burrows was found guilty of desertion and condemned, in his absence, to death.
As Drake was spending his generous wrath on all traitors the next morning, a sudden hail from aloft, and a cry of "Sail ahoy!" made him forget his troubles; for it looked like the caravel he was waiting for.
All sails were hoisted, and a pretty strong breeze carried the Elizabeth Bonaventure towards the stranger, who had out a Portugal flag and red cross.
Drake showed no flag until he was within shot of her, when he hung out flags, streamers, and pendants. Then he hailed her with cannon-shot most brusquely, shot her through divers times, and received some answer in like sort.
Drake's fly-boat and a pinnace lay athwart her hawse and peppered her with musket shot. At them she threw shot and fireworks, doing little hurt, for they flew over them into the sea. Then, seeing the English were making ready to board, six of her men being slain and many sore wounded, they yielded.
It was the King of Spain's own ship from the East Indies, the San Felipe, richly laden and carrying four hundred negroes whom they had taken to make slaves in Spain and Portugal. Drake put these into his fly-boat and said they were free to sail whither they listed. He himself and his little fleet, guarding their prize very jealously, made all sail for England, reaching Plymouth on the 26th of June.
Drake knew something of the ways of women. He knew, when he brought the San Felipe into Plymouth harbour, that his Queen would forgive his little delinquencies in the matter of the singeing of Philip's beard.
It was the largest and richest prize ever seen in England. The spices, silks and taffetas, calicoes and carpets in the hold were valued at £108,000, a sum sufficient to defray all the costs of the expedition, with surplus profit for all adventurers.
Drake's return was welcomed with a national rejoicing; for the injury to the prestige of Spain was more valuable even than the prize. Further, it gave all Protestant Europe a braver spirit and a stronger heart to resist the tyranny of Rome and Spain. It was also a revelation to English merchants, and was one of the causes which set on foot the great East India Company and the empire that was to follow. Last, but not least, it implanted in the superstitious minds of the South a great dread of El Draque, as the magician of the deep, who had sold his soul to Satan, and could see all the fleets of his foe in a magic mirror in his cabin, or raise a storm at his evil pleasure.