It was an unworthy end to the most scientific and the most God-fearing of all Elizabethan heroes! Davis had been devoted to his profession, and no love of gain entered into his thoughts. His charts of the English Channel, the Scilly Isles, the Arctic coasts, and the Straits of Magellan were of great use and value for many years. As he wrote, "it was not in respect of his pains, but of his love," that he wished to be judged. He cared tenderly for those under his charge, and he was beloved by his men. He laboured more to save men's lives than to destroy them: such a virtue did not in those times seem to merit any official distinction, but we hope we are wiser now.
Davis, of course, had his weakness. He could face storm and frozen seas, perils of the ocean and the forest; but he was too kind and easy, too good-natured and forgiving when he had to deal with rogues and ruffians.
He was too long away from home and wife and children, and so he lost his wife's faith and devotion. But this disappointment and sorrow he met in a manly way, and forced himself to forget his troubles in his literary work for the welfare of others.
His friend and biographer, John Janes, had served under Davis in two Arctic expeditions and in the Magellan Straits voyage, and ever found him a true and loyal captain as well as a learned and genial companion.
Davis did not obtain the glory won by Drake, or the fame won by Humphrey Gilbert, or the honours heaped upon Sir Walter Raleigh; but the light that shines upon good deeds bravely done will assuredly grow clearer and brighter over the life of John Davis, as time sifts the trivial from the eternal good.
CHAPTER IX
FRANCIS DRAKE, THE SCOURGE OF SPAIN
Francis Drake had a kinsman at Plymouth who had been the first Englishman to sail to the Brazils—William Hawkins, father of John, a rich merchant and shipowner. Drake's father, Edmund, had been a sailor in his youth, and was settled near Tavistock when Francis was a child; he was a strong "Reformation man," and his preaching had made him enemies, so that he had to fly and take shelter in an old ship at Chatham, where his friends obtained for him the post of Reader of Prayers to the Royal Navy. Thus little Francis drank in at a very early age the sights and sounds of the sea, while his mind was nursed on denunciations of Rome and hatred of religious tyranny. A man with twelve children must plant them out early, and Francis was apprenticed as a boy to the skipper of a small craft that traded to Holland. As a boy he thus was brought into contact with Flemings flying from persecution, and the horrors of the Inquisition were his daily subject of talk. The rough usage of those days built him up into a sturdy, thick-set, rollicking youngster; he must have shown a rare spirit even then, for his master liked him so well that at his death he left Francis the vessel on which he served.
In 1564 Spain closed her ports to the English, so Drake sold his ship and entered the service of his kinsmen, John and William Hawkins.
John had just returned from his first slaving voyage, and was being lionised in London on account of the enormous profits of his expedition.