The voyagers still kept in with the coast and next arrived at “a place called Coquinobo” (perhaps Copiapo). Here Drake sent fourteen of his men to land for fresh water. They were espied and a body of horsemen and footmen dashed upon and killed one of them. Then the attacking force quickly disappeared. The Englishmen went ashore again and buried their comrade. Meanwhile the Spaniards reappeared with a flag of truce. But they were not trusted, and as soon as his men had returned Drake again put to sea. He now had a new pinnace, having at this place set up another of the three brought out ready framed. The next place at which a landing was made was Tarapaca. On the shore a Spaniard was found lying asleep with thirteen bars of silver beside him. Drake’s party took the silver and left the man. Not far from this place a boat’s load going ashore for water met a Spaniard with an Indian boy driving eight “llamas,” sheep of Peru, as “big as asses,” each carrying on its back two leather bags, together containing one hundred pounds’ weight of silver. They took the sheep with their burdens, and let the man and boy go. Still coasting along the buccaneering voyagers came next to the port of Arica. In this haven lay three barks well freighted with silver. They were instantly boarded and relieved of their cargoes. From one alone were taken fifty-seven wedges of silver, each of “the bigness of a brickbat,” and of about twenty pounds’ weight. They were unprotected, their crews having fled to the town at the approach of the Englishmen. Drake would have ransacked the town had his company been larger. As it was, the spoil of the barks so easily taken contented him. Now he was bound for Lima. Along the way he fell in with a bark which, being boarded and rifled, produced a good store of linen cloth. When as much of this stuff as was desired had been taken the bark was cast off.
Callao, the port of Lima, was reached on the thirteenth of February, and entered without resistance. A dozen or more ships were met in this haven, lying at anchor, all without their sails, these having been taken ashore, for the masters and merchants here felt perfectly secure, never having been assaulted by enemies and fearing the approach of none such as Drake’s company were. All were held up and rifled. In one were found fifteen hundred bars of silver; in another a chest of coined money, and stocks of silks and linen cloth. Drake questioned the crews as to any knowledge they might have of his lost consorts, for which he had kept up a continual lookout; but he could learn nothing from them. He learned something else, however, which hastened his departure. This was that a very rich Spanish ship, laden with treasure, had sailed out of this port just before his arrival, bound for Panama. She was the “glory of the South Sea,” named the “Cacafuego,” in English equivalent the “Spitfire.” Drake was soon in full chase of her, and to prevent himself being followed from Callao he cut all the cables of the twelve ships, letting them drive as they would, to sea or ashore.
DRAKE OVERHAULING A SPANISH GALLEON.
On this run he paused long enough to overhaul and loot a brigantine, taking out of her eighty pounds’ weight of gold, a gold crucifix studded with emeralds, and some cordage which would come in handy on his ship. Drake promised his men that whichever should first sight the “Cacafuego” should be rewarded with the gold chain he wore. It fortuned that his brother John, “going up into the top,” spied her at three o’clock one afternoon, and so won the chain. By six she was reached and ordered to stand. Three pieces of ordnance were shot off at her and struck down her mizzen. She was then boarded and easily possessed. Her treasure comprised jewels, precious stones, eighty pounds of gold, and twenty-six tons of silver. Among some plate were two gilded silver bowls which belonged to her pilot, Francisco by name. These particularly took Drake’s fancy. So with suavity he observed to their owner, “Senor Pilot, you have here two silver cups, but I must have one of them.” The “Senor Pilot” responded as affably, and, “because he could not otherwise chuse,” handed over one to the general and bestowed the other upon the steward of the “Golden Hind.” As he departed his boy, a lad with a clever wit, spoke up to Drake, "Captain, our ship shall be called no more the ‘Cacafuego’ but the ‘Cacaplata,’ and your ship shall be called the ‘Cacafuego.’" “Which prettie speech of the Pilot’s boy,” the chronicler records, “ministered matter of laughter to us, both then and long after.”
The point where this prize was taken is given as some one hundred and fifty leagues below Panama. She was sailed out into the sea beyond the sight of land, and there rifled. When this was done Drake cast her off and continued on his course up the coast, standing out to the westward to avoid Panama, where he was too well known. On an early April day, another fine ship was met with. She was taken without resistance. She was a merchant ship from Acapulco, in Mexico, rich laden with linen cloth, China silks, and porcelain ware. Her owner was on board, a Spanish gentleman, Don Francisco de Carate. Drake treated him with great courtesy, and evidently won his admiration, for we read that he gave his captor a handsomely wrought falcon of gold with a great emerald set in the breast. Drake in return gave him a hanger and silver brazier. He released the merchant after three days when, having finished his business with the captured ship, he suffered her to continue on her voyage. The pilot, however, was retained for his service. Afterward Carate gave a careful account of his experience with Drake in a letter to the viceroy of New Spain, and to this letter we are indebted for an engaging description of Drake’s outfit, his characteristics, and his person.
This intelligent and gracious witness pictures the general as “about thirty-five, of small size, and reddish beard,” and characterises him as “one of the greatest sailors that exist both for his skill and for his power of commanding.” His men were “all in the prime of life and as well trained for war as if they were old soldiers of Italy.” He treated them “with affection, and they him with respect.” Among them were “nine or ten gentlemen, younger sons of leading men in England,” who formed his council. But he was not bound by their advice, though he might be guided by it. These young gentlemen all dined with him at his table. The service was of silver “richly gilt and engraved with his arms.” He dined and supped to the music of violins. He had “all possible luxuries, even to perfumes.” He had two draughtsmen, who portrayed the coast “in its own colours.” His ship carried thirty large guns, and a great quantity of ammunition, as well as artificers who could execute necessary repairs.
Carate’s retained pilot directed Drake up to and along the coast of North America, and about the middle of April had brought him to the Mexican haven of “Guatulco” (Acapulco). He landed with a few of his men and went presently to the town, where, in the Town-House, a trial of three Negroes charged with conspiring to burn the place was proceeding. Judge, officers, and prisoners were all seized and brought to the ship. The judge was required to write a letter commanding the townspeople to “avoid” that the ship might water here. This done, and the captives released, Drake’s men ransacked the town. In one house they found a pot of the size of a bushel full of reals of plate. A flying Spanish gentleman was overtaken and a gold chain and jewels were filched from him. At this port Nuna da Silva, the Portuguese pilot retained all along from the time of his capture in the Cape Verde Islands, was discharged and put aboard a Spanish ship in the harbour. He subsequently made a written report to the viceroy of New Spain, comprising a circumstantial account of the voyage as far as he was compelled to make it. This account passed from that official to the viceroy of the Portugal-Indies, and some years afterward got to England, when Hakluyt published it. It follows the narrative of the chronicler of Drake’s company in the Principal Navigations , and well supplements that.
Now, at Acapulco, or at an island below this port which the chronicler calls “Canno,” while his “Golden Hind” was undergoing a complete refitting, Drake was pondering his future course. His ship was rich in treasure, and his company were thinking of home. He now felt himself “both in respect of his private injuries received from the Spaniards, as also of the contempts and indignities offered” to his country, “sufficiently satisfied and revenged”; and he believed that the queen would be contented with this service. Accordingly he decided no longer to continue on the coast of New Spain. But whither should he turn? It was unwise to go back as he had come. It was not well to make return by the Strait of Magellan for two reasons: “the one, lest the Spaniards should there waite and attend for him in great number and strength whose hands, hee being left but one ship, could not possibly escape.” And it happened that a fleet was actually making ready for this purpose. The other was the dangerous situation of the Pacific mouth of the strait with “continuall stormes reigning and blustering, as he had found by experience, besides the shoalds and sands upon the coast.” Finally, after consultation with his “council,” he resolved to strike boldly out into the great sea and make for the Moluccas, the Spice Islands, of the East Indian Archipelago. He may have been influenced toward this decision through his capture while at Canno of a prize with two pilots and a Spanish governor on board bound for the Philippines; or by an earlier taking from the Spaniards, according to Silva’s account, of some charts of seas hitherto unknown to the English. At the same time it is believed that he had serious thoughts of trying for an “upper north” passage to the Atlantic from the “backside” of America, as Frobisher had sought the Northwest passage from the east side three and more years before.
