Devonshire is divided into eleven Constituencies, of which eight are Parliamentary Divisions, known as those of Honiton, Tiverton, South Molton, Barnstaple, Tavistock, Totnes, Torquay, and Ashburton, each of which returns one member. In addition to these Plymouth and Devonport each return two members and Exeter one, so that the county is represented altogether by thirteen Members of Parliament.
We may recall with pride the fact that, among the Members for Devon, have been some of the most distinguished men who have ever sat in Parliament. Thus, Sir Walter Ralegh sat for the county, Plymouth has been represented by Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkyns, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Tavistock by John Pym and Lord John Russell, Barnstaple by Skippon and Lord Exmouth, Okehampton by William Pitt and Lord Rodney, Plympton by Lord Castlereagh and Sir Christopher Wren, Dartmouth by Lord Howe, and Tiverton by Lord Palmerston.
[25. The Roll of Honour of the County.]
Famous as our county is for its beautiful scenery, its wealth of prehistoric antiquities, and the abundance and variety of its wild life, it is still more renowned for its long Roll of Honour, for the many great and distinguished men who were born in it, or who have been more or less closely associated with it by residence within its borders. There can be little doubt that the foremost man in the whole history of Devon is Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of Elizabethan seamen, the first English circumnavigator of the globe, the terror of every Spanish ship, and the most conspicuous figure in the defeat of the Armada. Born near Tavistock, about 1540, of humble parentage, he early took to the sea, and was only seventeen when he and his kinsman Hawkyns, in the course of a trading-voyage to Guiana, were so ill-treated at a South American Spanish port that, for the rest of his life, Drake's chief aim seems to have been to avenge his injuries by plundering the towns, destroying the shipping, and capturing the treasure-ships of both Spain and Portugal.
Among his greatest exploits were his voyage round the world, between 1577 and 1580—after which, on his return, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth on board his ship the Golden Hind; the ravaging of the West Indies in 1585 and 1586; the destruction in the harbour of Cadiz of ships and stores intended for the invasion of England, by which he delayed for a whole year the sailing of the Armada; and the prominent part he took in the defeat of the Armada itself, when he captured the flagship of Admiral Pedro de Valdez.
Sir Francis Drake