ORIGIN OF ENGLISH PIRACY—SIR JOHN HAWKINS—FRANCIS DRAKE—HIS FIRST VOYAGE TO THE SPANISH MAIN—COMMISSION GRANTED BY QUEEN ELIZABETH—EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SPANISH POSSESSIONS—EXPLOITS AT MOGADOR AND SANTIAGO—CROSSING THE LINE—ARRIVAL IN PATAGONIA—TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF DOUGHTY—PASSAGE THROUGH MAGELLAN'S STRAIT—ADVENTURES OF WILLIAM PITCHER AND SEVEN MEN—CAPE HORN—ARRIVAL AT VALPARAISO—RIFLING OF A CATHOLIC CHURCH.
We have thus shown that, while the Spanish and Portuguese had succeeded triumphantly in their maritime expeditions, the English had disastrously failed in theirs. The tropics were held in exclusive possession by the two former nations; and the only two known routes by which ships could sail thither were also in their power. These two nations were Catholic: England was Protestant, and disinherited therefore, as it seemed, of her lawful share in the riches of the world. She had thus far wasted her means and endangered the lives of her citizens in fruitless attempts to find a route for herself, by the northwest or the northeast, to the lands of gold and gums. Baffled in these efforts, she permitted, if she did not encourage, a certain class of her subjects to engage in a system of warfare against Spain which can be characterized by no milder term than piracy. Still, those who resorted to it adduced ready arguments to prove that, so far from engaging in piratical practices, they were employed in open warfare and an honest cause. Spain and England were in a state of manifest enmity, they urged, more bitter on both sides than if they had been avowedly at war. No English subject trading in the Spanish dominions was safe unless he were a Roman Catholic, or unless, being a heretic, he succumbed to the menaces or the tortures of the Holy Inquisition. These outrages were resented by the English people before they were taken up by the British Government; and the injured parties, calling to their aid all persons of adventurous spirit or shattered fortunes, set out upon the sea, if not with the commission, at least with the connivance, of the crown, to avenge their wrongs themselves. They did not consider themselves to be pirates, because of this tacit sanction given by the Government, because of the fact that they carried on hostilities, not against all who traversed the sea, but against the Spaniards only, and because of the risk they ran,—for if taken by the enemy they had no mercy to expect. It thus became the fashion in England for men of desperate fortunes and damaged character to seek to retrieve the one and redeem the other by cruising against the Spaniards.
Among the earlier adventurers of this stamp was one Sir John Hawkins. His exploits were for a time brilliant and successful: at last, however, they were disastrous, and one of his young kinsmen, Francis Drake by name, was discreditably involved. The latter had embarked his whole means in this adventure, and lost in it all his money and no little reputation,—for he disobeyed orders and deserted his benefactor and superior in the hour of need. He brought his vessel,—the Judith, of fifty tons,—however, safely home.
Drake now resolved to engage permanently in the lawless but exciting career of which he had lately witnessed several interesting episodes. It was long before he could obtain the means of fitting out an expedition under his own command. He at last bought and equipped two vessels,—one of two hundred and fifty tons, the other of seventy,—manned them with seventy-three men, and sailed for the Spanish dominions in America. He attacked and took the town of Nombre de Dios, on the Isthmus of Darien, but was soon obliged to retreat. He afterwards took Venta Cruz, on the same isthmus, and had the good fortune to fall in with three convoys of mules laden with gold and silver, going from Panama to Nombre de Dios. He carried off the gold and buried the silver. From the summit of a mountain he obtained a sight of the Pacific Ocean or South Sea, which so kindled his enthusiasm that he uttered a fervent prayer that he might be the first Englishman who should sail upon it. He was already the first Englishman who had beheld it.
On his return to England with his treasure, he entered for a time the volunteer service against Ireland, while waiting an opportunity to execute the grand project he had formed. At last, Sir Christopher Hutton, Vice-Chamberlain and Counsellor of the Queen, presented him to Elizabeth, to whom Drake imparted his scheme of ravaging the Spanish possessions in the South Sea. The queen listened; but whether she gave him a commission, or merely assured him of her favorable sentiments, is a disputed point. It is alleged that she gave him a sword and pronounced these singular words:—"We do account that he which striketh at thee, Drake, striketh at us!" He fitted out an expedition, at his own cost and with the help of friends and partners in the enterprise, consisting of five ships,—the largest, the Pelican, his flag-ship, of one hundred tons, and the smallest of fifteen. These vessels were manned by one hundred and fifty-four men. They carried out the frames of four pinnaces, to be put together as occasion required, and, after the example of the Portuguese in their first Eastern voyages, took with them specimens of the arts and civilization of their country, with which to operate upon the minds of the people with whom they should come in contact. They sailed in November, 1577, but were driven back by a tempest. The expedition finally got to sea on the 13th of December.
At the island of Mogador, off the coast of Barbary, Drake attempted to traffic with the Moors, and in an exchange of hostages lost a man, who was taken by the natives: they then refused to trade, and Drake, after a vain effort to recover the sailor, left the island, and followed the African coast to the southward. Between Mogador and Cape Blanco he took several Spanish barks called canters,—one of which, measuring forty tons, he admitted into his fleet, sending his prisoners off in the Christopher, the pinnace of fifteen tons and one of the original five vessels. He landed on the island of Mayo, where the inhabitants salted their wells, forsook their houses, and drove away their goats. Off the island of Santiago he took a Portuguese vessel bound for Brazil, carrying numerous passengers and laden with wine. He kept the pilot, Nuno da Sylva, gave the passengers and crew a pinnace, and transferred the wine to the Pelican. The prize he made one of the fleet, having given her a crew of twenty-eight men.
At Cape Verd Drake left the African shore, and, steering steadily to the southwest, was nine weeks without seeing land. When near the equator, he prepared his men for the change of climate by bleeding them all himself. He made the coast of Brazil on the 4th of April, 1578,—the savage inhabitants making large bonfires at their approach, for the purpose, as he learned from Sylva, of inducing their devils to wreck the ships upon their coast. On the 27th he entered the Rio de la Plata, and, sailing up the stream till he found but three fathoms' water, filled his casks by the ship's side. The same night, the Portuguese prize, now named the Mary, and commanded by John Doughty, parted company, as did two days afterwards the Spanish canter, which had been named the Christopher, after the pinnace for which she had been exchanged. Drake, believing them to have concealed themselves in shoal water, built a raft and set sail in quest of them.
DRAKE AND HIS RAFT.
Early in June, Drake landed on the coast of Patagonia, where he broke up the Swan, of fifty tons, for firewood, having taken every thing out of her which could be of any use,—his object being to lessen the number of ships and the chances of separation, and to render his force more compact. His men easily killed two hundred and fifty seals in an hour, which furnished them with very tolerable eating. They entered into very pleasant relations with the natives, delighting them with the sound of their trumpets, intoxicating them with Canary wine, and dancing with them in their own savage and extravagant manner. The natives gave Drake a vexatious proof of their agility and address, by stealing his hat from his head and baffling every effort made to recover it. Shortly after sailing from this spot, named by Drake Seal Bay, the fleet fell in with the Christopher again, which Drake ordered to be unloaded and set adrift. He soon met the Portuguese Mary, and on the 20th the whole squadron anchored in the harbor named Port Julian by Magellan. Intercourse was attempted with the Indians, but was stopped on account of a fray begun by the savages, in which two of the English and one of their own party were killed. The natives made no further attempt to molest the strangers during their two months' stay in the harbor.