DRAKE AND THE PATAGONIANS.
A very tragical event now followed. Magellan had in this place, as we have stated, quelled a dangerous mutiny, by hanging several of a disobedient and rebellious company. The gibbet was still standing, and beneath it the bones of the executed were now bleaching. Drake apprehended a similar peril, and was led to inquire into the actions of John Doughty. He found, in his investigations, that Doughty had embarked in the enterprise rather in the hope of rising to the chief command than of remaining what he started,—a gentleman volunteer: he had views, it seemed, of supplanting Drake by exciting a mutiny, and of sailing off in one of the ships upon his own account. The company were called together and made acquainted with the particulars; Doughty was tried for attempting to foment a mutiny, found guilty, and condemned to death by forty commissaries chosen from among the various crews. Doughty partook of the communion with Drake and several of his officers, dined at the same table with them, and, in the last glass of wine he ever raised to his lips, drank their healths and wished them farewell. He walked to the place of execution without displaying unusual emotion, embraced the general, took leave of the company, offered up a prayer for the queen and her realm, and was then beheaded near Magellan's gibbet. Drake addressed the company, exhorting them to unity and obedience, and ordered them to prepare to receive the holy communion on the following Sabbath, the first Sunday in the month.
DRAKE CONDEMNING DOUGHTY.
This tragedy has been embellished by many fanciful additions on the part of Drake's apologists, and upon the part of his calumniators by many false statements. It is said by the former that Drake, after Doughty's condemnation, offered him the choice of three alternatives,—either to be executed in Patagonia, to be set ashore and left, or to be sent back to England, there to answer for his acts before the Lords of her Majesty's Council; and that Doughty replied that he would not endanger his soul by being left among savage infidels; that, as for returning to England, if any one could be found willing to accompany him on so disgraceful an errand, the shame of the return would be more grievous than death; that he therefore preferred ending his life where he was,—a choice from which no argument could persuade him. These assertions can hardly be correct, as nothing of the kind is set forth in the account of the voyage given by Fletcher, the chaplain of the expedition. It is highly improbable that Doughty, if conscious of innocence, would have rejected the offer of a trial in England; while it is unlikely that the offer was ever made, as Drake could ill spare a ship in which to send the prisoner home. Different opinions are held in the matter by different writers. Admiral Burney thought the statements too imperfect for forming, and the whole matter too delicate to express, an opinion. Dr. Johnson wrote thus on the subject:—"What designs Doughty could have formed with any hope of success, or to what actions worthy of death he could have proceeded without accomplices, it is difficult to imagine. Nor, on the other hand, does there appear any temptation, from either hope, fear, or interest, that might induce Drake, or any commander in his state, to put to death an innocent man on false pretences." Southey, in his Lives of the Admirals, is disposed to consider Drake as justified in making a severe example. Harris is of opinion that the act was "the most rash and blameworthy of the admiral's career." Sylva, Drake's Portuguese pilot, once said that Doughty was punished for attempting to abandon the expedition and return to England, and thus evidently thought that a sufficient motive existed for his execution. And it is worth remarking that the Spaniards, who never neglected an opportunity of loading Drake with obloquy, extolled him in this case for his vigilance and decision. Doughty was buried on an island in the harbor, together with the bodies of the two men slain in the fray with the savages.
The Portuguese prize, being now found leaky and troublesome, was broken up, the fleet being thus reduced to three. On the 21st of August, Drake entered Magellan's Strait,—being the second commander who ever performed the voyage through it. He cleared the channel in sixteen days, and entered the South Sea on the 6th of September. Here the Marygold was lost in a terrible storm, and the Elizabeth, being separated from Drake's vessel, wandered about in search of him for a time and then sailed for England, where her captain was disgraced for having abandoned his commander. Drake was driven from the Bay of Parting of Friends, as he named the spot in which he lost sight of the Elizabeth, and was swept southward to the coast of Terra del Fuego, where he was forced from his anchorage and obliged to abandon the pinnace, with eight men in it and one day's provisions, to the mercy of the winds.
The miseries endured by these eight men are hardly equalled in the annals of maritime disaster. They gained the shore, salted and dried penguins for food, and coasted on till they reached the Plata. Six of them landed, and, of these six, four were taken prisoners by the Indians. The other two were wounded in attempting to escape to the boat, as were the two who were left in charge. These four succeeded in reaching an island nine miles from the coast, where two of them died of their wounds. The other two lived for two months upon crabs and eels, and a fruit resembling an orange, which was the only means they had of quenching their thirst. One night their boat was dashed to pieces against the rocks. Unable longer to endure the want of water, they attempted to paddle to land upon a plank ten feet long. This was the laborious work of three days and two nights. They found a rivulet of fresh water; and one of them, William Pitcher, unable to resist the temptation of drinking to excess, died of its effects in half an hour. His companion was held in captivity for nine years by the Indians, when he was permitted to return to England.
Drake, after the loss of the pinnace, was driven again to the southward, and, in the quaint language of the times, "fell in with the uttermost part of the land towards the South Pole, where the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meet in a large and free scope." He saw the cape since called Cape Horn, and anchored there: he gave the name of Elizabethides to all the islands lying in the neighborhood. As he neither doubled nor named this cape, it remained for the daring navigators Schouten and Lemaire to demonstrate its importance, by passing around it from one ocean into the other, which Drake, it will be observed, had not done. He went ashore, however, and, leaning over a rock which extended the farthest into the sea, returned to the ship and told the crew that he had been farther south than any man living. He anchored at the island of Mocha on the 29th of November, having coasted for four weeks to the northward along the South American shore. He landed with ten men, and was attacked by the Indians, who took them for Spaniards. Two of his men were killed, all of them disabled, and he himself badly wounded with an arrow under the right eye. Not one of the assailants was hurt. Drake made no attempt to take vengeance for this unprovoked attack, as it was evident it was begun under the mistaken idea that they were Spaniards, whose atrocities had made every native of the country their enemy. He sailed for Peru on the same day.
Early in December he learned, from an Indian who was found fishing in his canoe, that he had passed twenty miles beyond the port of Valhario,—now Valparaiso; and that in this port lay a Spanish ship well laden. Drake sailed for this place, where he found the ship riding at anchor, with eight Spaniards and three negroes on board. These, taking the new-comers for friends,—for the Spaniards had never yet seen an enemy in this ocean,—welcomed them with drum and trumpet, and opened a jar of Chili wine in which to drink their health. Thomas Moore, the former captain of the Christopher pinnace, was the first to board the unsuspecting craft. He laid lustily about him, upon which the principal Spaniard crossed himself and jumped overboard. The rest were easily secured under the hatches. The prize was rifled, and one thousand seven hundred and seventy jars of Chili wine, sixty thousand pieces of gold, and a number of strings of pearls, were taken from her. The miserable town, consisting of nine families, who at once fled to the interior, was next ransacked. A poor little church was robbed of a silver chalice, two cruets, and a cloth with which the altar was spread. A warehouse was forced to disgorge its store of Chili wine and cedar planks. Thus did Drake, armed with the sanction of Elizabeth, Queen of England, plunder a handful of inoffensive men securely anchored in a peaceful roadstead, who saluted their coming with music and with wine. Thus did Drake commit sacrilege in a Christian church, and furnish the mess-room of his ship from the spoils of a Catholic altar. Even Southey admits that, in this affair, Drake deserves no other name than that of pirate. And we shall see that he deserved it equally well throughout his stay upon the coast.