Since the Balmaceda revolt Chile has enjoyed complete internal and external peace, the administration of the country remaining in civilian hands and following the normal course of electoral changes.
CHAPTER III
STRANGERS ON THE PACIFIC COAST
Drake and the “Golden Hind.”—Thomas Cavendish.—The Narborough Expedition.—Sharp and Dampier.—Captain Betagh.—The Loss of the “Wager.”—Juan and Ulloa.—Resident Foreigners.—Strangers and Independence.
From the time when she planted her first colonies on the West Coast of South America Spain did her utmost to keep strangers from those shores or from any knowledge of them. A veil of mystery hung over the Pacific, torn aside roughly when Drake’s little vessel weathered the furies of the Magellanic Strait and the resounding tale was published broadcast throughout Europe.
There is no reason to doubt the historic truth of Drake’s words as repeated by the gallant Captain John Oxenham—that, viewing the Pacific from a hill on the Isthmus of Panama during his famous raid upon Nombre de Dios in 1572, Drake “besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship in that sea.” The Devonshire sailor undoubtedly urged repeatedly in England, after that time, that reprisals for Spanish injuries inflicted upon England could be best made by direct attack, and as he told Queen Elizabeth, small good could be done by attempts on Spain herself, but that as all Philip’s wealth was drawn from overseas “the only way to annoy him was by his Indyes.” The Queen, however, did not consent to such strokes until after Philip had tried to raise a rebellion in Ireland and actually landed forces there; both she and her envoys had in mind, not only a blow at Spanish prestige, and “some of their silver and gold which they got out of the earth and sent to Spain to trouble all the world,” but the extension of the Protestant faith and the glory of England by the conquest and settlement of wild lands. The evidence of Oxenham and Butler before the Inquisition in Lima in 1579 proves that Drake intended to colonise if he could, “because in England there are many inhabitants and but little land.” When, on leaving the coasts of Mexico, he sailed farther north, landed after entering the Golden Gate and claimed “Nova Albion” for the Queen, he felt completely justified because “the Spaniards never had any dealing, or so much as set a foot, in this country, only to many degrees southward of this place.” San Francisco stands today on the spot where Drake’s chaplain held service; the map, still extant, of Drake’s correction, show that he foresaw the time when English-speaking colonies would dispute with Spain, France and Portugal possession of the Americas.
Armed with Elizabeth’s formal commission, her own sword, and the title of Captain-General, Drake sailed from Plymouth on November 15, 1577, with five ships, of which the largest was the Pelican, of only 100 tons, but very strongly built. Officers and crew totalled about 164, and among them was his cousin John Drake, then a clever lad of fourteen years. A storm compelled them to put into Falmouth, and after repairs they sailed again on December 13. Land was first touched at Cape Mogador; thence the little fleet sailed to Cape Blanco, where they took a Portuguese ship with a store of fish and biscuit; to Cape Verde, where a Spanish merchantman’s load of cloth was seized; next to the river Plate, for water and wood, on April 27, 1578, and on to Port San Julian, where Magellan had executed mutineers, and where, for the same crime of mutiny, Drake beheaded Thomas Doughty. The master-gunner Oliver was killed here by Patagonians, and during the two-months’ stay the Portuguese prize, the Maria, as well as the Christopher and the Swan were broken up. The weather was cold and the expedition was sorely in need of firewood.
Sailing south, they sighted the entrance of the Strait on August 17, naming one of the three islands off the south shore “Elizabeth Island.” The Strait was actually entered on the twenty-first of August, with winter well advanced. They saw no Indians at first, but quantities of the smoke from the innumerable fires that gave the great island on the south its original name of “Land of Smoke.” At Penguin Island they stopped to kill and salt a supply of birds, the Purchas account of the voyage stating: “This Strait is extreme cold with Frost and Snow continually: the Trees seeme to stoope with the burthen of the Weather and yet are greene continually; and many good and sweet Herbes doe very plentifully grow and increase under them.”
At the passage’s western end the weather was so furious that the Marigold sank with all hands. The captain of the Elizabeth put his ship about and deserted, fleeing back through the Strait for England, where he was promptly sent to prison. With the loss of a pinnace, whose one survivor, Peter Carder, a Cornishman, eventually made his way back to England in 1586, after terrible sufferings in Patagonia and Brazil, Drake had only his own flagship, the Pelican, whose name he now changed to the Golden Hind. About 80 men remained, half of the number who had set out from Plymouth.
Driven down to the sixty-sixth degree of south latitude, 14 degrees south of the western opening of the Strait, Drake put about as soon as the terrible gales permitted and ran north outside the channels and archipelagos of South Chile. They saw Valdivia, or rather, Corral, but did not enter, anchoring first at the island of Mocha, in about 38 degrees, almost opposite the present Traiguen. Here a party went ashore to get water, but were fiercely assailed by well-armed Indians, who wounded every man of the English company, some receiving over twenty arrows. Returning hastily, the party left two men behind, and three others died of their wounds on board.
Sailing farther north in search of Valparaiso, they overshot the entrance, but discovered their mistake when they anchored in the bay of Quintero, 18 miles to the north, and found an intelligent Indian, who told them of a Spanish ship then lying off Valparaiso. Him they took as a guide, and returning boldly sailed into and anchored in the bay at high noon of December 5, 1578. At anchor also they saw La Capitana (“the flagship”) in which Pedro Sarmiento had a few years previously made his famous voyage of discovery to the Solomons. The Spaniards aboard the Capitana, never dreaming that a vessel in the Pacific could be other than Spanish, hailed and welcomed them. Drake sent a boarding party, which rudely awakened their hosts when one Thomas Moon began to lay about him, struck a Spaniard and said to him (says the Purchas account) “Abaxo Perro, that is in English, Goe downe Dogge.” The Spaniards were put under hatches, a prize crew sent aboard, and going ashore and breaking open the warehouse Drake added 1700 jars of wine, and stores of salt pork and flour, to the treasure he had found in the Capitana, amounting to 24,000 pesos of the “very fine and pure gold of Baldivia,” due for shipment to Peru. One Spanish sailor pluckily swam ashore and warned the inhabitants of the settlement; there were but nine households, and the people abandoned the place to the English, who found little to loot but the silver ornaments from the chapel. Two days later they weighed anchor and returned to Quintero, where the friendly Indian was set ashore with gifts, and Drake set his course for more northerly ports, using the sea-chart of the Capitana’s pilot.