They then rowed up the river and rescued the others, and brought back such of the treasure as they had been able to carry with them, and all returned to the ships by dawn. There Drake divided the treasure equally by weight between the French and the English. During the next fortnight everything was set in order, and the Pascha given to the Spanish prisoners to go home in. Meanwhile a party was sent out to try and rescue the French captain and to seek for the buried treasure. One only of the Frenchmen managed to escape and was saved. Much of the treasure had been discovered by the Spaniards, but not all, and the party returned very cheerful, with thirteen bars of silver and a few quoits of gold. The Frenchmen now left them, having got their shares of the treasure. The ships parted when passing close by Cartagena, which they did in the sight of all the fleet, “with a flag of St. George on the main top of the frigate, with silk streamers and ancients (national flags) down to the water.”
Later on they anchored to trim and rig the frigates and stow away the provisions, and they tore up and burnt the pinnaces so that the Maroons might have the ironwork. One of the last days Drake desired Pedro and three of the chief Maroons to go through both his frigates and see what they liked. He promised to give them whatever they asked, unless he could not get back to England without it. But Pedro set his heart on the scimitar which the French captain had given to Drake; and knowing Drake liked it no less, he dared not ask for it or praise it. But at last he bribed one of the company to ask for him, with a fine quoit of gold, and promised to give four others to Drake. Drake was sorry, but he wished to please Pedro, who deserved so well, so he gave it to him with many good words. Pedro received it with no little joy, and asked Drake to accept the four pieces of gold, as a token of his thankfulness and a pledge of his faithfulness through life. He received it graciously, but did not keep it for himself but caused it to be cast into the whole adventure, saying that “if he had not been helped to that place he would never have got such a thing, and it was only just that those who shared his burden in setting him to sea should enjoy a share of the benefits.”
“Thus with good love and liking, we took our leave of that people. We took many ships during our abode in those parts, yet never burnt nor sunk any, unless they acted as men-of-war against us, or tried to trap us. And of all the men taken in those vessels, we never offered any kind of violence to any, after they were once come into our power. For we either dismissed them in safety, or kept them with us some longer time. If so, we provided for them as for ourselves, and secured them from the rage of the Maroons against them, till at last, the danger of their discovering where our ships lay being past, for which cause only we kept them prisoners, we set them also free.
“We now intended to sail home the directest and speediest way, and this we happily performed, even beyond our own expectations, and so arrived at Plymouth, on Sunday about sermon-time, August the 9th, 1573.
“And the news of our Captain’s return being brought unto his people, did so speedily pass over all the church, and fill their minds with delight and desire to see him, that very few or none remained with the preacher. All hastened to see the evidence of God’s love and blessing towards our gracious Queen and country by the fruit of our Captain’s labour and success.
“TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY.”
CHAPTER VII
ROUND THE WORLD
So we see that both of Drake’s ships, the Pascha and the Swan, were left behind in the West Indies, and he made a quick voyage home in the well-built Spanish frigate. We hear nothing of Drake for two years after his return to Plymouth. There is a legend that he kept on the seas near Ireland. Elizabeth was still unable and unwilling to go to war with the King of Spain, but she was willing to encourage the sort of warfare that Drake and the other rovers had so successfully carried on against him.
Such companies of adventurers as these that sailed under Drake and Hawkins did a large part of the work of the navy in the time of Elizabeth. The country was saved the expense which private persons were willing to pay to furnish the ships. The Queen herself is known to have shared in the expenses and plunder of some such expeditions, and so she thriftily laid up treasure in England’s empty money-chests. But some of her older councillors disliked exceedingly this way of getting rich, and would rather it had been done openly in war, or not at all.
To Drake it seems to have been a very simple affair. He wished, in the first place, as the old book says, “to lick himself whole of the damage he had received from the Spaniards.” So he acted in pirate-fashion to the Spaniards, but not to the French or to the natives of the West Indies. And Drake considered his own cause so just that he never made a secret of his doings. He went at his own risk, for should he be taken by the enemy his country had no power to protect him, as she was not openly at war with Spain. But, on the other hand, he was secretly encouraged, and his gains were immense.