The Story of Sir Francis Drake

by Letitia MacColl Elton

After a week spent in capturing ships, the fleet anchored at the Bayona Islands, off Vigo Bay. The Governor of Bayona was forced to make terms. He sent “some refreshing, as bread, wine, oil, apples, grapes, and marmalade, and such like.” The people, filled with terror, were seen to remove their possessions into boats to go up the Vigo River, inland, for safety. Many of these were seized; most of them were loaded only with household stuff, but one contained the “church stuff of the high church of Vigo ... a great cross of silver of very fair embossed work and double-gilt all over, having cost them a great mass of money.”

The fleet now went on its way by the Canary Islands. When Santiago was reached, Carleill landed with a thousand troops and took possession of the fortress and the town, for both had been forsaken. Here they planted the great flag, “which had nothing on it but the plain English cross; and it was placed towards the sea, that our fleet might see St. George’s Cross flourish in the enemy’s fortress.” Guns were found ready loaded in various places about the town, and orders were given that these should be shot off “in honour of the Queen’s Majesty’s Coronation day, being the 17th of November, after the yearly custom in England. These were so answered again by the guns out of all the ships in the fleet, as it was strange to hear such a thundering noise last so long together.” No treasure was taken at Santiago, but there was food and wine. The town was given to the flames in revenge for wrongs done to old William Hawkins of Plymouth some years before.

They had not been many days at sea before a mortal sickness suddenly broke out among the men. They anchored off some islands, where the Indians treated them very kindly, carried fresh water to the ships, and gave them food and tobacco. The tobacco was a welcome gift, to be used against the infection of the mysterious sickness which was killing the men by hundreds. They passed Christmas on an island to refresh the sick and cleanse and air the ships.

Then Drake resolved, with the consent of his council, to attack the city of St. Domingo, while his forces were “in their best strength.” This was the oldest and most important city in the Indies, and was famous for its beauty and strength. It had never been attempted before, although it was so rich, because it was strongly fortified.

Some boats were sent on in advance of the fleet. They learned from a pilot, whose boat they captured, that the Castle of St. Domingo was well armed, and that it was almost impossible to land on the dangerous coast; but he showed them a possible point ten miles from the harbour. In some way Drake had sent messages to the Maroons, who lived on the hills behind the town. At midnight, on New Year’s Day, the soldiers were landed, Drake himself steering a boat through the surf. The Maroons met them, having killed the Spanish watchman.

“Our General, having seen us all landed in safety to the west of that brave city of St. Domingo, returned to his fleet, bequeathing us to God and the good conduct of Master Carleill, our Lieutenant-General.”

The troops divided and met in the market-place; and as those in the castle were preparing to meet Drake’s attack from the sea, they were surprised from behind by the soldiers marching upon them with flags flying and music playing. The fleet ceased firing while the fate of the town was decided in a battle. By night Drake was in possession of the castle, the harbour, and shipping. One of the ships captured they named the New Year’s Gift.

But after all there was little of the fabled treasure to be found. The labour in the gold and silver mines had killed the native Indians, and the mines were no longer worked. There was plenty of food and wine to be had, woollen and linen cloth and silk. But there was little silver; the rich people used dishes of china and cups of glass, and their beautiful furniture was useless as plunder. The town had to pay a large sum of money for its ransom, and the English stayed a month, and fed at its expense, and took away with them guns and merchandise and food and numbers of galley-slaves, whom they set free.

Cartagena, the capital of the Spanish Main, was the last town to be taken, and it had been warned. It had natural defences, which made it very difficult to attack. Drake, as we know, had been there before, and often, since then, he must have dreamed of taking it. He triumphantly steered his fleet by a very difficult channel into the outer harbour. He then threatened the fort with his guns while the soldiers were secretly landed by night. They made their way to the town by the shore, “wading in the sea-wash,” and so avoiding the poisoned stakes which had been placed in the ground in readiness for them. They also routed a company of horse soldiers sent out from the fort, as the place where they met was so “woody and scrubby” as to be unfit for horses. So they pushed on till they made a “furious entry” into the town, nor paused till the market-place was won, and the people fled into the country, where they had already sent their wives and children.

A large price or ransom was paid for this town, equal, it is said, to a quarter of a million of our money; but it was far less than Drake had at first demanded. But “the inconvenience of continual death” forced them to go, for the sickness was still taking its prey from among the men, and it also forced them to give up an attempt upon Nombre de Dios and Panama. The voyage had been disappointing in the matter of plunder. Most of the treasure had been taken away from the towns before the English came, and many of the officers had died.