An event occurred while the fleet lay at Port San Julian, which has cast a deep shade of suspicion over the character of Drake. This was the execution of Thomas Doughty, accused of mutiny and a conspiracy to massacre Drake and the principal officers. We leave the young reader to investigate the matter in other works, and proceed with our abridged narrative.
After breaking up the Portuguese prize and reducing the number of ships to three, they again set sail on the 17th of August—the weather being colder than midwinter in Britain—and on the 24th anchored thirty leagues within the Strait of Magellan. Here Drake changed the name of his ship, the Pelican, to the Golden Hind, in compliment to his friend, Sir Christopher Hatton, in whose escutcheon the golden hind is said to have had a place. While passing through the strait, which they computed to be 110 leagues in length, they noted that the width varied from one league to four; that the tide set in from each end of the strait and met about the middle; and they also killed 3000 “of birds having no wings, but short pineons which serve their turne in swimming.” These penguins, as they undoubtedly were, are also described as being “fat as an English goose.”
On the 6th of September, 1578, Drake and his gallant crew sailed their ships on the great Pacific. Magellan had passed through the strait in 1520, and but two other voyagers had performed the passage after Magellan, and before Drake.
A north-east passage was one main object contemplated by Drake; and accordingly, on clearing the strait, he held a north-west course, and in two days the fleet advanced seventy leagues. A violent gale from the north-east now drove them into 57° south latitude and 200 leagues to the west. Under bare poles they scudded before the tempest, and observed an eclipse of the moon on the 15th of September; “but,” says a narrator, in Hakluyt, “neyther did the eclipticall conflict of the moon impayre our state, nor her clearing againe amend us a whit, but the accustomed eclipse of the sea continued in his force, wee being darkened more than the moone sevenfold.” After a short season of moderate weather, another tempest separated from them the ship Marygold, and she was never more heard of. The Golden Hind and Elizabeth were now left to pursue the voyage; but on being driven back to the western entrance of the strait, Winter, the commander of the Elizabeth, heartily tired of the voyage, slipped away from Drake and returned to England. He reached this country in June, 1579, with the credit of having achieved the navigation of the Straits of Magellan, but with the shame of having deserted his commander.
The gallant Drake in the Golden Hind had stormy weather to encounter for some time after, and was driven so far south as to anchor in a creek at Cape Horn, and thus became the discoverer of that southern point of the entire continent of America.
The wind changing he steered northwards, and on the 25th of November, 1578, anchored near the coast of Chili, where he had another collision with the natives and lost two of his men. Soon afterwards they fell in with a people of more friendly manners, and learned that they had oversailed Valparaiso, the port of San Jago, where a Spanish ship lay at anchor. They put back and took the ship, called the Grand Captain of the South, in which were 60,000 pesos of gold, besides jewels, merchandise, and a good store of Chili wine. Each peso was valued at eight shillings. They rejoiced over their plunder; but in our own times such an act would be deemed a piracy. Nine families inhabited Valparaiso, but they fled, and the English revelled in the pillage of wine, bread, bacon, and other luxuries to men long accustomed to hard fare. They plundered the church also of a silver chalice, two cruets, and an altar-cloth, and presented them to the chaplain of the vessel.
On the 19th of January, 1579, after some period of rest in a harbour, they pursued their voyage along the coast, and accidentally landing at Tarapaza, they found a Spaniard asleep on the shore with thirteen bars of silver lying beside him. “We took the silver and left the man,” says the relator. A little farther on a party which was sent ashore to procure water fell in with a Spaniard and a native boy driving eight llamas, each of which was laden with two leathern bags containing fifty pounds of silver, or eight hundred in all. They not only took on board the llamas and the silver, but soon after fell in with three small barks quite empty (the crews being on shore), save that they found in them fifty-seven wedges of silver, each weighing twenty pounds. They took the silver and set the barks adrift. After some other trifling adventures they learned that the Cacafuego, a ship laden with gold and silver, had just sailed for Panama, the point whence all goods were carried by the Spaniards across the isthmus. Away they bore in search of this ship, but were near being overtaken by a superior force of Spaniards in two ships. Escaping, they passed Payta, and learned that the Cacafuego had the start of them but two days. Two other vessels were next taken, with some silver, eighty pounds of gold, and a golden crucifix “with goodly great emerauds set in it.” The Cacafuego was at length overtaken and captured: the ship contained twenty-six tons of silver, thirteen chests of rials of plate, and eighty pounds of gold, besides diamonds and inferior gems, the whole estimated at 360,000 pesos. The uncoined silver alone found in the vessel may be estimated at 212,000l., at five shillings an ounce.
It seems questionable whether, when thus richly laden, Drake would have thought of encompassing the globe if he could have assured himself of a safe voyage to England by returning through the Straits of Magellan. He knew that the Spaniards would be on the alert to recover the treasure, and so resolved to seek a north-east passage homeward. After remaining a short time in a safe harbour to repair the ship, he commenced the voyage once more. Delays were made for plunder and prizetaking until the 26th of April, when Drake stood boldly out to sea, and by the 3rd of June had sailed 1400 leagues on different courses without seeing land. He had now reached 42° north latitude, and the cold was felt severely. On the 5th, being driven by a gale, land was seen, to the surprise of Drake, who had not calculated that the continent stretched so far westward. The adventurers were now coasting the western margin of California.
They anchored at length in 38° 30´ north latitude, and were soon surrounded with native Indians, who, among other remarkable things, offered them tabah, or tobacco. Drake spent thirty-six days here for completing the repairs of his ship, took possession of the country formally, by erecting a monument and fixing a brass plate upon it, bearing the name, effigy, and arms of Queen Elizabeth, and called the country New Albion. To the port in which they had anchored he gave his own name, and on the 23rd of July bore away direct west as possible across the Pacific, with the intent to reach England by India and the Cape of Good Hope.
No land was seen by the gallant men on board this little ship for sixty-eight days. On the 30th of September they fell in with some islands in 8° north latitude, which they termed the Isle of Thieves, from the dishonest disposition of the natives. On the 16th of October they reached the Philippines, and anchored at Mindanao. On the 3rd of November the Moluccas were seen, and they soon anchored before the chief town of Ternate, entered into civil gossip with the natives, and were visited by the king, “a true gentleman Pagan.” Among the presents received from this royal person were fowls, rice, sugar, cloves, figs, and “a sort of meale which they call sagu, made of the tops of certaine trees, tasting in the mouth like soure curds, but melteth like sugar, whereof they make certaine cakes, which may be kept the space of ten yeeres and yet then good to be eaten.” Brilliant offers were made by the Sultan of Ternate; but Drake was shy of them, and on the 9th of November, having taken in a large quantity of cloves, the Golden Hind left the Moluccas.