INTRODUCTION
Which is the greatest name upon the roll of English ships? Which is the most sure of a lasting and effectual renown? There was a day when all England would have given but one answer. If you ask the Elizabethan of 1580, you will find him very positive upon the point, and not a little exalted. Drawn round the world by the Divine
Hand, under the Northern and Southern Pole stars, victor over a hundred enemies, ballasted with royal treasure, & steered by the captured charts of Spanish Admirals, the little ship that sailed as the Pelican, comes home again as the Golden Hind. She brings her fabulous booty and her still more fabulous romance from Plymouth Sound to Deptford, and then and there the great names of the past—the Christophers, the Great Harrys, the Dragons and the Swans—are all finally eclipsed. Drake, kneeling upon her deck, receives his knighthood from the hand of Gloriana, and the Golden Hind herself, bidding farewell for ever to wind and wave, is laid up as a national monument—“consecrated to perpetuall Memory.”