ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS

A CHRONICLE OF DRAKE AND HIS COMPANIONS

BY WILLIAM WOOD

_1918, Yale University Press_

Printed in the United States of America

PREFATORY NOTE

Citizen, colonist, pioneer! These three words carry the history of theUnited States back to its earliest form in 'the Newe Worlde calledAmerica. ' But who prepared the way for the pioneers from the Old Worldand what ensured their safety in the New? The title of the presentvolume, _Elizabethan Sea-Dogs_, gives the only answer. It was during thereign of Elizabeth, the last of the Tudor sovereigns of England, thatEnglishmen won the command of the sea under the consummate leadership ofSir Francis Drake, the first of modern admirals. Drake and hiscompanions are known to fame as Sea-Dogs. They won the English right ofway into Spain's New World. And Anglo-American history begins with thatcentury of maritime adventure and naval war in which English sailorsblazed and secured the long sea-trail for the men of every other kindwho found or sought their fortunes in America. 

CONTENTS

I. ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK Page 1

II. HENRY VIII, KING OF THE ENGLISH SEA " 18

III. LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES " 33

IV. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND " 48

V. HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS " 71

VI. DRAKE'S BEGINNING " 95

VII. DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE' " 115

VIII. DRAKE CLIPS THE WINGS OF SPAIN " 149

IX. DRAKE AND THE SPANISH ARMADA " 172

X. 'THE ONE AND THE FIFTY-THREE' " 192

XI. RALEIGH AND THE VISION OF THE WEST " 205

XII. DRAKE'S END " 223

NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING " 231

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 241

INDEX " 247

ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS

CHAPTER I

ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK

In the early spring of 1476 the Italian Giovanni Caboto, who, likeChristopher Columbus, was a seafaring citizen of Genoa, transferred hisallegiance to Venice. 

The Roman Empire had fallen a thousand years before. Rome now heldtemporal sway only over the States of the Church, which were weak inarmed force, even when compared with the small republics, dukedoms, andprincipalities which lay north and south. But Papal Rome, as the headand heart of a spiritual empire, was still a world-power; and thedisunited Italian states were first in the commercial enterprise of theage as well as in the glories of the Renaissance. North of the Papaldomain, which cut the peninsula in two parts, stood three renownedItalian cities: Florence, the capital of Tuscany, leading the world inarts; Genoa, the home of Caboto and Columbus, teaching the world thescience of navigation; and Venice, mistress of the great trade routebetween Europe and Asia, controlling the world's commerce. 

Thus, in becoming a citizen of Venice, Giovanni Caboto the Genoese wasleaving the best home of scientific navigation for the best home ofsea-borne trade. His very name was no bad credential. Surnames oftencome from nicknames; and for a Genoese to be called _Il Caboto_ was asmuch as for an Arab of the Desert to be known to his people as TheHorseman. _Cabottággio_ now means no more than coasting trade. Butbefore there was any real ocean commerce it referred to the regularsea-borne trade of the time; and Giovanni Caboto must have either upheldan exceptional family tradition or struck out an exceptional line forhimself to have been known as John the Skipper among the many otherexpert skippers hailing from the port of Genoa. 

There was nothing strange in his being naturalized in Venice. Patriotismof the kind that keeps the citizen under the flag of his own countrywas hardly known outside of England, France, and Spain. Though theItalian states used to fight each other, an individual Italian, especially when he was a sailor, always felt at liberty to seek hisfortune in any one of them, or wherever he found his chance mosttempting. So the Genoese Giovanni became the Venetian Zuan without anypatriotic wrench. Nor was even the vastly greater change to plain JohnCabot so very startling. Italian experts entered the service of aforeign monarch as easily as did the 'pay-fighting Swiss' or Hessianmercenaries. Columbus entered the Spanish service under Ferdinand andIsabella just as Cabot entered the English service under Henry VII. Giovanni--Zuan--John: it was all in a good day's work. 

Cabot settled in Bristol, where the still existing guild ofMerchant-Venturers was even then two centuries old. Columbus, writing ofhis visit to Iceland, says, 'the English, _especially those of Bristol_, go there with their merchandise. ' Iceland was then what Newfoundlandbecame, the best of distant fishing grounds. It marked one end of theline of English sea-borne commerce. The Levant marked the other. TheBaltic formed an important branch. Thus English trade already stretchedout over all the main lines. Long before Cabot's arrival a merchantprince of Bristol, named Canyng, who employed a hundred artificers andeight hundred seamen, was trading to Iceland, to the Baltic, and, mostof all, to the Mediterranean. The trade with Italian ports stood in highfavor among English merchants and was encouraged by the King; for in1485, the first year of the Tudor dynasty, an English consul took officeat Pisa and England made a treaty of reciprocity with Tuscany. 

Henry VII, first of the energetic Tudors and grandfather of QueenElizabeth, was a thrifty and practical man. Some years before the eventabout to be recorded in these pages Columbus had sent him a trustedbrother with maps, globes, and quotations from Plato to prove theexistence of lands to the west. Henry had troubles of his own inEngland. So he turned a deaf ear and lost a New World. But afterColumbus had found America, and the Pope had divided all heathencountries between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, Henry decided to seewhat he could do. 

 * * * * *

Anglo-American history begins on the 5th of March, 1496, when theCabots, father and three sons, received the following patent from theKing:

_Henrie, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord ofIrelande, to all, to whom these presentes shall come, Greeting--Be itknowen, that We have given and granted, and by these presentes do giveand grant for Us and Our Heyres, to our well beloved John Gabote, citizen of Venice, to Lewes, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the saydeJohn, and to the heires of them and every of them, and their deputies, full and free authoritie, leave, and Power, to sayle to all Partes, Countreys, and Seas, of the East, of the West, and of the North, underour banners and ensignes, with five shippes, of what burden or quantitiesoever they bee: and as many mariners or men as they will have with themin the saide shippes, upon their owne proper costes and charges, toseeke out, discover, and finde, whatsoever Iles, Countreyes, Regions, orProvinces, of the Heathennes and Infidelles, whatsoever they bee, and inwhat part of the worlde soever they bee, whiche before this time havebeen unknowen to all Christians. We have granted to them also, and toevery of them, the heires of them, and every of them, and theirdeputies, and have given them licence to set up Our banners and ensignesin every village, towne, castel, yle, or maine lande, of them newlyfounde. And that the aforesaide John and his sonnes, or their heires andassignes, may subdue, occupie, and possesse, all such townes, cities, castels, and yles, of them founde, which they can subdue, occupie, andpossesse, as our vassailes and lieutenantes, getting unto Us the rule, title, and jurisdiction of the same villages, townes, castels, and firmelande so founde. _

The patent then goes on to provide for a royalty to His Majesty ofone-fifth of the net profits, to exempt the patentees from custom duty, to exclude competition, and to exhort good subjects of the Crown to helpthe Cabots in every possible way. This first of all English documentsconnected with America ends with these words: _Witnesse our Selfe atWestminster, the Fifth day of March, in the XI yeere of our reigne. HENRY R. _

 * * * * *

_To sayle to all Partes of the East, of the West, and of the North_. Thepointed omission of the word South made it clear that Henry had nointention of infringing Spanish rights of discovery. Spanish claims, however, were based on the Pope's division of all the heathen world andwere by no means bounded by any rights of discovery already acquired. 

Cabot left Bristol in the spring of 1497, a year after the date of hispatent, not with the 'five shippes' the King had authorized, but in thelittle _Matthew_, with a crew of only eighteen men, nearly allEnglishmen accustomed to the North Atlantic. The _Matthew_ made CapeBreton, the easternmost point of Nova Scotia, on the 24th of June, theanniversary of St. John the Baptist, now the racial fête-day of theFrench Canadians. Not a single human inhabitant was to be seen in thiswild new land, shaggy with forests primeval, fronted with bold, scarpedshores, and beautiful with romantic deep bays leading inland, leagueupon league, past rugged forelands and rocky battlements keeping guardat the frontiers of the continent. Over these mysterious wilds Cabotraised St. George's Cross for England and the banner of St. Mark insouvenir of Venice. Had he now reached the fabled islands of the West ordiscovered other islands off the eastern coast of Tartary? He did notknow. But he hurried back to Bristol with the news and was welcomed bythe King and people. A Venetian in London wrote home to say that 'thisfellow-citizen of ours, who went from Bristol in quest of new islands, is Zuan Caboto, whom the English now call a great admiral. He dressesin silk; they pay him great honour; and everyone runs after him likemad. ' The Spanish ambassador was full of suspicion, in spite of the factthat Cabot had not gone south. Had not His Holiness divided allHeathendom between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, to Spain the Westand to Portugal the East; and was not this landfall within what themodern world would call the Spanish sphere of influence? The ambassadorprotested to Henry VII and reported home to Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Henry VII meanwhile sent a little present 'To Hym that founde the newIsle--£10. ' It was not very much. But it was about as much as nearly athousand dollars now; and it meant full recognition and approval. Thiswas a good start for a man who couldn't pay the King any royalty oftwenty per cent. Because he hadn't made a penny on the way. Besides, itwas followed up by a royal annuity of twice the amount and by renewedletters-patent for further voyages and discoveries in the west. So Cabottook good fortune at the flood and went again. 

This time there was the full authorized flotilla of five sail, of whichone turned back and four sailed on. Somewhere on the way John Cabotdisappeared from history and his second son, Sebastian, reigned in hisstead. Sebastian, like John, apparently wrote nothing whatever. But hetalked a great deal; and in after years he seems to have remembered agood many things that never happened at all. Nevertheless he was a veryable man in several capacities and could teach a courtier or ademagogue, as well as a geographer or exploiter of new claims, the artof climbing over other people's backs, his father's and his brothers'backs included. He had his troubles; for King Henry had pressed upon himrecruits from the gaols, which just then were full of rebels. But he hadenough seamen to manage the ships and plenty of cargo for trade with theundiscovered natives. 

Sebastian perhaps left some of his three hundred men to exploreNewfoundland. He knew they couldn't starve because, as he often used totell his gaping listeners, the waters thereabouts were so thick withcodfish that he had hard work to force his vessels through. This firstof American fish stories, wildly improbable as it may seem, may yet havebeen founded on fact. When acres upon acres of the countless littlecapelin swim inshore to feed, and they themselves are preyed on byleaping acres of voracious cod, whose own rear ranks are being preyed onby hungry seals, sharks, herring-hogs, or dogfish, then indeed thetroubled surface of a narrowing bay is literally thick with the silveryflash of capelin, the dark tumultuous backs of cod, and the swirlingrushes of the greater beasts of prey behind. Nor were certain other fishstories, told by Sebastian and his successors about the land of cod, without some strange truths to build on. Cod have been caught as long asa man and weighing over a hundred pounds. A whole hare, a big guillemotwith his beak and claws, a brace of duck so fresh that they must havebeen swallowed alive, a rubber wading boot, and a very learned treatisecomplete in three volumes--these are a few of the curiosities actuallyfound in sundry stomachs of the all-devouring cod. 

The new-found cod banks were a mine of wealth for western Europe at atime when everyone ate fish on fast days. They have remained so eversince because the enormous increase of population has kept up aconstantly increasing demand for natural supplies of food. Basques andEnglish, Spaniards, French, and Portuguese, were presently fishing forcod all round the waters of northeastern North America and were eventhen beginning to raise questions of national rights that have only beensettled in this twentieth century after four hundred years. 

Following the coast of Greenland past Cape Farewell, Sebastian Cabotturned north to look for the nearest course to India and Cathay, thelands of silks and spices, diamonds, rubies, pearls, and gold. JohnCabot had once been as far as Mecca or its neighborhood, where he hadseen the caravans that came across the Desert of Arabia from the fabledEast. Believing the proof that the world was round, he, like Columbusand so many more, thought America was either the eastern limits of theOld World or an archipelago between the extremest east and west alreadyknown. Thus, in the early days before it was valued for itself, Americawas commonly regarded as a mere obstruction to navigation--the moresolid the more exasperating. Now, in 1498, on his second voyage toAmerica, John Cabot must have been particularly anxious to get throughand show the King some better return for his money. But he simplydisappears; and all we know is what various writers gleaned from his sonSebastian later on. 

Sebastian said he coasted Greenland, through vast quantities ofmidsummer ice, until he reached 67° 30' north, where there was hardlyany night. Then he turned back and probably steered a southerly coursefor Newfoundland, as he appears to have completely missed what wouldhave seemed to him the tempting way to Asia offered by Hudson Strait andBay. Passing Newfoundland, he stood on south as far as the Virginiacapes, perhaps down as far as Florida. A few natives were caught. But noreal trade was done. And when the explorers had reported progress to theKing the general opinion was that North America was nothing to boast of, after all. 

A generation later the French sent out several expeditions to sailthrough North America and make discoveries by the way. Jacques Cartier'ssecond, made in 1535, was the greatest and most successful. He went upthe St. Lawrence as high as the site of Montreal, the head of oceannavigation, where, a hundred and forty years later, the local witscalled La Salle's seigneury 'La Chine' in derision of his unquenchablebelief in a transcontinental connection with Cathay. 

But that was under the wholly new conditions of the seventeenth century, when both French and English expected to make something out of what arenow the United States and Canada. The point of the witling joke againstLa Salle was a new version of the old adage: Go farther and fare worse. The point of European opinion about America throughout the wonderfulsixteenth century was that those who did go farther north than Mexicowere certain to fare worse. And--whatever the cause--they generally did. So there was yet a third reason why the fame of Columbus eclipsed thefame of the Cabots even among those English-speaking peoples whoseNew-World home the Cabots were the first to find. To begin with, Columbus was the first of moderns to discover any spot in all America. Secondly, while the Cabots gave no writings to the world, Columbus did. He wrote for a mighty monarch and his fame was spread abroad by what weshould now call a monster publicity campaign. Thirdly, our presentpoint: the southern lands associated with Columbus and with Spainyielded immense and most romantic profits during the most romanticperiod of the sixteenth century. The northern lands connected with theCabots did nothing of the kind. 

Priority, publicity, and romantic wealth all favored Columbus and thesouth then as the memory of them does to-day. The four hundredthanniversary of his discovery of an island in the Bahamas excited theinterest of the whole world and was celebrated with great enthusiasm inthe United States. The four hundredth anniversary of the Cabots'discovery of North America excited no interest at all outside of Bristoland Cape Breton and a few learned societies. Even contemporary Spain didmore for the Cabots than that. The Spanish ambassador in Londoncarefully collected every scrap of information and sent it home to hisking, who turned it over as material for Juan de la Cosa's famous map, the first dated map of America known. This map, made in 1500 on abullock's hide, still occupies a place of honor in the Naval Museum atMadrid; and there it stands as a contemporary geographic record to showthat St. George's Cross was the first flag ever raised over easternNorth America, at all events north of Cape Hatteras. 

The Cabots did great things though they were not great men. John, as wehave seen already, sailed out of the ken of man in 1498 during hissecond voyage. Sly Sebastian lived on and almost saw Elizabeth ascendthe throne in 1558. He had made many voyages and served many masters inthe meantime. In 1512 he entered the service of King Ferdinand of Spainas a 'Captain of the Sea' with a handsome salary attached. Six yearslater the Emperor Charles V made him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner ofPilots. ' Another six years and he is sitting as a nautical assessor tofind out the longitude of the Moluccas in order that the Pope may knowwhether they fall within the Portuguese or Spanish hemisphere ofexploitation. Presently he goes on a four years' journey to SouthAmerica, is hindered by a mutiny, explores the River Plate (La Plata), and returns in 1530, about the time of the voyage to Brazil of 'MasterWilliam Haukins, ' of which we shall hear later on. 

In 1544 Sebastian made an excellent and celebrated map of the worldwhich gives a wonderfully good idea of the coasts of North America fromLabrador to Florida. This map, long given up for lost, and onlydiscovered three centuries after it had been finished, is now in theNational Library in Paris. [1]

[1: An excellent facsimile reproduction of it, together with a copy ofthe marginal text, is in the collections of the American GeographicalSociety of New York. ]

Sebastian had passed his threescore years and ten before this famousmap appeared. But he was as active as ever twelve years later again. Hehad left Spain for England in 1548, to the rage of Charles V, whoclaimed him as a deserter, which he probably was. But the Englishboy-king, Edward VI, gave him a pension, which was renewed by QueenMary; and his last ten years were spent in England, where he died in theodor of sanctity as Governor of the Muscovy Company and citizen ofLondon. Whatever his faults, he was a hearty-good-fellow with his booncompanions; and the following 'personal mention' about his octogenarianrevels at Gravesend is well worth quoting exactly as the admiringdiarist wrote it down on the 27th of April, 1556, when the pinnace_Serchthrift_ was on the point of sailing to Muscovy and the Directorswere giving it a great send-off. 

 After Master Cabota and divers gentlemen and gentlewomen had viewed our pinnace, and tasted of such cheer as we could make them aboard, they went on shore, giving to our mariners right liberal rewards; and the good old Gentleman, Master Cabota, gave to the poor most liberal alms, wishing them to pray for the good fortune and prosperous success of the _Serchthrift_, our pinnace. And then, at the sign of the Christopher, he and his friends banqueted, and made me and them that were in the company great cheer; and for very joy that he had to see the towardness of our intended discovery he entered into the dance himself, amongst the rest of the young and lusty company--which being ended, he and his friends departed, most gently commending us to the governance of Almighty God. 

CHAPTER II

HENRY VIII, KING OF THE ENGLISH SEA

The leading pioneers in the Age of Discovery were sons of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. [2] Cabot, as we have seen, was an Italian, though hesailed for the English Crown and had an English crew. Columbus, too, wasan Italian, though in the service of the Spanish Crown. It was thePortuguese Vasco da Gama who in the very year of John Cabot's secondvoyage (1498) found the great sea route to India by way of the Cape ofGood Hope. Two years later the Cortereals, also Portuguese, beganexploring the coasts of America as far northwest as Labrador. Twentyyears later again the Portuguese Magellan, sailing for the King ofSpain, discovered the strait still known by his name, passed through itinto the Pacific, and reached the Philippines. There he was killed. Butone of his ships went on to make the first circumnavigation of theglobe, a feat which redounded to the glory of both Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile, in 1513, the Spaniard Balboa had crossed the Isthmus ofPanama and waded into the Pacific, sword in hand, to claim it for hisking. Then came the Spanish explorers--Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Coronado, and many more--and later on the conquerors and founders of NewSpain--Cortes, Pizarro, and their successors. 

[2: Basque fishermen and whalers apparently forestalled JacquesCartier's discovery of the St. Lawrence in 1535; perhaps they knew themainland of America before John Cabot in 1497. But they left no writtenrecords; and neither founded an oversea dominion nor gave rights ofdiscovery to their own or any other race. ]

During all this time neither France nor England made any lodgment inAmerica, though both sent out a number of expeditions, both fished onthe cod banks of Newfoundland, and each had already marked out her own'sphere of influence. ' The Portuguese were in Brazil; the Spaniards, inSouth and Central America. England, by right of the Bristol voyages, claimed the eastern coasts of the United States and Canada; France, invirtue of Cartier's discovery, the region of the St. Lawrence. But, while New Spain and New Portugal flourished in the sixteenth century, New France and New England were yet to rise. 

In the sixteenth century both France and England were occupied withmomentous things at home. France was torn with religious wars. TudorEngland had much work to do before any effective English colonies couldbe planted. Oversea dominions are nothing without sufficient sea power, naval and mercantile, to win, to hold, and foster them. But TudorEngland was gradually forming those naval and merchant services withoutwhich there could have been neither British Empire nor United States. 

Henry VIII had faults which have been trumpeted about the world from hisown day to ours. But of all English sovereigns he stands foremost as themonarch of the sea. Young, handsome, learned, exceedingly accomplished, gloriously strong in body and in mind, Henry mounted the throne in 1509with the hearty good will of nearly all his subjects. Before Englandcould become the mother country of an empire overseas, she had to shakeoff her medieval weaknesses, become a strongly unified modern state, andarm herself against any probable combination of hostile foreign states. Happily for herself and for her future colonists, Henry was richlyendowed with strength and skill for his task. With one hand he weldedEngland into political unity, crushing disruptive forces by the way. With the other he gradually built up a fleet the like of which the worldhad never seen. He had the advantage of being more independent ofparliamentary supplies than any other sovereign. From his thrifty fatherhe had inherited what was then an almost fabulous sum--nine milliondollars in cash. From what his friends call the conversion, and hisenemies the spoliation, of Church property in England he obtained manymillions more. Moreover, the people as a whole always rallied to hiscall whenever he wanted other national resources for the nationaldefence. 

Henry's unique distinction is that he effected the momentous change froman ancient to a modern fleet. This supreme achievement constitutes hisreal title to the lasting gratitude of English-speaking peoples. Hisfirst care when he came to the throne in 1509 was for the safety of the'Broade Ditch, ' as he called the English Channel. His last great act wasto establish in 1546 'The Office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs. 'During the thirty-seven years between his accession and the creation ofthis Navy Board the pregnant change was made. 

'King Henry loved a man. ' He had an unerring eye for choosing the rightleaders. He delighted in everything to do with ships and shipping. Hemixed freely with naval men and merchant skippers, visited thedockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and alwaysbefriended Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art oftacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only apatron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly masteredscientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp thefull significance of what could be done by broadsides fired from sailingships against the mediaeval type of vessel that still depended more onoars than on sails. 

Henry's maritime rivals were the two greatest monarchs of continentalEurope, Francis I of France and Charles V of Spain. Henry, Francis, andCharles were all young, all ambitious, and all exceedingly capable men. Henry had the fewest subjects, Charles by far the most. Francis had acompact kingdom well situated for a great European land power. Henry hadone equally well situated for a great European sea power. Charles ruledvast dominions scattered over both the New World and the Old. Thedestinies of mankind turned mostly on the rivalry between these threeprotagonists and their successors. 

Charles V was heir to several crowns. He ruled Spain, the Netherlands, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and important principalities innorthern Italy. He was elected Emperor of Germany. He owned enormousoversea dominions in Africa; and the two Americas soon became New Spain. He governed each part of his European dominions by a different title andunder a different constitution. He had no fixed imperial capital, butmoved about from place to place, a legitimate sovereign everywhere and, for the most part, a popular one as well. It was his son Philip II who, failing of election as Emperor, lived only in Spain, concentrated themachinery of government in Madrid, and became so unpopular elsewhere. Charles had been brought up in Flanders; he was genial in the Flemishway; and he understood his various states in the Netherlands, whichfurnished him with one of his main sources of revenue. Another and muchlarger source of revenue poured in its wealth to him later on, inrapidly increasing volume, from North and South America. 

Charles had inherited a long and bitter feud with France about theBurgundian dominions on the French side of the Rhine and about domainsin Italy; besides which there were many points of violent rivalrybetween things French and Spanish. England also had hereditary feudswith France, which had come down from the Hundred Years' War, and whichhad ended in her almost final expulsion from France less than a centurybefore. Scotland, nursing old feuds against England and always afraid ofabsorption, naturally sided with France. Portugal, small and open toSpanish invasion by land, was more or less bound to please Spain. 

During the many campaigns between Francis and Charles the EnglishChannel swarmed with men-of-war, privateers, and downright pirates. Sometimes England took a hand officially against France. But, even whenEngland was not officially at war, many Englishmen were privateers andnot a few were pirates. Never was there a better training school offighting seamanship than in and around the Narrow Seas. It was acontinual struggle for an existence in which only the fittest survived. Quickness was essential. Consequently vessels that could not increasetheir speed were soon cleared off the sea. 

Spain suffered a good deal by this continuous raiding. So did theNetherlands. But such was the power of Charles that, although his navieswere much weaker than his armies, he yet was able to fight by sea on twoenormous fronts, first, in the Mediterranean against the Turks and otherMoslems, secondly, in the Channel and along the coast, all the way fromAntwerp to Cadiz. Nor did the left arm of his power stop there; for hisfleets, his transports, and his merchantmen ranged the coasts of bothAmericas from one side of the present United States right round to theother. 

Such, in brief, was the position of maritime Europe when Henry foundhimself menaced by the three Roman Catholic powers of Scotland, France, and Spain. In 1533 he had divorced his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, thereby defying the Pope and giving offence to Spain. He had againdefied the Pope by suppressing the monasteries and severing the Churchof England from the Roman discipline. The Pope had struck back with abull of excommunication designed to make Henry the common enemy ofCatholic Europe. 

Henry had been steadily building ships for years. Now he redoubled hisactivity. He blooded the fathers of his daughter's sea-dogs by smashingup a pirate fleet and sinking a flotilla of Flemish privateers. Themouth of the Scheldt, in 1539, was full of vessels ready to take ahostile army into England. But such a fighting fleet prepared to meetthem that Henry's enemies forbore to strike. 

In 1539, too, came the discovery of the art of tacking, by Fletcher ofRye, Henry's shipwright friend, a discovery forever memorable in theannals of seamanship. Never before had any kind of craft been sailed asingle foot against the wind. The primitive dugout on which theprehistoric savage hoisted the first semblance of a sail, the ships ofTarshish, the Roman transport in which St. Paul was wrecked, and theSpanish caravels with which Columbus sailed to worlds unknown, were, inprinciple of navigation, all the same. But now Fletcher ran out hisepoch-making vessel, with sails trimmed fore and aft, and dumbfoundedall the shipping in the Channel by beating his way to windward against agood stiff breeze. This achievement marked the dawn of the modernsailing age. 

And so it happened that in 1545 Henry, with a new-born modern fleet, wasable to turn defiantly on Francis. The English people ralliedmagnificently to his call. What was at that time an enormous armycovered the lines of advance on London. But the fleet, though employingfewer men, was relatively a much more important force than the army; andwith the fleet went Henry's own headquarters. His lifelong interest inhis navy now bore the first-fruits of really scientific sea power on anoceanic scale. There was no great naval battle to fix general attentionon one dramatic moment. Henry's strategy and tactics, however, were newand full of promise. He repeated his strategy of the previous war bysending out a strong squadron to attack the base at which the enemy'sships were then assembling; and he definitely committed the Englishnavy, alone among all the navies in the world, to sailing-ship tactics, instead of continuing those founded on the rowing galley of immemorialfame. The change from a sort of floating army to a really naval fleet, from galleys moved by oars and depending on boarders who were soldiers, to ships moved by sails and depending on their broadside guns--thischange was quite as important as the change in the nineteenth centuryfrom sails and smooth-bores to steam and rifled ordnance. It was, indeed, from at least one commanding point of view, much more important;for it meant that England was easily first in developing the only kindof navy which would count in any struggle for oversea dominion after thediscovery of America had made sea power no longer a question of coastsand landlocked waters but of all the outer oceans of the world. 

The year that saw the birth of modern sea power is a date to beremembered in this history; for 1545 was also the year in which themines of Potosi first aroused the Old World to the riches of the New; itwas the year, too, in which Sir Francis Drake was born. Moreover, therewas another significant birth in this same year. The parole aboard thePortsmouth fleet was _God save the King_! The answering countersign was_Long to reign over us_! These words formed the nucleus of the nationalanthem now sung round all the Seven Seas. The anthems of other countrieswere born on land. _God save the King_! sprang from the navy and thesea. 

 * * * * *

The Reformation quickened seafaring life in many ways. After Henry'sexcommunication every Roman Catholic crew had full Papal sanction forattacking every English crew that would not submit to Rome, no matterhow Catholic its faith might be. Thus, in addition to danger frompirates, privateers, and men-of-war, an English merchantman had to riskattack by any one who was either passionately Roman or determined to usereligion as a cloak. Raids and reprisals grew apace. The English were byno means always lambs in piteous contrast to the Papal wolves. Rather, it might be said, they took a motto from this true Russian proverb:'Make yourself a sheep and you'll find no lack of wolves. ' But, rightlyor wrongly, the general English view was that the Papal attitude was oneof attack while their own was one of defence. Papal Europe of coursethought quite the reverse. 

Henry died in 1547, and the Lord Protector Somerset at once tried tomake England as Protestant as possible during the minority of Edward VI, who was not yet ten years old. This brought every English seaman undersuspicion in every Spanish port, where the Holy Office of theInquisition was a great deal more vigilant and businesslike than theCustom House or Harbor Master. Inquisitors had seized Englishmen inHenry's time. But Charles had stayed their hand. Now that the ruler ofEngland was an open heretic, who appeared to reject the accepted formsof Catholic belief as well as the Papal forms of Roman discipline, thehour had come to strike. War would have followed in ordinary times. Butthe Reformation had produced a cross-division among the subjects of allthe Great Powers. If Charles went to war with a Protestant LordProtector of England then some of his own subjects in the Netherlandswould probably revolt. France had her Huguenots; England herultra-Papists; Scotland some of both kinds. Every country had an unknownnumber of enemies at home and friends abroad. All feared war. 

Somerset neglected the navy. But the seafaring men among theProtestants, as among those Catholics who were anti-Roman, took toprivateering more than ever. Nor was exploration forgotten. A group ofmerchant-adventurers sent Sir Hugh Willoughby to find the NortheastPassage to Cathay. Willoughby's three ships were towed down the Thamesby oarsmen dressed in sky-blue jackets. As they passed the palace atGreenwich they dipped their colors in salute. But the poor young kingwas too weak to come to the window. Willoughby met his death in Lapland. But Chancellor, his second-in-command, got through to the White Sea, pushed on overland to Moscow, and returned safe in 1554, when Queen Marywas on the throne. Next year, strange to say, the charter of the newMuscovy Company was granted by Philip of Armada fame, now jointsovereign of England with his newly married wife, soon to be known as'Bloody Mary. ' One of the directors of the company was Lord Howard ofEffingham, father of Drake's Lord Admiral, while the governor was ourold friend Sebastian Cabot, now in his eightieth year. Philip was CrownPrince of the Spanish Empire, and his father, Charles V, was veryanxious that he should please the stubborn English; for if he could onlybecome both King of England and Emperor of Germany he would rule theworld by sea as well as land. Philip did his ineffective best: drankEnglish beer in public as if he liked it and made his stately Spanishcourtiers drink it too and smile. He spent Spanish gold, brought overfrom America, and he got the convenient kind of Englishmen to take it asspy-money for many years to come. But with it he likewise sowed somedragon's teeth. The English sea-dogs never forgot the iron chests ofSpanish New-World gold, and presently began to wonder whether there wasno sure way in far America by which to get it for themselves. 

In the same year, 1555, the Marian attack on English heretics began andthe sea became safer than the land for those who held strong anti-Papalviews. The Royal Navy was neglected even more than it had been lately bythe Lord Protector. But fighting traders, privateers, and piratesmultiplied. The seaports were hotbeds of hatred against Mary, Philip, Papal Rome, and Spanish Inquisition. In 1556 Sebastian Cabot reappears, genial and prosperous as ever, and dances out of history at the sailingof the _Serchthrift_, bound northeast for Muscovy. In 1557 Philip cameback to England for the last time and manoeuvred her into a war whichcost her Calais, the last English foothold on the soil of France. Duringthis war an English squadron joined Philip's vessels in a victory overthe French off Gravelines, where Drake was to fight the Armada thirtyyears later. 

This first of the two battles fought at Gravelines brings us down to1558, the year in which Mary died, Elizabeth succeeded her, and a verydifferent English age began. 

CHAPTER III

LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES

Two stories from Hakluyt's _Voyages_ will illustrate what sort of workthe English were attempting in America about 1530, near the middle ofKing Henry's reign. The success of 'Master Haukins' and the failure of'Master Hore' are quite typical of several other adventures in the NewWorld. 

'Olde M. William Haukins of Plimmouth, a man for his wisdome, valure, experience, and skill in sea causes much esteemed and beloved of KingHenry the eight, and being one of the principall Sea Captaines in theWest partes of England in his time, not contented with the short voyagescommonly then made onely to the knowen coastes of Europe, armed out atall and goodlie ship of his owne, of the burthen of 250 tunnes, calledthe Pole of Plimmouth, wherewith he made three long and famous voyagesvnto the coast of Brasill, a thing in those days very rare, especiallyto our Nation. ' Hawkins first went down the Guinea Coast of Africa, 'where he trafiqued with the Negroes, and tooke of them Oliphants'teeth, and other commodities which that place yeeldeth; and so arrivingon the coast of Brasil, used there such discretion, and behaved himselfeso wisely with those savage people, that he grew into great familiaritieand friendship with them. Insomuch that in his 2 voyage one of thesavage kings of the Countrey of Brasil was contented to take ship withhim, and to be transported hither into England. This kinge was presentedunto King Henry 8. The King and all the Nobilitie did not a littlemarvel; for in his cheeks were holes, and therein small bones planted, which in his Countrey was reputed for a great braverie. ' The poorBrazilian monarch died on his voyage back, which made Hawkins fear forthe life of Martin Cockeram, whom he had left in Brazil as a hostage. However, the Brazilians took Hawkins's word for it and releasedCockeram, who lived another forty years in Plymouth. 'Olde M. WilliamHaukins' was the father of Sir John Hawkins, Drake's companion in arms, whom we shall meet later. He was also the grandfather of Sir RichardHawkins, another naval hero, and of the second William Hawkins, one ofthe founders of the greatest of all chartered companies, the HonourableEast India Company. 

Hawkins knew what he was about. 'Master Hore' did not. Hore was awell-meaning, plausible fellow, good at taking up new-fangled ideas, badat carrying them out, and the very cut of a wildcat company-promoter, except for his honesty. He persuaded 'divers young lawyers of the Innesof Court and Chancerie' to go to Newfoundland. A hundred and twenty menset off in this modern ship of fools, which ran into Newfoundland atnight and was wrecked. There were no provisions; and none of the 'diverslawyers' seems to have known how to catch a fish. After trying to liveon wild fruit they took to eating each other, in spite of Master Hore, who stood up boldly and warned them of the 'Fire to Come. ' Just then aFrench fishing smack came in; whereupon the lawyers seized her, put herwretched crew ashore, and sailed away with all the food she had. Theoutraged Frenchmen found another vessel, chased the lawyers back toEngland, and laid their case before the King, who 'out of his RoyallBountie' reimbursed the Frenchmen and let the 'divers lawyers' go scotfree. 

Hawkins and Hore, and others like them, were the heroes of travellers'tales. But what was the ordinary life of the sailor who went down to thesea in the ships of the Tudor age? There are very few quite authenticdescriptions of life afloat before the end of the sixteenth century; andeven then we rarely see the ship and crew about their ordinary work. Everybody was all agog for marvellous discoveries. Nobody, least of alla seaman, bothered his head about describing the daily routine on board. We know, however, that it was a lot of almost incredible hardship. Onlythe fittest could survive. Elizabethan landsmen may have been quite asprone to mistake comfort for civilization as most of the world is saidto be now. Elizabethan sailors, when afloat, most certainly were not;and for the simple reason that there was no such thing as real comfortin a ship. 

Here are a few verses from the oldest genuine English sea-song known. They were written down in the fifteenth century, before the discoveryof America, and were probably touched up a little by the scribe. Theoriginal manuscript is now in Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a truenautical composition--a very rare thing indeed; for genuine sea-songsdidn't often get into print and weren't enjoyed by landsmen when theydid. The setting is that of a merchantman carrying passengers whosediscomforts rather amuse the 'schippemenne. '

 Anon the master commandeth fast To his ship-men in all the hast[e], To dresse them [line up] soon about the mast Their takeling to make. 

 With _Howe! Hissa!_ then they cry, 'What howe! mate thou standest too nigh, Thy fellow may not haul thee by:' Thus they begin to crake [shout]. 

 A boy or twain anon up-steyn [go aloft] And overthwart the sayle-yerde leyn [lie] _Y-how! taylia!_ the remnant cryen [cry] And pull with all their might. 

 Bestow the boat, boat-swain, anon, That our pylgrymms may play thereon; For some are like to cough and groan Ere it be full midnight. 

 Haul the bowline! Now veer the sheet; Cook, make ready anon our meat! Our pylgrymms have no lust to eat: I pray God give them rest. 

 Go to the helm! What ho! no neare[r]! Steward, fellow! a pot of beer! Ye shall have, Sir, with good cheer, Anon all of the best. 

 _Y-howe! Trussa!_ Haul in the brailes! Thou haulest not! By God, thou failes[t] O see how well our good ship sails! And thus they say among. 

 * * * * *

 Thys meane'whyle the pylgrymms lie, And have their bowls all fast them by, And cry after hot malvesy-- 'Their health for to restore. '

 * * * * * Some lay their bookys on their knee, And read so long they cannot see. 'Alas! mine head will split in three!' Thus sayeth one poor wight. 

 * * * * *

 A sack of straw were there right good; For some must lay them in their hood: I had as lief be in the wood, Without or meat or drink!

 For when that we shall go to bed, The pump is nigh our beddës head: A man he were as good be dead As smell thereof the stynke!

_Howe--hissa!_ is still used aboard deepwater-men as _Ho--hissa!_instead of _Ho--hoist away!_ _What ho, mate!_ is also known afloat, though dying out. _Y-howe! taylia!_ is _Yo--ho! tally!_ or _Tally andbelay!_ which means hauling aft and making fast the sheet of a mainsailor foresail. _What ho! no nearer!_ is _What ho! no higher_ now. But oldsalts remember _no nearer!_ and it may be still extant. Seasicknessseems to have been the same as ever--so was the desperate effort topretend one was not really feeling it:

 And cry after hot malvesy-- 'Their health for to restore. '

Here is another sea-song, one sung by the sea-dogs themselves. The doubtis whether the _Martial-men_ are Navy men, as distinguished frommerchant-service men aboard a king's ship, or whether they are soldierswho want to take all sailors down a peg or two. This seems the moreprobable explanation. Soldiers 'ranked' sailors afloat in the sixteenthcentury; and Drake's was the first fleet in the world in whichseamen-admirals were allowed to fight a purely naval action. 

 We be three poor Mariners, newly come from the Seas, We spend our lives in jeopardy while others live at ease. We care not for those Martial-men that do our states disdain, But we care for those Merchant-men that do our states maintain. 

A third old sea-song gives voice to the universal complaint thatlandsmen cheat sailors who come home flush of gold. 

 For Sailors they be honest men, And they do take great pains, But Land-men and ruffling lads Do rob them of their gains. 

Here, too, is some _Cordial Advice_ against the wiles of the sea, addressed _To all rash young Men, who think to Advance theirdecaying Fortunes by Navigation_, as most of the sea-dogs (andgentlemen-adventurers like Gilbert, Raleigh, and Cavendish) tried to do. 

 You merchant men of Billingsgate, I wonder how you thrive. You bargain with men for six months And pay them but for five. 

This was an abuse that took a long time to die out. Even well on in thenineteenth century, and sometimes even on board of steamers, victuallingwas only by the lunar month though service went by the calendar. 

 A cursed cat with thrice three tails Doth much increase our woe

is a poetical way of putting another seaman's grievance. 

People who regret that there is such a discrepancy between genuinesea-songs and shore-going imitations will be glad to know that the_Mermaid_ is genuine, though the usual air to which it was sung afloatwas harsh and decidedly inferior to the one used ashore. This example ofthe old 'fore-bitters' (so-called because sung from the fore-bitts, aconvenient mass of stout timbers near the foremast) did not luxuriate inthe repetitions of its shore-going rival: _With a comb and a glass inher hand, her hand, her hand_, etc. 

 _Solo_. On Friday morn as we set sail It was not far from land, Oh, there I spied a fair pretty maid With a comb and a glass in her hand. 

 _Chorus_. The stormy winds did blow, And the raging seas did roar, While we poor Sailors went to the tops And the land lubbers laid below. 

The anonymous author of a curious composition entitled _The Complaynt ofScotland_, written in 1548, seems to be the only man who took moreinterest in the means than in the ends of seamanship. He was undoubtedlya landsman. But he loved the things of the sea; and his work is wellworth reading as a vocabulary of the lingo that was used on board aTudor ship. When the seamen sang it sounded like 'an echo in a cave. 'Many of the outlandish words were Mediterranean terms which thescientific Italian navigators had brought north. Others were of Orientalorigin, which was very natural in view of the long connection betweenEast and West at sea. Admiral, for instance, comes from the Arabic for acommander-in-chief. _Amir-al-bahr_ means commander of the sea. Most ofthe nautical technicalities would strike a seaman of the present day asbeing quite modern. The sixteenth-century skipper would be readilyunderstood by a twentieth-century helmsman in the case of such orders asthese: _Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep close!_ Our modernsailor in the navy, however, would be hopelessly lost in trying tofollow directions like the following: _Make ready your cannons, middleculverins, bastard culverins, falcons, sakers, slings, headsticks, murderers, passevolants, bazzils, dogges, crook arquebusses, calivers, and hail shot!_

Another look at life afloat in the sixteenth century brings us once moreinto touch with America; for the old sea-dog DIRECTIONS FOR THE TAKYNGOF A PRIZE were admirably summed up in _The Seaman's Grammar_, which wascompiled by 'Captaine John Smith, sometime Governour of Virginia andAdmiral of New England'--'Pocahontas Smith, ' in fact. 

'A sail!'

'How bears she? To-windward or lee-ward? Set him by the compass!'

'Hee stands right a-head' (_or_ On the weather-bow, _or_ lee-bow). 

'Let fly your colours!' (if you have a consort--else not). 'Out with allyour sails! A steadie man at the helm! Give him chace!'

'Hee holds his owne--No, wee gather on him, Captaine!'

_Out goes his flag and pendants, also his waist-cloths and top-armings, which is a long red cloth ... That goeth round about the shippe on theout-sides of all her upper works and fore and main-tops, as well for thecountenance and grace of the shippe as to cover the men from being seen. He furls and slings his main-yard. In goes his sprit-sail. Thus theystrip themselves into their fighting sails, which is, only the foresail, the main and fore topsails, because the rest should not be fired norspoiled; besides, they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our sightsand the using of our arms. _

'He makes ready his close-fights, fore and aft. ' [Bulkheads set up tocover men under fire] ... 

'Every man to his charge! Dowse your topsail to salute him for the sea!Hail him with a noise of trumpets!'

'Whence is your ship?'

'Of Spain--whence is yours?'

'Of England. '

'Are you merchants or men of war?'

'We are of the Sea!'

_He waves us to leeward with his drawn sword, _ _calls out 'Amain' forthe King of Spain, and springs his luff_[brings his vessel close by thewind]. 

'Give him a chase-piece with your broadside, and run a good berth a-headof him!'

'Done, done!'

'We have the wind of him, and now he tacks about!'

'Tack about also and keep your luff! Be yare at the helm! Edge in withhim! Give him a volley of small shot, also your prow and broadside asbefore, and keep your luff!'

'He pays us shot for shot!'

'Well, we shall requite him!' ... 

'Edge in with him again! Begin with your bow pieces, proceed with yourbroadside, and let her fall off with the wind to give him also your fullchase, your weather-broad-side, and bring her round so that the sternmay also discharge, and your tacks close aboard again!' ... 

'The wind veers, the sea goes too high to board her, and we are shotthrough and through, and between wind and water. '

'Try the pump! Bear up the helm! Sling a man overboard to stop theleaks, _that is_, truss him up around the middle in a piece of canvasand a rope, with his arms at liberty, with a mallet and plugs lapped inoakum and well tarred, and a tar-pauling clout, which he will quicklybeat into the holes the bullets made. '

'What cheer, Mates, is all Well?'

'All's well!'

'Then make ready to bear up with him again!'

'With all your great and small shot charge him, board him thwart thehawse, on the bow, midships, or, rather than fail, on his quarter; ormake fast your grapplings to his close-fights and sheer off' [whichwould tear his cover down]. 

'Captain, we are foul of each other and the ship is on fire!'

'Cut anything to get clear and smother the fire with wet cloths!'

_In such a case they will bee presentlie such friends as to help one theother all they can to get clear, lest they should both burn together andso sink: and, if they be generous, and the fire be quenched, they willdrink kindly one to the other, heave their canns over-board, and beginagain as before.... _

'Chirurgeon, look to the wounded, and wind up the slain, and give themthree guns for their funerals! Swabber, make clean the ship! Purser, record their names! Watch, be vigilant to keep your berth to windward, that we lose him not, in the night! Gunners, spunge your ordnance!Souldiers, scour your pieces! Carpenters, about your leaks! Boatswainand the rest, repair sails and shrouds! Cook, see you observe yourdirections against the morning watch!' ... 

'Boy, hallo! is the kettle boiled?'

'Ay, ay, Sir!'

'Boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast!' ... 

_Always have as much care to their wounded as to your own; and if therebe either young women or aged men, use them nobly ... _

'Sound drums and trumpets: SAINT GEORGE FOR MERRIE ENGLAND!'

CHAPTER IV

ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

Elizabethan England is the motherland, the true historic home, of allthe different peoples who speak the sea-borne English tongue. In thereign of Elizabeth there was only one English-speaking nation. Thisnation consisted of a bare five million people, fewer than there areto-day in London or New York. But hardly had the Great Queen died beforeEnglishmen began that colonizing movement which has carried theirlanguage the whole world round and established their civilization inevery quarter of the globe. Within three centuries after Elizabeth's daythe use of English as a native speech had grown quite thirtyfold. Withinthe same three centuries the number of those living under laws andinstitutions derived from England had grown a hundredfold. 

The England of Elizabeth was an England of great deeds, but of greaterdreams. Elizabethan literature, take it for all in all, has never beensurpassed; myriad-minded Shakespeare remains unequalled still. Elizabethan England was indeed 'a nest of singing birds. ' Prose wasoften far too pedestrian for the exultant life of such a mightygeneration. As new worlds came into their expectant ken, the glowingElizabethans wished to fly there on the soaring wings of verse. To themthe tide of fortune was no ordinary stream but the 'white-maned, proud, neck-arching tide' that bore adventurers to sea 'with pomp of watersunwithstood. '

The goodly heritage that England gave her offspring overseas includedShakespeare and the English Bible. The Authorized Version entered intothe very substance of early American life. There was a marked differencebetween Episcopalian Virginia and Puritan New England. But both tooktheir stand on this version of the English Bible, in which the springsof Holy Writ rejoiced to run through channels of Elizabethan prose. Itis true that Elizabeth slept with her fathers before this book of bookswas printed, and that the first of the Stuarts reigned in her stead. Nevertheless the Authorized Version is pure Elizabethan. All itstranslators were Elizabethans, as their dedication to King James, stillprinted with every copy, gratefully acknowledges in its reference to'the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of mosthappy memory. '

These words of the reverend scholars contain no empty compliment. Elizabeth was a great sovereign and in some essential particulars, avery great national leader. This daughter of Henry VIII and his secondwife, Anne Boleyn the debonair, was born a heretic in 1533. Her fatherwas then defying both Spain and the Pope. Within three years after herbirth her mother was beheaded; and by Act of Parliament Elizabethherself was declared illegitimate. She was fourteen when her fatherdied, leaving the kingdom to his three children in succession, Elizabethbeing the third. Then followed the Protestant reign of the boy-kingEdward VI, during which Elizabeth enjoyed security; then the Catholicreign of her Spanish half-sister, 'Bloody Mary, ' during which her lifehung by the merest thread. 

At first, however, Mary concealed her hostility to Elizabeth because shethought the two daughters of Henry VIII ought to appear together in hertriumphal entry into London. From one point of view--and a feminine oneat that--this was a fatal mistake on Mary's part: for never didElizabeth show to more advantage. She was just under twenty, while Marywas nearly twice her age. Mary had, indeed, provided herself with onegood foil in the person of Anne of Cleves, the 'Flemish mare' whose flatcoarse face and lumbering body had disgusted King Henry thirteen yearsbefore, when Cromwell had foisted her upon him as his fourth wife. Butwith poor, fat, straw-colored Anne on one side, and black-and-sallow, foreign-looking, man-voiced Mary on the other, the thoroughly EnglishPrincess Elizabeth took London by storm on the spot. Tall and majestic, she was a magnificent example of the finest Anglo-Norman type. Always'the glass of fashion' and then the very 'mould of form' her splendidfigure looked equally well on horseback or on foot. A little full in theeye, and with a slightly aquiline nose, she appeared, as she really was, keenly observant and commanding. Though these two features justprevented her from being a beauty, the bright blue eyes and the finelychiselled nose were themselves quite beautiful enough. Nor was she lesstaking to the ear than to the eye; for, in marked contrast to gruffforeign Mary and wheezy foreign Anne, she had a rich, clear, thoughrather too loud, English voice. When the Court reined up and dismounted, Elizabeth became even more the centre of attraction. Mary marchedstiffly on. Anne plodded after. But as for Elizabeth--perfect indancing, riding, archery, and all the sports of chivalry--'she trod theling like a buck in spring, and she looked like a lance in rest. '

When Elizabeth succeeded Mary in the autumn of 1558 she had dire need ofall she had learnt in her twenty-five years of adventurous life. Fortunately for herself and, on the whole, most fortunately for bothEngland and America, she had a remarkable power of inspiring devotion tothe service of their queen and country in men of both the cool andardent types; and this long after her personal charms had gone. Government, religion, finance, defence, and foreign affairs were in aperilous state of flux, besides which they have never been moredistractingly mixed up with one another. Henry VII had saved money fortwenty-five years. His three successors had spent it lavishly forfifty. Henry VIII had kept the Church Catholic in ritual while making itpurely national in government. The Lord Protector Somerset had made itas Protestant as possible under Edward VI. Mary had done her best tobring it back to the Pope. Home affairs were full of doubts and dangers, though the great mass of the people were ready to give their handsomeyoung queen a fair chance and not a little favor. Foreign affairs wereworse. France was still the hereditary enemy; and the loss of Calaisunder Mary had exasperated the whole English nation. Scotland was aconstant menace in the north. Spain was gradually changing from friendto foe. The Pope was disinclined to recognize Elizabeth at all. 

To understand how difficult her position was we must remember what sortof constitution England had when the germ of the United States wasforming. The Roman Empire was one constituent whole from the emperordown. The English-speaking peoples of to-day form constituent wholesfrom the electorate up. In both cases all parts were and are in constantrelation to the whole. The case of Elizabethan England, however, wasvery different. There was neither despotic unity from above nordemocratic unity from below, but a mixed and fluctuating kind ofgovernment in which Crown, nobles, parliament, and people formed certainparts which had to be put together for each occasion. The acceptedgeneral idea was that the sovereign, supreme as an individual, lookedafter the welfare of the country in peace and war so far as the Crownestates permitted; but that whenever the Crown resources would notsuffice then the sovereign could call on nobles and people for whateverthe common weal required. _Noblesse oblige_. In return for the estatesor monopolies which they had acquired the nobles and favored commonerswere expected to come forward with all their resources at every nationalcrisis precisely as the Crown was expected to work for the common wealat all times. When the resources of the Crown and favored courtierssufficed, no parliament was called; but whenever they had to besupplemented then parliament met and voted whatever it approved. Finally, every English freeman was required to do his own share towardsdefending the country in time of need, and he was further required toknow the proper use of arms. 

The great object of every European court during early modern times wasto get both the old feudal nobility and the newly promoted commoners torevolve round the throne as round the centre of their solar system. Bysheer force of character--for the Tudors, had no overwhelming army likethe Roman emperors'--Henry VIII had succeeded wonderfully well. Elizabeth now had to piece together what had been broken under Edward VIand Mary. She, too, succeeded--and with the hearty goodwill of nearlyall her subjects. 

Mary had left the royal treasury deeply in debt. Yet Elizabeth succeededin paying off all arrears and meeting new expenditure for defence andfor the court. The royal income rose. England became immensely richerand more prosperous than ever before. Foreign trade increased by leapsand bounds. Home industries flourished and were stimulated by newarrivals from abroad, because England was a safe asylum for thecraftsmen whom Philip was driving from the Netherlands, to his own greatloss and his rival's gain. 

English commercial life had been slowly emerging from medieval waysthroughout the fifteenth century. With the beginning of the sixteenththe rate of emergence had greatly quickened. The soil-bound peasant whoproduced enough food for his family from his thirty acres was beinggradually replaced by the well-to-do yeoman who tilled a hundred acresand upwards. Such holdings produced a substantial surplus for themarket. This increased the national wealth, which, in its turn, increased both home and foreign trade. The peasant merely raised alittle wheat and barley, kept a cow, and perhaps some sheep. The yeomanor tenant farmer had sheep enough for the wool trade besides somebutter, cheese, and meat for the nearest growing town. He began to'garnish his cupboards with pewter and his joined beds with tapestry andsilk hangings, and his tables with carpets and fine napery. ' He couldeven feast his neighbors and servants after shearing day withnew-fangled foreign luxuries like dates, mace, raisins, currants, andsugar. 

But Elizabethan society presented striking contrasts. In parts ofEngland, the practice of engrossing and enclosing holdings wasincreasing, as sheep-raising became more profitable than farming. Thetenants thus dispossessed either swelled the ranks of the vagabonds whoinfested the highways or sought their livelihood at sea or in London, which provided the two best openings for adventurous young men. Thesmaller provincial towns afforded them little opportunity, for there thetrades were largely in the hands of close corporations descended fromthe medieval craft guilds. These were eventually to be swept away by thegeneral trend of business. Their dissolution had indeed already begun;for smart village craftsmen were even then forming the new industrialsettlements from which most of the great manufacturing towns of Englandhave sprung. Camden the historian found Birmingham full of ringinganvils, Sheffield 'a town of great name for the smiths therein, ' Leedsrenowned for cloth, and Manchester already a sort of cottonopolis, though the 'cottons' of those days were still made of wool. 

There was a wages question then as now. There were demands for a minimumliving wage. The influx of gold and silver from America had sent allprices soaring. Meat became almost prohibitive for the 'submergedtenth'--there was a rapidly submerging tenth. Beef rose from one cent apound in the forties to four in 1588, the year of the Armada. How wouldthe lowest paid of craftsmen fare on twelve cents a day, with butter atten cents a pound? Efforts were made, again and again, to readjust theratio between prices and wages. But, as a rule, prices increased muchfaster than wages. 

All these things--the increase of surplus hands, the high cost ofliving, grievances about wages and interest--tended to make the farmsand workshops of England recruiting-grounds for the sea; and the youngmen would strike out for themselves as freighters, traders, privateers, or downright pirates, lured by the dazzling chance of great and suddenwealth. 

'The gamble of it' was as potent then as now, probably more potentstill. It was an age of wild speculation accompanied by all the usualevils that follow frenzied ways. It was also an age of monopoly. Bothmonopoly and speculation sent recruits into the sea-dog ranks. Elizabethwould grant, say, to Sir Walter Raleigh, the monopoly of sweet wines. Raleigh would naturally want as much sweet wine imported as Englandcould be induced to swallow. So, too, would Elizabeth, who got the duty. Crews would be wanted for the monopolistic ships. They would also bewanted for 'free-trading' vessels, that is, for the ships of thesmugglers who underbid, undersold, and tried to overreach themonopolist, who represented law, though not quite justice. Butspeculation ran to greater extremes than either monopoly or smuggling. Shakespeare's 'Putter-out of five for one' was a typical Elizabethanspeculator exploiting the riskiest form of sea-dog trade for all--andsometimes for more than all--that it was worth. A merchant-adventurerwould pay a capitalist, say, a thousand pounds as a premium to beforfeited if his ship should be lost, but to be repaid by the capitalistfivefold to the merchant if it returned. Incredible as it may seem tous, there were shrewd money-lenders always ready for this sort of dealin life--or life-and-death--insurance: an eloquent testimony to therisks encountered in sailing unknown seas in the midst of well-knowndangers. 

Marine insurance of the regular kind was, of course, a very differentthing. It was already of immemorial age, going back certainly tomedieval and probably to very ancient times. All forms of insurance onland are mere mushrooms by comparison. Lloyd's had not been heard of. But there were plenty of smart Elizabethan underwriters alreadypractising the general principles which were to be formally adopted twohundred years later, in 1779, at Lloyd's Coffee House. A policy takenout on the _Tiger_ immortalized by Shakespeare would serve as a modelstill. And what makes it all the more interesting is that theElizabethan underwriters calculated the _Tiger's_ chances at the veryspot where the association known as Lloyd's transacts its businessto-day, the Royal Exchange in London. This, in turn, brings Elizabethherself upon the scene; for when she visited the Exchange, which SirThomas Gresham had built to let the merchants do their street work undercover, she immediately grasped its full significance and 'caused it byan Herald and a Trumpet to be proclaimed The Royal Exchange, ' the nameit bears to-day. An Elizabethan might well be astonished by what hewould see at any modern Lloyd's. Yet he would find the same essentials;for the British Lloyd's, like most of its foreign imitators, is not agigantic insurance company at all, but an association of cautiouslyelected members who carry on their completely independent privatebusiness in daily touch with each other--precisely as Elizabethans did. Lloyd's method differs wholly from ordinary insurance. Instead ofinsuring vessel and cargo with a single company or man the owner putshis case before Lloyd's, and any member can then write his nameunderneath for any reasonable part of the risk. The modern'underwriter, ' all the world over, is the direct descendant of theElizabethan who wrote his name under the conditions of a given risk atsea. 

Joint-stock companies were in one sense old when Elizabethan men ofbusiness were young. But the Elizabethans developed them enormously. 'Going shares' was doubtless prehistoric. It certainly was ancient, medieval, and Elizabethan. But those who formerly went shares generallyknew each other and something of the business too. The favorite numberof total shares was just sixteen. There were sixteen land-shares in aCeltic household, sixteen shares in Scottish vessels not individuallyowned, sixteen shares in the theatre by which Shakespeare 'made hispile. ' But sixteenths, and even hundredths, were put out of date whenspeculation on the grander scale began and the area of investment grew. The New River Company, for supplying London with water, had only a fewshares then, as it continued to have down to our own day, when theystood at over a thousand times par. The Ulster 'Plantation' in Irelandwas more remote and appealed to more investors and on widergrounds--sentimental grounds, both good and bad, included. The Virginia'Plantation' was still more remote and risky and appealed to anever-increasing number of the speculating public. Many an investor putmoney on America in much the same way as a factory hand to-day putsmoney on a horse he has never seen or has never heard of otherwise thanas something out of which a lot of easy money can be made provided luckholds good. 

The modern prospectus was also in full career under Elizabeth, whoprobably had a hand in concocting some of the most important specimens. Lord Bacon wrote one describing the advantages of the Newfoundlandfisheries in terms which no promoter of the present day could better. Every type of prospectus was tried on the investing public, somegenuine, many doubtful, others as outrageous in their impositions onhuman credulity as anything produced in our own times. Thecompany-promoter was abroad, in London, on 'Change, and at court. Whatwith royal favor, social prestige, general prosperity, the new nationaleagerness to find vent for surplus commodities, and, above all, thespirit of speculation fanned into flame by the real and fabled wondersof America, what with all this the investing public could take itschoice of 'going the limit' in a hundred different and most alluringways. England was surprised at her own investing wealth. The East IndiaCompany raised eight million dollars with ease from a thousandshareholders and paid a first dividend of 87-1/2 per cent. Spices, pearls, and silks came pouring into London; and English goods found ventincreasingly abroad. 

Vastly expanding business opportunities of course produced the spirit ofthe trust--and of very much the same sort of trust that Americans thinkso ultra-modern now. Monopolies granted by the Crown and the volcanicforces of widespread speculation prevented some of the abuses of thetrust. But there were Elizabethan trusts, for all that, though many apromising scheme fell through. The Feltmakers' Hat Trust is a case inpoint. They proposed buying up all the hats in the market so as tooblige all dealers to depend upon one central warehouse. Of course theyissued a prospectus showing how everyone concerned would benefit by thisbenevolent plan. 

Ben Jonson and other playwrights were quick to seize the salientabsurdities of such an advertisement. In _The Staple of News_ Jonsonproposed a News Trust to collect all the news of the world, corner it, classify it into authentic, apocryphal, barber's gossip, and so forth, and then sell it, for the sole benefit of the consumer, in lengths tosuit all purchasers. In _The Devil is an Ass_ he is a little moreoutspoken. 

 We'll take in citizens, commoners, and aldermen To bear the charge, and blow them off again like so many dead flies.... 

This was exactly what was at that very moment being done in the case ofthe Alum Trust. All the leading characters of much more modern timeswere there already; Fitzdottrell, ready to sell his estates in order tobecome His Grace the Duke of Drown'dland, Gilthead, the Londonmoneylender who 'lives by finding fools, ' and My Lady Tailbush, whopulls the social wires at court. And so the game went on, usually withthe result explained by Shakespeare's fisherman in _Pericles_:

 'I marvel how the fishes live in the sea'---'Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones. '

The Newcastle coal trade grew into something very like a modern Americantrust with the additional advantage of an authorized government monopolyso long as the agreed-upon duty was paid. Then there was the StarchMonopoly, a very profitable one because starch was a new delight whichsoon enabled Elizabethan fops to wear ruffed collars big enough to maketheir heads--as one irreverent satirist exclaimed--'look like JohnBaptist's on a platter. '

But America? Could not America defeat the machinations of all monopoliesand other trusts? Wasn't America the land of actual gold and silverwhere there was plenty of room for everyone? There soon grew up a wildbelief that you could tap America for precious metals almost as itsIndians tapped maple trees for sugar. The 'Mountains of Bright Stones'were surely there. Peru and Mexico were nothing to these. Only findthem, and 'get-rich-quick' would be the order of the day for every trueadventurer. These mountains moved about in men's imaginations and onprospectors' maps, always ahead of the latest pioneer, somewhere behindthe Back of Beyond. They and their glamour died hard. Even that staidgeographer of a later day, Thos. Jeffreys, added to his standard atlasof America, in 1760, this item of information on the Far Northwest:_Hereabouts are supposed to be the Mountains of Bright Stones mentionedin the Map of ye Indian Ochagach. _

Speculation of the wildcat kind was bad. But it was the seamy side of apraiseworthy spirit of enterprise. Monopoly seems worse thanspeculation. And so, in many ways, it was. But we must judge it by thecustom of its age. It was often unjust and generally obstructive. But itdid what neither the national government nor joint-stock companies hadyet learnt to do. Monopoly went by court favor, and its rights wereoften scandalously let and sometimes sublet as well. But, on the whole, the Queen, the court, and the country really meant business, andmonopolists had either to deliver the goods or get out. Monopolists solddispensations from unworkable laws, which was sometimes a good thing andsometimes a bad. They sold licenses for indulgence in forbiddenpleasures, not often harmless. They thought out and collected all kindsof indirect taxation and had to face all the troubles that confront theframers of a tariff policy to-day. Most of all, however, in arough-and-ready way they set a sort of Civil Service going. They servedas Boards of Trade, Departments of the Interior, Customs, InlandRevenue, and so forth. What Crown and Parliament either could not orwould not do was farmed out to monopolists. Like speculation the systemworked both ways, and frequently for evil. But, like the Britishconstitution, though on a lower plane, it worked. 

A monopoly at home--like those which we have been considering--wasendurable because it was a working compromise that suited existingcircumstances more or less, and that could be either mended or ended astime went on. But a general foreign monopoly--like Spain's monopoly ofAmerica--was quite unendurable. Could Spain not only hold what she haddiscovered and was exploiting but also extend her sphere of influenceover what she had not discovered? Spain said Yes. England said No. TheSpaniards looked for tribute. The English looked for trade. Ingovernment, in religion, in business, in everything, the two greatrivals were irreconcilably opposed. Thus the lists were set; and sea-dogbattles followed. 

Elizabeth was an exceedingly able woman of business and was practicallypresident of all the great joint-stock companies engaged in overseatrade. Wherever a cargo could be bought or sold there went an Englishship to buy or sell it. Whenever the authorities in foreign parts trieddiscrimination against English men or English goods, the Englishsea-dogs growled and showed their teeth. And if the foreignerspersisted, the sea-dogs bit them. 

Elizabeth was extravagant at court; but not without state motives for atleast a part of her extravagance. A brilliant court attracted the upperclasses into the orbit of the Crown while it impressed the whole countrywith the sovereign's power. Courtiers favored with monopolies had tospend their earnings when the state was threatened. And might not theQueen's vast profusion of jewelry be turned to account at a pinch?Elizabeth could not afford to be generous when she was young. She grewto be stingy when she was old. But she saved the state by sound financeas well as by arms in spite of all her pomps and vanities. She had threethousand dresses, and gorgeous ones at that, during the course of herreign. Her bathroom was wainscoted with Venetian mirrors so that shecould see 'nine-and-ninety' reflections of her very comely person asshe dipped and splashed or dried her royal skin. She set a hot pace forall the votaries of dress to follow. All kinds of fashions came in fromabroad with the rush of new-found wealth; and so, instead of beingsanely beautiful, they soon became insanely bizarre. 'An Englishman, 'says Harrison, 'endeavouring to write of our attire, gave over histravail, and only drew the picture of a naked man, since he could findno kind of garment that could please him any whiles together. 

 I am an English man and naked I stand here, Musing in my mind what raiment I shall were; For now I will were this, and now I will were that; And now I will were I cannot tell what. 

Except you see a dog in a doublet you shall not see any so disguised asare my countrymen of England. Women also do far exceed the lightness ofour men. What shall I say of their galligascons to bear out their attireand make it fit plum round?' But the wives of 'citizens and burgesses, 'like all _nouveaux riches_, were still more bizarre than the courtiers. 'They cannot tell when or how to make an end, being women in whom allkind of curiosity is to be seen in far greater measure than in women ofhigher calling. I might name hues devised for the nonce, ver d'oye'twixt green and yallow, peas-porridge tawny, popinjay blue, and theDevil-in-the-head. '

Yet all this crude absurdity, 'from the courtier to the carter, ' was theglass reflecting the constantly increasing sea-borne trade, ever pushingfarther afield under the stimulus and protection of the sea-dogs. Andthe Queen took precious good care that it all paid toll to her treasurythrough the customs, so that she could have more money to build moreships. And if her courtiers did stuff their breeches out with sawdust, she took equally good care that each fighting man among them donned hisuniform and raised his troops or fitted out his ships when the time wasripe for action. 

CHAPTER V

HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS

Said Francis I of France to Charles V, King of Spain: 'Your Majesty andthe King of Portugal have divided the world between you, offering nopart of it to me. Show me, I pray you, the will of our father Adam, sothat I may see if he has really made you his only universal heirs!' ThenFrancis sent out the Italian navigator Verrazano, who first explored thecoast from Florida to Newfoundland. Afterwards Jacques Cartierdiscovered the St. Lawrence; Frenchmen took Havana twice, plundered theSpanish treasure-ships, and tried to found colonies--Catholic inCanada, Protestant in Florida and Brazil. 

Thus, at the time when Elizabeth ascended the throne of England in 1558, there was a long-established New Spain extending over Mexico, the WestIndies, and most of South America; a small New Portugal confined to partof Brazil; and a shadowy New France running vaguely inland from the Gulfof St. Lawrence, nowhere effectively occupied, and mostly overlappingprior English claims based on the discoveries of the Cabots. 

England and France had often been enemies. England and Spain had justbeen allied in a war against France as well as by the marriage of Philipand Mary. William Hawkins had traded with Portuguese Brazil under HenryVIII, as the Southampton merchants were to do later on. Englishmerchants lived in Lisbon and Cadiz; a few were even settled in NewSpain; and a friendly Spaniard had been so delighted by the prospectiveunion of the English with the Spanish crown that he had given the nameof Londres (London) to a new settlement in the Argentine Andes. 

Presently, however, Elizabethan England began to part company withSpain, to become more anti-Papal, to sympathize with Huguenots and otherheretics, and, like Francis I, to wonder why an immense new world shouldbe nothing but New Spain. Besides, Englishmen knew what the rest ofEurope knew, that the discovery of Potosi had put out of business nearlyall the Old-World silver mines, and that the Burgundian Ass (as Spanishtreasure-mules were called, from Charles's love of Burgundy) had enabledSpain to make conquests, impose her will on her neighbors, and keep paidspies in every foreign court, the English court included. Londoners hadseen Spanish gold and silver paraded through the streets when Philipmarried Mary--'27 chests of bullion, 99 horseloads + 2 cartloads of goldand silver coin, and 97 boxes full of silver bars!' Moreover, the HolyInquisition was making Spanish seaports pretty hot for heretics. In1562, twenty-six English subjects were burnt alive in Spain itself. Tentimes as many were in prison. No wonder sea-dogs were straining at theleash. 

Neither Philip nor Elizabeth wanted war just then, though each enjoyed athrust at the other by any kind of fighting short of that, and thougheach winked at all kinds of armed trade, such as privateering and evendownright piracy. The English and Spanish merchants had commercialconnections going back for centuries; and business men on both sideswere always ready to do a good stroke for themselves. 

This was the state of affairs in 1562 when young John Hawkins, son of'Olde Master William, ' went into the slave trade with New Spain. Exceptfor the fact that both Portugal and Spain allowed no trade with theiroversea possessions in any ships but their own, the circumstancesappeared to favor his enterprise. The American Indians were witheringaway before the atrocious cruelties of the Portuguese and Spaniards, being either killed in battle, used up in merciless slavery, or drivenoff to alien wilds. Already the Portuguese had commenced to importnegroes from their West African possessions, both for themselves and fortrade with the Spaniards, who had none. Brazil prospered beyondexpectation and absorbed all the blacks that Portuguese shipping couldsupply. The Spaniards had no spare tonnage at the time. 

John Hawkins, aged thirty, had made several trips to the Canaries. Henow formed a joint-stock company to trade with the Spaniards fartheroff. Two Lord Mayors of London and the Treasurer of the Royal Navy wereamong the subscribers. Three small vessels, with only two hundred andsixty tons between them, formed the flotilla. The crews numbered just ahundred men. 'At Teneriffe he received friendly treatment. From thencehe passed to Sierra Leona, where he stayed a good time, and got into hispossession, partly by the sword and partly by other means, to the numberof 300 Negroes at the least, besides other merchandises.... With thisprey he sailed over the ocean sea unto the island of Hispaniola [Hayti]... And here he had reasonable utterance [sale] of his Englishcommodities, as also of some part of his Negroes, trusting the Spaniardsno further than that by his own strength he was able still to masterthem. ' At 'Monte Christi, another port on the north side of Hispaniola... He made vent of [sold] the whole number of his Negroes, for which hereceived by way of exchange such a quantity of merchandise that he didnot only lade his own three ships with hides, ginger, sugars, and somequantity of pearls, but he freighted also two other hulks with hides andother like commodities, which he sent into Spain, ' where both hulks andhides were confiscated as being contraband. 

Nothing daunted, he was off again in 1564 with four ships and a hundredand seventy men. This time Elizabeth herself took shares and lent the_Jesus of Lubeck_, a vessel of seven hundred tons which Henry VIII hadbought for the navy. Nobody questioned slavery in those days. The greatSpanish missionary Las Casas denounced the Spanish atrocities againstthe Indians. But he thought negroes, who could be domesticated, would doas substitutes for Indians, who could not be domesticated. The Indianswithered at the white man's touch. The negroes, if properly treated, throve, and were safer than among their enemies at home. Such was theargument for slavery; and it was true so far as it went. The argumentagainst, on the score of ill treatment, was only gradually heard. On thescore of general human rights it was never heard at all. 

'At departing, in cutting the foresail lashings a marvellous misfortunehappened to one of the officers in the ship, who by the pulley of thesheet was slain out of hand. ' Hawkins 'appointed all the masters of hisships an Order for the keeping of good company in this manner:--Thesmall ships to be always ahead and aweather of the _Jesus_, and to speaktwice a-day with the _Jesus_ at least.... If the weather be extreme, that the small ships cannot keep company with the _Jesus_, then all tokeep company with the _Solomon_.... If any happen to any misfortune, then to show two lights, and to shoot off a piece of ordnance. If anylose company and come in sight again, to make three yaws [zigzags intheir course] and strike the mizzen three times. SERVE GOD DAILY. LOVEONE ANOTHER. PRESERVE YOUR VICTUALS. BEWARE OF FIRE, AND KEEP GOODCOMPANY. '

John Sparke, the chronicler of this second voyage, was full of curiosityover every strange sight he met with. He was also blessed with the penof a ready writer. So we get a story that is more vivacious thanHakluyt's retelling of the first voyage or Hawkins's own account of thethird. Sparke saw for the first time in his life negroes, Caribs, Indians, alligators, flying-fish, flamingoes, pelicans, and many otherstrange sights. Having been told that Florida was full of unicorns he atonce concluded that it must also be full of lions; for how could the onekind exist without the other kind to balance it? Sparke was a soldierwho never found his sea legs. But his diary, besides its other merits, is particularly interesting as being the first account of America everwritten by an English eyewitness. 

Hawkins made for Teneriffe in the Canaries, off the west of Africa. There, to everybody's great 'amaze, ' the Spaniards 'appeared levellingof bases [small portable cannon] and arquebuses, with divers others, tothe number of fourscore, with halberds, pikes, swords, and targets. ' Butwhen it was found that Hawkins had been taken for a privateer, and whenit is remembered that four hundred privateering vessels--English andHuguenot--had captured seven hundred Spanish prizes during the previoussummer of 1563, there was and is less cause for 'amaze. ' Onceexplanations had been made, 'Peter de Ponte gave Master Hawkins asgentle entertainment as if he had been his own brother. ' Peter was atrader with a great eye for the main chance. 

Sparke was lost in wonder over the famous Arbol Santo tree of Ferro, 'bythe dropping whereof the inhabitants and cattle are satisfied withwater, for other water they have none on the island. ' This is not quitethe traveller's tale it appears to be. There are three springs on theisland of Teneriffe. But water is scarce, and the Arbol Santo, a sort ofgigantic laurel standing alone on a rocky ledge, did actually supply twocisterns, one for men and the other for cattle. The morning mistcondensing on the innumerable smooth leaves ran off and was caught insuitable conduits. 

In Africa Hawkins took many 'Sapies which do inhabit about Rio Grande[now the Jeba River] which do jag their flesh, both legs, arms, andbodies as workmanlike as a jerkin-maker with us pinketh a jerkin. ' It isa nice question whether these Sapies gained or lost by becoming slavesto white men; for they were already slaves to black conquerors who usedthem as meat with the vegetables they forced them to raise. The Sapieswere sleek pacifists who found too late that the warlike Samboses, whoinhabited the neighboring desert, were not to be denied. 

'In the island of Sambula we found almadies or canoas, which are made ofone piece of wood, digged out like a trough, but of a good proportion, being about eight yards long and one in breadth, having a beak-head anda stern very proportionably made, and on the outside artificiallycarved, and painted red and blue. ' Neither _almadie_ nor canoa is, ofcourse, an African word. One is Arabic for a cradle (_el-mahd_); theother, from which we get _canoe_, is what the natives told Columbus theycalled their dugouts; and dugout canoes are very like primitive cradles. Thus Sparke was the first man to record in English, from actualexperience, the aboriginal craft whose name, both East and West, wassuggested to primeval man by the idea of his being literally 'rocked inthe cradle of the deep. '

Hawkins did not have it all his own way with the negroes, by whom heonce lost seven of his own men killed and twenty-seven wounded. 'But thecaptain in a singular wise manner carried himself with countenance verycheerful outwardly, although inwardly his heart was broken in pieces forit; done to this end, that the Portugais, being with him, should notpresume to resist against him. ' After losing five more men, who wereeaten by sharks, Hawkins shaped his course westward with a good cargo ofnegroes and 'other merchandises. ' 'Contrary winds and some tornadoshappened to us very ill. But the Almighty God, who never suffereth Hiselect to perish, sent us the ordinary Breeze, which never left us tillwe came to an island of the Cannibals' (Caribs of Dominica), who, by theby, had just eaten a shipload of Spaniards. 

Hawkins found the Spanish officials determined to make a show ofresisting unauthorized trade. But when 'he prepared 100 men well armedwith bows, arrows, arquebuses, and pikes, with which he marchedtownwards, ' the officials let the sale of blacks go on. Hawkins wasparticularly anxious to get rid of his 'lean negroes, ' who might die inhis hands and become a dead loss; so he used the 'gunboat argument' togood effect. Sparke kept his eyes open for side-shows and was delightedwith the alligators, which he called crocodiles, perhaps for the sake ofthe crocodile tears. 'His nature is to cry and sob like a Christian toprovoke his prey to come to him; and thereupon came this proverb, thatis applied unto women when they weep, _lachrymoe crocodili_. '

From the West Indies Hawkins made for Florida, which was then an objectof exceptional desire among adventurous Englishmen. De Soto, one ofPizarro's lieutenants, had annexed it to Spain and, in 1539, had startedoff inland to discover the supposed Peru of North America. Three yearslater he had died while descending the valley of the Mississippi. Sixyears later again, the first Spanish missionary in Florida 'taking uponhim to persuade the people to subjection, was by them taken, and hisskin cruelly pulled over his ears, and his flesh eaten. ' Hawkins's menhad fair warning on the way; for 'they, being ashore, found a dead man, dried in a manner whole, with other heads and bodies of men, 'apparently smoked like hams. 'But to return to our purpose, ' adds theindefatigable Sparke, 'the captain in the ship's pinnace sailed alongthe shore and went into every creek, speaking with divers of the_Floridians_, because he would understand where the Frenchmeninhabited. ' Finally he found them 'in the river of _May_ [now St. John'sRiver] and standing in 30 degrees and better. ' There was 'great store ofmaize and mill, and grapes of great bigness. Also deer great plenty, which came upon the sands before them. '

So here were the three rivals overlapping again--the annexing Spaniards, the would-be colonizing French, and the persistently trading English. There were, however, no Spaniards about at that time. This was thesecond Huguenot colony in Florida. René de Laudonnière had founded it in1564. The first one, founded two years earlier by Jean Ribaut, hadfailed and Ribaut's men had deserted the place. They had started forhome in 1563, had suffered terrible hardships, had been picked up by anEnglish vessel, and taken, some to France and some to England, where thecourt was all agog about the wealth of Florida. People said there weremines so bright with jewels that they had to be approached at nightlest the flashing light should strike men blind. Florida becameproverbial; and Elizabethan wits made endless fun of it. _Stolida_, orthe land of fools, and _Sordida_, or the land of muck-worms, were someof their _jeux d'esprit_. Everyone was 'bound for Florida, ' whether hemeant to go there or not, despite Spanish spheres of influence, thenative cannibals, and pirates by the way. 

Hawkins, on the contrary, did not profess to be bound for Florida. Nevertheless he arrived there, and probably had intended to do so fromthe first, for he took with him a Frenchman who had been in Ribaut'scolony two years before, and Sparke significantly says that 'the land ismore than any [one] king Christian is able to inhabit. ' However this maybe, Hawkins found the second French colony as well as 'a French ship offourscore ton, and two pinnaces of fifteen ton apiece by her ... And afort, in which their captain Monsieur Laudonnière was, with certainsoldiers therein. ' The colony had not been a success. Nor is this to bewondered at when we remember that most of the 'certain soldiers' wereex-pirates, who wanted gold, and 'who would not take the pains so muchas to fish in the river before their doors, but would have all thingsput in their mouths. ' Eighty of the original two hundred 'went a-roving'to the West Indies, 'where they spoiled the Spaniards ... And were ofsuch haughty stomachs that they thought their force to be such that noman durst meddle with them.... But God ... Did indurate their hearts insuch sort that they lingered so long that a [Spanish] ship and galliassebeing made out of St. Domingo ... Took twenty of them, whereof the mostpart were hanged ... And twenty-five escaped ... To Florida, where ... They were put into prison [by Laudonnière, against whom they hadmutinied] and ... Four of the chiefest being condemned, at the requestof the soldiers did pass the arquebusers, and then were hanged upon agibbet. ' Sparke got the delightful expression 'at the request of thesoldiers did pass the arquebusers' from a 'very polite' Frenchman. Couldany one tell you more politely, in mistranslated language, how to standup and be shot?

Sparke was greatly taken with the unknown art of smoking. 'TheFloridians ... Have an herb dried, who, with a cane and an earthen cupin the end, with fire and the dried herbs put together, do suck throughthe cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, andtherewith they live four or five days without meat or drink. And thisall the Frenchmen used for this purpose; yet do they hold opinion withalthat it causeth water and steam to void from their stomachs. ' The other'commodities of the land' were 'more than are yet known to any man. ' ButHawkins was bent on trade, not colonizing. He sold the _Tiger_, a barqueof fifty tons, to Laudonnière for seven hundred crowns and sailed northon the first voyage ever made along the coast of the United States by anall-English crew. Turning east off Newfoundland 'with a good large wind, the 20 September [1565] we came to Padstow, in Cornwall, God be thanked!in safety, with the loss of twenty persons in all the voyage, and withgreat profit to the venturers, as also to the whole realm, in bringinghome both gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels great store. His name, therefore, be praised for evermore. Amen. '

Hawkins was now a rich man, a favorite at court, and quite the rage inLondon. The Queen was very gracious and granted him the well-known coatof arms with the crest of 'a demi-Moor, bound and captive' in honor ofthe great new English slave trade. The Spanish ambassador met him atcourt and asked him to dinner, where, over the wine, Hawkins assured himthat he was going out again next year. Meanwhile, however, the famousCaptain-General of the Indian trade, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, thebest naval officer that Spain perhaps has ever had, swooped down on theFrench in Florida, killed them all, and built the fort of St. Augustineto guard the 'Mountains of Bright Stones' somewhere in the hinterland. News of this slaughter soon arrived at Madrid, whence orders presentlywent out to have an eye on Hawkins, whom Spanish officials thenceforthregarded as the leading interloper in New Spain. 

Nevertheless Hawkins set out on his third and very 'troublesome' voyagein 1567, backed by all his old and many new supporters, and with aflotilla of six vessels, the _Jesus_, the _Minion_ (which then meantdarling), the _William and John_, the _Judith_, the _Angel_, and the_Swallow_. This was the voyage that began those twenty years of sea-dogfighting which rose to their zenith in the battle against the Armada;and with this voyage Drake himself steps on to the stage as captain ofthe _Judith_. 

There had been a hitch in 1566, for the Spanish ambassador had reportedHawkins's after-dinner speech to his king. Philip had protested toElizabeth, and Elizabeth had consulted with Cecil, afterwards 'the greatLord Burleigh, ' ancestor of the Marquis of Salisbury, British PrimeMinister during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The result was thatorders went down to Plymouth stopping Hawkins and binding him over, in abond of five hundred pounds, to keep the peace with Her Majesty's rightgood friend King Philip of Spain. But in 1567 times had changed again, and Hawkins sailed with colors flying, for Elizabeth was now as ready tohurt Philip as he was to hurt her, provided always that open war wascarefully avoided. 

But this time things went wrong from the first. A tremendous autumnalstorm scattered the ships. Then the first negroes that Hawkins tried to'snare' proved to be like that other kind of prey of which the sarcasticFrenchman wrote: 'This animal is very wicked; when you attack it, itdefends itself. ' The 'envenomed arrows' of the negroes worked themischief. 'There hardly escaped any that had blood drawn of them, butdied in strange sort, with their mouths shut some ten days before theydied. ' Hawkins himself was wounded, but, 'thanks be to God, ' escapedthe lockjaw. After this the English took sides in a native war andcaptured '250 persons, men, women, and children, ' while their friend theKing captured '600 prisoners, whereof we hoped to have had our choice. But the negro, in which nation is seldom or never found truth, thatnight removed his camp and prisoners, so that we were fain to contentourselves with those few we had gotten ourselves. '

However, with 'between 400 and 500 negroes, ' Hawkins crossed over fromAfrica to the West Indies and 'coasted from place to place, making ourtraffic with the Spaniards as we might, somewhat hardly, because theKing had straitly commanded all his governors by no means to suffer anytrade to be made with us. Notwithstanding, we had reasonable trade, andcourteous entertainment' for a good part of the way. In Rio de la Hachathe Spaniards received the English with a volley that killed a couple ofmen, whereupon the English smashed in the gates, while the Spaniardsretired. But, after this little bit of punctilio, trade went on undercover of night so briskly that two hundred negroes were sold at goodprices. From there to Cartagena 'the inhabitants were glad of us andtraded willingly, ' supply being short and demand extra high. 

Then came a real rebuff from the governor of Cartagena, followed by aterrific storm 'which so beat the _Jesus_ that we cut down all herhigher buildings' (deck superstructures). Then the course was shaped forFlorida. But a new storm drove the battered flotilla back to 'the portwhich serveth the city of Mexico, called St. John de Ulua, ' the modernVera Cruz. The historic Vera Cruz was fifteen miles north of thisharbor. Here 'thinking us to be the fleet of Spain, the chief officersof the country came aboard us. Which, being deceived of theirexpectation, were greatly dismayed; but ... When they saw our demand wasnothing but victuals, were recomforted. I [for it is Hawkins's ownstory] found in the same port 12 ships which had in them by report£200, 000 in gold and silver, all which, being in my possession [i. E. , atmy mercy] with the King's Island ... I set at liberty. '

What was to be done? Hawkins had a hundred negroes still to sell. But itwas four hundred miles to Mexico City and back again; and a new Spanishviceroy was aboard the big Spanish fleet that was daily expected toarrive in this very port. If a permit to sell came back from the capitalin time, well and good. If no more than time to replenish stores wasallowed, good enough, despite the loss of sales. But what if the Spanishfleet arrived? The 'King's Island' was a low little reef right in themouth of the harbor, which it all but barred. Moreover, no vessel couldlive through a northerly gale inside the harbor--the only one on thatcoast--unless securely moored to the island itself. Consequently whoeverheld the island commanded the situation altogether. 

There was not much time for consultation; for the very next morning 'wesaw open of the haven 13 great ships, the fleet of Spain. ' It was aterrible predicament. '_Now_, said I, _I am in two dangers, and forcedto receive the one of them_.... Either I must have kept out the fleet, which, with God's help, I was very well able to do, or else suffer themto enter with their accustomed treason.... If I had kept them out, thenthere had been present shipwreck of all that fleet, which amounted invalue to six millions, which was in value of our money £1, 800, 000, whichI considered I was not able to answer, fearing the Queen's Majesty'sindignation.... Thus with myself revolving the doubts, I thought betterto abide the jut of the uncertainty than of the certainty. ' So, afterconditions had been agreed upon and hostages exchanged, the thirteenSpanish ships sailed in. The little island remained in English hands;and the Spaniards were profuse in promises. 

But, having secretly made their preparations, the Spaniards, who were inoverwhelming numbers, suddenly set upon the English by land and sea. Every Englishman ashore was killed, except a few who got off in a boatto the _Jesus_. The _Jesus_ and the _Minion_ cut their headfasts, hauledclear by their sternfasts, drove back the boarding parties, and engagedthe Spanish fleet at about a hundred yards. Within an hour the Spanishflagship and another were sunk, a third vessel was burning furiously, fore and aft, while every English deck was clear of enemies. But theSpaniards had swarmed on to the island from all sides and were firinginto the English hulls at only a few feet from the cannon's mouth. Hawkins was cool as ever. Calling for a tankard of beer he drank to thehealth of the gunners, who accounted for most of the five hundred andforty men killed on the Spanish side. 'Stand by your ordnance lustily, 'he cried, as he put the tankard down and a round shot sent it flying. 'God hath delivered me, ' he added, 'and so will He deliver you fromthese traitors and villains. '

The masts of the _Jesus_ went by the board and her old, strained timberssplintered, loosened up, and were stove in under the storm of cannonballs. Hawkins then gave the order to abandon ship after taking out whatstores they could and changing her berth so that she would shield thelittle _Minion_. But while this desperate manoeuvre was being executeddown came two fire-ships. Some of the _Minion's_ crew then lost theirheads and made sail so quickly that Hawkins himself was nearly leftbehind. 

The only two English vessels that escaped were the _Minion_ and the_Judith_. When nothing else was left to do, Hawkins shouted to Drake tolay the _Judith_ aboard the _Minion_, take in all the men and stores hecould, and put to sea. Drake, then only twenty-three, did this withconsummate skill. Hawkins followed some time after and anchored just outof range. But Drake had already gained an offing that caused the twolittle vessels to part company in the night, during which a whole galefrom the north sprang up, threatening to put the _Judith_ on a leeshore. Drake therefore fought his way to windward; and, seeing no onewhen the gale abated, and having barely enough stores to make a friendlyland, sailed straight home. Hawkins reported the _Judith_, withoutmentioning Drake's name, as 'forsaking' the _Minion_. But no otherwitness thought Drake to blame. 

Hawkins himself rode out the gale under the lee of a little island, thenbeat about for two weeks of increasing misery, when 'hides were thoughtvery good meat, and rats, cats, mice, and dogs, parrots and monkeys thatwere got at great price, none escaped. ' The _Minion_ was of threehundred tons; and so was insufferably overcrowded with three hundredmen, two hundred English and one hundred negroes. Drake's little_Judith_, of only fifty tons, could have given no relief, as she washerself overfull. Hawkins asked all the men who preferred to take theirchance on land to get round the foremast and all those who wanted toremain afloat to get round the mizzen. About a hundred chose one courseand a hundred the other. The landing took place about a hundred andfifty miles south of the Rio Grande. The shore party nearly all died. But three lived to write of their adventures. David Ingram, followingIndian trails all round the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic seaboard, came out where St. John, New Brunswick, stands now, was picked up by apassing Frenchman, and so got safely home. Job Hortop and Miles Philipswere caught by the Spaniards and sent back to Mexico. Philips escaped toEngland fourteen years later. But Hortop was sent to Spain, where heserved twelve years as a galley-slave and ten as a servant before hecontrived to get aboard an English vessel. 

The ten Spanish hostages were found safe and sound aboard the _Jesus_;though, by all the rules of war, Hawkins would have been amply justifiedin killing them. The English hostages were kept fast prisoners. 'If allthe miseries of this sorrowful voyage, ' says Hawkins's report, 'shouldbe perfectly written, there should need a painful man with his pen, andas great a time as he had that wrote the lives and deaths of martyrs. '

Thus, in complete disaster, ended that third voyage to New Spain onwhich so many hopes were set. And with this disastrous end began thosetwenty years of sea-dog rage which found their satisfaction against theGreat Armada. 

CHAPTER VI

DRAKE'S BEGINNING

We must now turn back for a moment to 1545, the year in which the OldWorld, after the discovery of the mines of Potosi, first awoke to theillimitable riches of the New; the year in which King Henry assembledhis epoch-making fleet; the year, too, in which the British NationalAnthem was, so to say, born at sea, when the parole throughout thewaiting fleet was _God save the King!_ and the answering countersign was_Long to reign over us!_

In the same year, at Crowndale by Tavistock in Devon, was born FrancisDrake, greatest of sea-dogs and first of modern admirals. His father, Edmund Drake, was a skipper in modest circumstances. But from timeimmemorial there had been Drakes all round the countryside of Tavistockand the family name stood high. Francis was called after his godfather, Francis Russell, son and heir of Henry's right-hand reforming peer, LordRussell, progenitor of the Dukes of Bedford down to the present day. 

Though fortune thus seemed to smile upon Drake's cradle, his boyhoodproved to be a very stormy one indeed. He was not yet five when theProtestant zeal of the Lord Protector Somerset stirred the RomanCatholics of the West Country into an insurrection that swept theanti-Papal minority before it like flotsam before a flood. Drake'sfather was a zealous Protestant, a 'hot gospeller, ' much given topreaching; and when he was cast up by the storm on what is now Drake'sIsland, just off Plymouth, he was glad to take passage for Kent. Hisfriends at court then made him a sort of naval chaplain to the men whotook care of His Majesty's ships laid up in Gillingham Reach on theRiver Medway, just below where Chatham Dockyard stands to-day. Here, ina vessel too old for service, most of Drake's eleven brothers were bornto a life as nearly amphibious as the life of any boy could be. The tideruns in with a rush from the sea at Sheerness, only ten miles away; andso, among the creeks and marshes, points and bends, through tortuouschannels and hurrying waters lashed by the keen east wind of England, Drake reveled in the kind of playground that a sea-dog's son shouldhave. 

During the reign of Mary (1553-58) 'hot gospellers' like Drake's fatherwere of course turned out of the Service. And so young Francis had to beapprenticed to 'the master of a bark, which he used to coast along theshore, and sometimes to carry merchandise into Zeeland and France. ' Itwas hard work and a rough life for the little lad of ten. But Drakestuck to it, and 'so pleased the old man by his industry that, being abachelor, at his death he bequeathed his bark unto him by will andtestament. ' Moreover, after Elizabeth's accession, Drake's father cameinto his own. He took orders in the Church of England, and in 1561, whenFrancis was sixteen, became vicar of Upchurch on the Medway, the sameriver on which his boys had learned to live amphibious lives. 

No dreams of any Golden West had Drake as yet. To the boy in his teens_Westward Ho!_ meant nothing more than the usual cry of London boatmentouting for fares up-stream. But, before he went out with Sir JohnHawkins, on the 'troublesome' voyage which we have just followed, hemust have had a foretaste of something like his future raiding of theSpanish Main; for the Channel swarmed with Protestant privateers, nogentler, when they caught a Spaniard, than Spaniards were when theycaught them. He was twenty-two when he went out with Hawkins and wouldbe in his twenty-fourth year when he returned to England in the little_Judith_ after the murderous Spanish treachery at San Juan de Ulua. 

Just as the winter night was closing in, on the 20th of January, 1569, the _Judith_ sailed into Plymouth. Drake landed. William Hawkins, John'sbrother, wrote a petition to the Queen-in-Council for letters-of-marquein reprisal for Ulua, and Drake dashed off for London with the missivealmost before the ink was dry. Now it happened that a Spanish treasurefleet, carrying money from Italy and bound for Antwerp, had been driveninto Plymouth and neighboring ports by Huguenot privateers. This moneywas urgently needed by Alva, the very capable but ruthless governor ofthe Spanish Netherlands, who, having just drowned the rebellious Dutchin blood, was now erecting a colossal statue to himself for having'extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion, securedjustice, and established peace. ' The Spanish ambassador thereforeobtained leave to bring it overland to Dover. 

But no sooner had Elizabeth signed the order of safe conduct than incame Drake with the news of San Juan de Ulua. Elizabeth at once saw thatall the English sea-dogs would be flaming for revenge. Everyone saw thatthe treasure would be safer now in England than aboard any Spanishvessel in the Channel. So, on the ground that the gold, though payableto Philip's representative in Antwerp, was still the property of theItalian bankers who advanced it, Elizabeth sent orders down post-hasteto commandeer it. The enraged ambassador advised Alva to seizeeverything English in the Netherlands. Elizabeth in turn seizedeverything Spanish in England. Elizabeth now held the diplomatic trumps;for existing treaties provided that there should be no reprisals withouta reasonable delay; and Alva had seized English property before givingElizabeth the customary time to explain. 

John Hawkins entered Plymouth five days later than Drake and started forLondon with four pack horses carrying all he had saved from the wreck. By the irony of fate he travelled up to town in the rear of the longprocession that carried the commandeered Spanish gold. 

The plot thickened fast; for England was now on the brink of war withFrance over the secret aid Englishmen had been giving to the Huguenotsat La Rochelle. But suddenly Elizabeth was all smiles and affability forFrance. And when her two great merchant fleets put out to sea, one, thewine-fleet, bound for La Rochelle, went with only a small naval escort, just enough to keep the pirates off; while the other, the bigwool-fleet, usually sent to Antwerp but now bound for Hamburg, went witha strong fighting escort of regular men-of-war. 

Aboard this escort went Francis Drake as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Home in June, Drake ran down to Tavistock in Devon; wooed, won, andmarried pretty Mary Newman, all within a month. He was back on duty inJuly. 

For the time being the war cloud passed away. Elizabeth's tortuousdiplomacy had succeeded, owing to dissension among her enemies. In thefollowing year (1570) the international situation was changed by thePope, who issued a bull formally deposing Elizabeth and absolving hersubjects from their allegiance to her. The French and Spanish monarchsrefused to publish this order because they did not approve of depositionby the Pope. But, for all that, it worked against Elizabeth by makingher the official standing enemy of Rome. At the same time it worked forher among the sea-dogs and all who thought with them. 'The case, ' saidThomas Fuller, author of _The Worthies of England_, 'the case was clearin _sea divinitie_. ' Religious zeal and commercial enterprise went handin hand. The case _was_ clear; and the English navy, now mobilized andready for war, made it much clearer still. 

_Westward Ho!_ in chief command, at the age of twenty-five, with thetiny flotilla of the _Dragon_ and the _Swan_, manned by as good a lot ofdaredevil experts as any privateer could wish to see! Out and back in1570, and again in 1571, Drake took reprisals on New Spain, made moneyfor all hands engaged, and gained a knowledge of the American coast thatstood him in good stead for future expeditions. 

 * * * * *

It was 1572 when Drake, at the age of twenty-seven, sailed out ofPlymouth on the Nombre de Dios expedition that brought him into fame. He led a Lilliputian fleet: the _Pascha_ and the _Swan_, a hundred tonsbetween them, with seventy-three men, all ranks and ratings, aboard ofthem. But both vessels were 'richly furnished with victuals and apparelsfor a whole year, and no less heedfully provided with all manner ofammunition, artillery [which then meant every kind of firearm as well ascannon], artificers' stuff and tools; but especially three daintypinnaces made in Plymouth, taken asunder all in pieces, ' and stowedaboard to be set up as occasion served. 

Without once striking sail Drake made the channel between Dominica andMartinique in twenty-five days and arrived off a previously chosensecret harbor on the Spanish Main towards the end of July. To hisintense surprise a column of smoke was rising from it, though there wasno settlement within a hundred miles. On landing he found a leaden platewith this inscription: 'Captain Drake! If you fortune to come to thisPort, make hast away! For the Spaniards which you had with you here, thelast year, have bewrayed the place and taken away all that you lefthere. I depart hence, this present 7th of July, 1572. Your very lovingfriend, John Garrett. ' That was fourteen days before. Drake, however, was determined to carry out his plan. So he built a fort and set up hispinnaces. But others had now found the secret harbor; for in came threesail under Ranse, an Englishman, who asked that he be taken intopartnership, which was done. 

Then the combined forces, not much over a hundred strong, stole out andalong the coast to the Isle of Pines, where again Drake found himselfforestalled. From the negro crews of two Spanish vessels he discoveredthat, only six weeks earlier, the Maroons had annihilated a Spanishforce on the Isthmus and nearly taken Nombre de Dios itself. TheseMaroons were the descendants of escaped negro slaves intermarried withthe most warlike of the Indians. They were regular desperadoes, always, and naturally, at war with the Spaniards, who treated them as vermin tobe killed at sight. Drake put the captured negroes ashore to join theMaroons, with whom he always made friends. Then with seventy-threepicked men he made his dash for Nombre de Dios, leaving the rest underRanse to guard the base. 

Nombre de Dios was the Atlantic terminus, as Panama was the Pacificterminus, of the treasure trail across the Isthmus of Darien. TheSpaniards, knowing nothing of Cape Horn, and unable to face theappalling dangers of Magellan's straits, used to bring the Peruviantreasure ships to Panama, whence the treasure was taken across theisthmus to Nombre de Dios by _recuas_, that is, by mule trains underescort. 

At evening Drake's vessel stood off the harbor of Nombre de Dios andstealthily approached unseen. It was planned to make the landing in themorning. A long and nerve-racking wait ensued. As the hours dragged on, Drake felt instinctively that his younger men were getting demoralized. They began to whisper about the size of the town--'as big asPlymouth'--with perhaps a whole battalion of the famous Spanishinfantry, and so on. It wanted an hour of the first real streak of dawn. But just then the old moon sent a ray of light quivering in on the tide. Drake instantly announced the dawn, issued the orders: 'Shove off, outoars, give way!' Inside the bay a ship just arrived from sea was pickingup her moorings. A boat left her side and pulled like mad for the wharf. But Drake's men raced the Spaniards, beat them, and made them sheer offto a landing some way beyond the town. 

Springing eagerly ashore the Englishmen tumbled the Spanish guns offtheir platforms while the astonished sentry ran for dear life. In fiveminutes the church bells were pealing out their wild alarms, trumpetcalls were sounding, drums were beating round the general parade, andthe civilians of the place, expecting massacre at the hands of theMaroons, were rushing about in agonized confusion. Drake's men fellin--they were all well-drilled--and were quickly told off into threedetachments. The largest under Drake, the next under Oxenham--the heroof Kingsley's _Westward Ho!_--and the third, of twelve men only, toguard the pinnaces. Having found that the new fort on the hillcommanding the town was not yet occupied, Drake and Oxenham marchedagainst the town at the head of their sixty men, Oxenham by a flank, Drake straight up the main street, each with a trumpet sounding, a drumrolling, fire-pikes blazing, swords flashing, and all ranks yelling likefiends. Drake was only of medium stature. But he had the strength of agiant, the pluck of a bulldog, the spring of a tiger, and the cut of aman that is born to command. Broad-browed, with steel-blue eyes andclose-cropped auburn hair and beard, he was all kindliness ofcountenance to friends, but a very 'Dragon' to his Spanish foes. 

As Drake's men reached the Plaza, his trumpeter blew one blast ofdefiance and then fell dead. Drake returned the Spanish volley andcharged immediately, the drummer beating furiously, pikes levelled, andswords brandished. The Spaniards did not wait for him to close; forOxenham's party, fire-pikes blazing, were taking them in flank. Out wentthe Spaniards through the Panama gate, with screaming townsfolkscurrying before them. Bang went the gate, now under English guard, asDrake made for the Governor's house. There lay a pile of silver barssuch as his men had never dreamt of: in all, about four hundred tons ofsilver ready for the homeward fleet--enough not only to fill but sinkthe _Pascha_, _Swan_, and pinnaces. But silver was then no more to Drakethan it was once to Solomon. What he wanted were the diamonds and pearlsand gold, which were stored, he learned, in the King's Treasure Housebeside the bay. 

A terrific storm now burst. The fire-pikes and arquebuses had to betaken under cover. The wall of the King's Treasure House defied allefforts to breach it. And the Spaniards who had been shut into thetown, discovering how few the English were, reformed for attack. Some ofDrake's men began to lose heart. But in a moment he stepped to the frontand ordered Oxenham to go round and smash in the Treasure House gatewhile he held the Plaza himself. Just as the men stepped off, however, he reeled aside and fell. He had fainted from loss of blood caused by awound he had managed to conceal. There was no holding the men now. Theygave him a cordial, after which he bound up his leg, for he was afirst-rate surgeon, and repeated his orders as before. But there were agood many wounded; and, with Drake no longer able to lead, the rest allbegged to go back. So back to their boats they went, and over to theBastimentos or Victualling Islands, which contained the gardens andpoultry runs of the Nombre de Dios citizens. 

Here they were visited, under a flag of truce, by the Spanish officercommanding the reinforcement just sent across from Panama. He was allpoliteness, airs, and graces, while trying to ferret out the secret oftheir real strength. Drake, however, was not to be outdone either indiplomacy or war; and a delightful little comedy of prying and veilingcourtesies was played out, to the great amusement of the Englishsea-dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up, the Spanish officerdeparted, pouring forth a stream of high-flown compliments, which Drake, who was a Spanish scholar, answered with the like. Waving each other aceremonious adieu the two leaders were left no wiser than before. 

Nombre de Dios, now strongly reinforced and on its guard, was not aneasy nut to crack. But Panama? Panama meant a risky march inland and astill riskier return by the regular treasure trail. But with the help ofthe Maroons, who knew the furtive byways to a foot, the thing might yetbe done. Ranse thought the game not worth the candle and retired fromthe partnership, much to Drake's delight. 

A good preliminary stroke was made by raiding Cartagena. Here Drakefound a frigate deserted by its crew, who had gone ashore to see fairplay in a duel fought about a seaman's mistress. The old man left incharge confessed that a Seville ship was round the point. Drake cut herout at once, in spite of being fired at from the shore. Next, in cametwo more Spanish sail to warn Cartagena that 'Captain Drake has been atNombre de Dios and taken it, and if a blest bullet hadn't hit him in theleg he would have sacked it too. '

Cartagena, however, was up in arms already; so Drake put all hisprisoners ashore unhurt and retired to reconsider his position, leavingDiego, a negro fugitive from Nombre de Dios, to muster the Maroons for araid overland to Panama. Then Drake, who sank the _Swan_ and burnt hisprizes because he had only men enough for the _Pascha_ and the pinnaces, disappeared into a new secret harbor. But his troubles were onlybeginning; for word came that the Maroons said that nothing could bedone inland till the rains were over, five months hence. This meant along wait; however, what with making supply depots and picking up prizeshere and there, the wet time might pass off well enough. 

One day Oxenham's crew nearly mutinied over the shortness of provisions. 'Have ye not as much as I, ' Drake called to them, 'and has God'sProvidence ever failed us yet?' Within an hour a Spanish vessel hove insight, making such very heavy weather of it that boarding her was out ofthe question. But 'We spent not two hours in attendance till it pleasedGod to send us a reasonable calm, so that we might use our guns andapproach her at pleasure. We found her laden with victuals, which wereceived as sent of God's great mercy. ' Then 'Yellow Jack' broke out, and the men began to fall sick and die. The company consisted ofseventy-three men; and twenty-eight of these perished of the fever, among them the surgeon himself and Drake's own brother. 

But on the 3d of February, 1573, Drake was ready for the dash on Panama. Leaving behind about twenty-five men to guard the base, he began theoverland march with a company of fifty, all told, of whom thirty-onewere picked Maroons. The fourth day out Drake climbed a forest giant onthe top of the Divide, saw the Atlantic behind him and the Pacific farin front, and vowed that if he lived he would sail an English ship overthe great South Sea. Two days more and the party left the protectingforest for the rolling pampas where the risk of being seen increased atevery step. Another day's march and Panama was sighted as they toppedthe crest of one of the bigger waves of ground. A clever Maroon wentahead to spy out the situation and returned to say that two _recuas_would leave at dusk, one coming from Venta Cruz, fifteen miles northwestof Panama, carrying silver and supplies, and the other from Panama, loaded with jewels and gold. Then a Spanish sentry was caught asleep bythe advanced party of Maroons, who smelt him out by the match of hisfire-lock. In his gratitude for being protected from the Maroons, thisman confirmed the previous information. 

The excitement now was most intense; for the crowning triumph of atwo-years' great adventure was at last within striking distance of theEnglish crew. Drake drew them up in proper order; and every man took offhis shirt and put it on again outside his coat, so that each wouldrecognize the others in the night attack. Then they lay listening forthe mule-bells, till presently the warning tinkle let them know that_recuas_ were approaching from both Venta Cruz and Panama. The first, orsilver train from Venta Cruz, was to pass in silence; only the second, or gold train from Panama, was to be attacked. Unluckily one of theEnglishmen had been secretly taking pulls at his flask and had justbecome pot-valiant when a stray Spanish gentleman came riding up fromVenta Cruz. The Englishman sprang to his feet, swayed about, wastripped up by Maroons and promptly sat upon. But the Spaniard saw hisshirt, reined up, whipped round, and galloped back to Panama. This tookplace so silently at the extreme flank in towards Panama that it was notobserved by Drake or any other Englishman. Presently what appeared to bethe gold train came within range. Drake blew his whistle; and all set onwith glee, only to find that the Panama _recua_ they were attacking wasa decoy sent on to spring the trap and that the gold and jewels had beenstopped. 

The Spaniards were up in arms. But Drake slipped away through theengulfing forest and came out on the Atlantic side, where he found hisrear-guard intact and eager for further exploits. He was met by CaptainTêtu, a Huguenot just out from France, with seventy men. Têtu gave Drakenews of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and this drew the French andEnglish Protestants together. They agreed to engage in further raidingof Spaniards, share and share alike by nationalities, though Drake hadnow only thirty-one men against Têtu's seventy. Nombre de Dios, theydecided, was not vulnerable, as all the available Spanish forces wereconcentrated there for its defence, and so they planned to seize aSpanish train of gold and jewels just far enough inland to give themtime to get away with the plunder before the garrison could reach them. Somewhere on the coast they established a base of operations and thenmarched overland to the Panama trail and lay in wait. 

This time the marauders were successful. When the Spanish train of goldand jewels came opposite the ambush, Drake's whistle blew. The leadingmules were stopped. The rest lay down, as mule-trains will. The guardwas overpowered after killing a Maroon and wounding Captain Têtu. Andwhen the garrison of Nombre de Dios arrived a few hours later the goldand jewels had all gone. 

For a day and a night and another day Drake and his men pushed on, loaded with plunder, back to their rendezvous along the coast, leavingTêtu and two of his devoted Frenchmen to be rescued later. When theyarrived, worn out, at the rendezvous, not a man was in sight. Drakebuilt a raft out of unhewn tree trunks and, setting up a biscuit bag asa sail, pushed out with two Frenchmen and one Englishman till he foundhis boats. The plunder was then divided up between the French and theEnglish, while Oxenham headed a rescue party to bring Têtu to the coast. One Frenchman was found. But Têtu and the other had been caught bySpaniards. 

The _Pascha_ was given to the accumulated Spanish prisoners to sail awayin. The pinnaces were kept till a suitable, smart-sailing Spanish craftwas found, boarded, and captured to replace them; whereupon they werebroken up and their metal given to the Maroons. Then, in two frigates, with ballast of silver and cargo of jewels and gold, the thirtysurvivors of the adventure set sail for home. 'Within 23 days we passedfrom the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived atPlymouth on Sunday about sermon time, August 9, 1573, at what time thenews of our Captain's return, brought unto his friends, did so speedilypass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire to seehim, that very few or none remained with the preacher, all hastening tosee the evidence of God's love and blessing towards our Gracious Queenand country, by the fruit of our Captain's labour and success. _Soli DeoGloria. _'

CHAPTER VII

DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE'

When Drake left for Nombre de Dios in the spring of 1572, Spain andEngland were both ready to fly at each other's throats. When heCame back in the summer of 1573, they were all for makingfriends--hypocritically so, but friends. Drake's plunder stank in thenostrils of the haughty Dons. It was a very inconvenient factor in thediplomatic problem for Elizabeth. Therefore Drake disappeared and hisplunder too. He went to Ireland on service in the navy. His plunder wasdivided up in secrecy among all the high and low contracting parties. 

In 1574 the Anglo-Spanish scene had changed again. The Spaniards hadbeen so harassed by the English sea-dogs between the Netherlands andSpain that Philip listened to his great admiral, Menendez, who, despairing of direct attack on England, proposed to seize the ScillyIsles and from that naval base clear out a way through all the piratesof the English Channel. War seemed certain. But a terrible epidemicbroke out in the Spanish fleet. Menendez died. And Philip changed hispolicy again. 

This same year John Oxenham, Drake's old second-in-command, sailed overto his death. The Spaniards caught him on the Isthmus of Darien andhanged him as a pirate at Lima in Peru. 

In the autumn of 1575 Drake returned to England with a new friend, Thomas Doughty, a soldier-scholar of the Renaissance, clever and goodcompany, but one of those 'Italianate' Englishmen who gave rise to theItalian proverb: _Inglese italianato è diavolo incarnato--_'anItalianized Englishman is the very Devil. ' Doughty was patronized by theEarl of Essex, who had great influence at court. 

The next year, 1576, is noted for the 'Spanish Fury. ' Philip's sea powerwas so hampered by the Dutch and English privateers, and he was soimpotent against the English navy, that he could get no ready money, either by loan or from America, to pay his troops in Antwerp. These men, reinforced by others, therefore mutinied and sacked the whole ofAntwerp, killing all who opposed them and practically ruining the cityfrom which Charles V used to draw such splendid subsidies. The resultwas a strengthening of Dutch resistance everywhere. 

Elizabeth had been unusually tortuous in her policy about this time. Butin 1577 she was ready for another shot at Spain, provided always that itentailed no open war. Don John of Austria, natural son of Charles V, hadall the shining qualities that his legitimate half-brother Philiplacked. He was the hero of Lepanto and had offered to conquer the Moorsin Tunis if Philip would let him rule as king. Philip, crafty, cold, andjealous, of course refused and sent him to the Netherlands instead. HereDon John formed the still more aspiring plan of pacifying the Dutch, marrying Mary Queen of Scots, deposing Elizabeth, and reigning over allthe British Isles. The Pope had blessed both schemes. But the Dutchinsisted on the immediate withdrawal of the Spanish troops. Thisdemolished Don John's plan. But it pleased Philip, who could now ruinhis brilliant brother by letting him wear himself out by trying togovern the Netherlands without an army. Then the Duke of Anjou, brotherto the King of France, came into the fast-thickening plot at the head ofthe French rescuers of the Netherlands from Spain. But a victoriousFrench army in the Netherlands was worse for England than even Spanishrule there. So Elizabeth tried to support the Dutch enough to annoyPhilip and at the same time keep them independent of the French. 

In her desire to support them against Philip indirectly she found itconvenient to call Drake into consultation. Drake then presented to SirFrancis Walsingham his letter of commendation from the Earl of Essex, under whom he had served in Ireland; whereupon 'Secretary Walsingham[the first civilian who ever grasped the principle of modern sea power]declared that Her Majesty had received divers injuries of the King ofSpain, for which she desired revenge. He showed me a plot [map] willingme to note down where he might be most annoyed. But I refused to set myhand to anything, affirming that Her Majesty was mortal, and that if itshould please God to take Her Majesty away that some prince might reignthat might be in league with the King of Spain, and then would my ownhand be a witness against myself. ' Elizabeth was forty-four. Mary Queenof Scots was watching for the throne. Plots and counter-plots wereeverywhere. 

Shortly after this interview Drake was told late at night that he shouldhave audience of Her Majesty next day. On seeing him, Elizabeth wentstraight to the point. 'Drake, I would gladly be revenged on the King ofSpain for divers injuries that I have received. ' 'And withal, ' saysDrake, 'craved my advice therein; who told Her Majesty the only way wasto annoy him by the Indies. ' On that he disclosed his whole daringscheme for raiding the Pacific. Elizabeth, who, like her father, 'loveda man' who was a man, fell in with this at once. Secrecy was of courseessential. 'Her Majesty did swear by her Crown that if any within herrealm did give the King of Spain to understand hereof they should losetheir heads therefor. ' At a subsequent audience 'Her Majesty gave mespecial commandment that of all men my Lord Treasurer should not know ofit. ' The cautious Lord Treasurer Burleigh was against what he considereddangerous forms of privateering and was for keeping on good terms withSpanish arms and trade as long as possible. Mendoza, lynx-eyedambassador of Spain, was hoodwinked. But Doughty, the viper in Drake'sbosom, was meditating mischief: not exactly treason with Spain, but atleast a breach of confidence by telling Burleigh. 

De Guaras, chief Spanish spy in England, was sorely puzzled. Drake'sostensible destination was Egypt, and his men were openly enlisted forAlexandria. The Spaniards, however, saw far enough through this tosuppose that he was really going back to Nombre de Dios. It did not seemlikely, though quite possible, that he was going in search of theNorthwest Passage, for Martin Frobisher had gone out on that quest theyear before and had returned with a lump of black stone from the arcticdesolation of Baffin Island. No one seems to have divined the truth. Cape Horn was unknown. The Strait of Magellan was supposed to be theonly opening between South America and a huge antarctic continent, andits reputation for disasters had grown so terrible, and rightlyterrible, that it had been given up as the way into the Pacific. TheSpanish way, as we have seen, was overland from Nombre de Dios toPanama, more or less along the line of the modern Panama Canal. 

In the end Drake got away quietly enough, on the 15th of November, 1577. The court and country were in great excitement over the conspiracybetween the Spaniards and Mary Queen of Scots, now a prisoner of nineyears' standing. 

'THE FAMOUS VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE _into the South Sea, andtherehence about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the year of ourLord 1577_' well deserves its great renown. Drake's flotilla seemsabsurdly small. But, for its own time, it was far from insignificant;and it was exceedingly well found. The _Pelican_, afterwards called the_Golden Hind_, though his flagship, was of only a hundred tons. The_Elizabeth_, the _Swan_, the _Marigold_, and the _Benedict_ were ofeighty, fifty, thirty, and fifteen. There were altogether less thanthree hundred tons and two hundred men. The crews numbered a hundred andfifty. The rest were gentlemen-adventurers, special artificers, twotrained surveyors, musicians, boys, and Drake's own page, Jack Drake. There was great store of wild-fire, chain-shot, harquebusses, pistols, corslets, bows and other like weapons in great abundance. Neither had heomitted to make provision for ornament and delight, carrying with himexpert musicians, rich furniture (all the vessels for his table, yea, many belonging even to the cook-room, being of pure silver), and diversshows of all sorts of curious workmanship whereby the civility andmagnificence of his native country might amongst all nationswithersoever he should come, be the more admired. '[3]

[3: The little handbook issued by Pette and Jackman in 1580, for thosewhom we should now call commercial travellers, is full of 'tips' about'Thinges to be carried with you, whereof more or lesse is to be carriedfor a shewe of our commodities to bee made. ' For instance:--'Kersies ofall orient couleurs, specially of stamel (fine worsted), brode cloth oforient couleurs also. Taffeta hats. Deepe cappes for mariners. QuiltedCappes of Levant Taffeta of divers coulours, for the night. Garters ofSilke. Girdels of Buffe and all leathers, with gilt and ungilt Buckles, specially wast girdels. Wast girdels of velvet. Gloves of all sortes, knit and of leather. Gloves perfumed. Shooes of Spanish leather, ofdivers colours. Looking glasses for Women, great and fayre. Comes ofIvorie. Handkerchewes, with silk of divers colours, wrought. Glasen eyesto ride with against dust [so motor goggles are not so new, after all!]. Boxes with weightes of golde, and every kind of coyne of golde, to shewethat the people here use weight and measure, which is a certayne sheweof wisedome, and of a certayne government settled here. ' There are alsoelaborate directions about what to take 'For banketing on shipborde ofpersons of credite' [and prospective customers]. 'First, the sweetestperfumes to set under hatches to make the place smell sweete againsttheir coming aborde. Marmelade. Sucket [candies]. Figges barrelled. Raisins of the Sun. Comfets that shall not dissolve. Prunes damaske. Dried peres. Walnuttes. Almondes. Olives, to make them taste their wine. The Apple John that dureth two yeares, to make showe of our fruites. Hullocke [a sweet wine]. Sacke. Vials of good sweet waters, andcasting-bottels of glass, to besprinckel the gests withal, after theircoming aborde. The sweet oyle of Xante and excellent French vinegar anda fine kind of Bisket steeped in the same do make a banketting dishe. And a little Sugar cast in it cooleth and comforteth, and refresheth thespirittes of man. Synomomme Water and Imperiall Water is to be had withyou to comfort your sicke in the voyage. '

No feature is neglected. 'Take with you the large mappe of London andlet the river be drawn full of shippes to make the more showe of yourgreat trade. The booke of the Attyre of All Nations carried with you andbestowed in gift would be much esteemed. Tinder boxes, with steel, flint, and matches. A painted Bellowes, for perhaps they have not theuse of them. All manner of edge tools. Note specially what dyeing theyuse. ' After many more items the authors end up with two bits of goodadvice. 'Take with you those things that bee in the Perfection ofGoodnesse to make your commodities in credit in time to come. ' 'Learnwhat the Country hath before you offer your commodities for sale; for ifyou bring thither what you yourself desire to lade yourself home with, you must not sell yours deare lest hereafter you purchase theirs not socheape as you would. ']

Sou'sou'west went Drake's flotilla and made its landfall 'towards thePole Antartick' off the 'Land of Devils' in 31° 40' south, northeast ofMontevideo. Frightful storms had buffeted the little ships about forweary weeks together, and all hands thought they were the victims ofsome magician on board, perhaps the 'Italianate' Doughty, or else ofnative witchcraft from the shore. The experienced old pilot, who was aPortuguese, explained that the natives had sold themselves to Devils, who were kinder masters than the Spaniards, and that 'now when they seeships they cast sand into the air, whereof ariseth a most gross thickfogg and palpable darkness, and withal horrible, fearful, andintolerable winds, rains, and storms. '

But witchcraft was not Thomas Doughty's real offence. Even beforeleaving England, and after betraying Elizabeth and Drake to Burleigh, who wished to curry favor with the Spanish traders rather than provokethe Spanish power, Doughty was busy tampering with the men. Astorekeeper had to be sent back for peculation designed to curtailDrake's range of action. Then Doughty tempted officers and men: talkedup the terrors of Magellan's Strait, ran down his friend's authority, and finally tried to encourage downright desertion by underhand means. This was too much for Drake. Doughty was arrested, tied to the mast, andthreatened with dire punishment if he did not mend his ways. But hewould not mend his ways. He had a brother on board and a friend, a 'verycraftie lawyer'; so stern measures were soon required. Drake held a sortof court-martial which condemned Doughty to death. Then Doughty, havingplayed his last card and lost, determined to die 'like an officer andgentleman. '

Drake solemnly 'pronounced him the child of Death and persuaded himthat he would by these means make him the servant of God. ' Doughty fellin with the idea and the former friends took the Sacrament together, 'for which Master Doughty gave him hearty thanks, never otherwiseterming him than "My good Captaine. "' Chaplain Fletcher having endedwith the absolution, Drake and Doughty sat down together 'as cheerfullyas ever in their lives, each cheering up the other and taking theirleave by drinking to each other, as if some journey had been in hand. 'Then Drake and Doughty went aside for a private conversation of which norecord has remained. After this Doughty walked to the place ofexecution, where, like King Charles I, He nothing common did or mean Upon that memorable scene. 

'And so bidding the whole company farewell he laid his head on theblock. ' 'Lo! this is the end of traitors!' said Drake as the executionerraised the head aloft. 

Drake, like Magellan, decided to winter where he was, in Port St. Julianon the east coast of Patagonia. His troubles with the men were not yetover; for the soldiers resented being put on an equality with thesailors, and the 'very craftie lawyer' and Doughty's brother wereanything but pleased with the turn events had taken. Then, again, thefaint-hearts murmured in their storm-beaten tents against the horrors ofthe awful Straits. So Drake resolved to make things clear for good andall. Unfolding a document he began: 'My Masters, I am a very bad orator, for my bringing up hath not been in learning, but what I shall speakhere let every man take good notice of and let him write it down; for Iwill speak nothing but I will answer it in England, yea, and before HerMajesty, and I have it here already set down. ' Then, after remindingthem of the great adventure before them and saying that mutiny anddissension must stop at once, he went on: 'For by the life of God itdoth even take my wits from me to think of it. Here is such controversybetween the gentlemen and sailors that it doth make me mad to hear it. Imust have the gentleman to haul with the mariner and the mariner withthe gentleman. I would know him that would refuse to set his hand to arope! But I know there is not any such here. ' To those whose heartsfailed them he offered the _Marigold_. 'But let them go homeward; forif I find them in my way, I will surely sink them. ' Not a man steppedforward. Then, turning to the officers, he discharged every one of themfor re-appointment at his pleasure. Next, he made the worst offenders, the 'craftie lawyer' included, step to the front for reprimand. Finally, producing the Queen's commission, he ended by a ringing appeal to theirunited patriotism. 'We have set by the ears three mighty Princes [thesovereigns of England, Spain, and Portugal]; and if this voyage shouldnot have success we should not only be a scorning unto our enemies but ablot on our country for ever. What triumph would it not be for Spain andPortugal! The like of this would never more be tried. ' Then he gave backevery man his rank again, explaining that he and they were all servantsof Her Majesty together. With this the men marched off, loyal andobedient, to their tents. 

Next week Drake sailed for the much dreaded Straits, before enteringwhich he changed the _Pelican's_ name to the _Golden Hind_, which wasthe crest of Sir Christopher Hatton, one of the chief promoters of theenterprise and also one of Doughty's patrons. Then every vessel struckher topsail to the bunt in honor of the Queen as well as to show thatall discoveries and captures were to be made in her sole name. Seventeendays of appalling dangers saw them through the Straits, where icysqualls came rushing down from every quarter of the baffling channels. But the Pacific was still worse. For no less than fifty-two consecutivedays a furious gale kept driving them about like so many bits ofdriftwood. 'The like of it no traveller hath felt, neither hath thereever been such a tempest since Noah's flood. ' The little English vesselsfought for their very lives in that devouring hell of waters, theloneliest and most stupendous in the world. The _Marigold_ went downwith all hands, and Parson Fletcher, who heard their dying call, thoughtit was a judgment. At last the gale abated near Cape Horn, where Drakelanded with a compass, while Parson Fletcher set up a stone engravedwith the Queen's name and the date of the discovery. 

Deceived by the false trend of the coast shown on the Spanish chartsDrake went a long way northwest from Cape Horn. Then he struck innortheast and picked up the Chilean Islands. It was December, 1578; butnot a word of warning had reached the Spanish Pacific when Drake stoodin to Valparaiso. Seeing a sail, the crew of the _Grand Captain of theSouth_ got up a cask of wine and beat a welcome on their drums. In thetwinkling of an eye gigantic Tom Moone was over the side at the head ofa party of boarders who laid about them with a will and soon drove theSpaniards below. Half a million dollars' worth of gold and jewels wastaken with this prize. 

Drake then found a place in Salado Bay where he could clean the _GoldenHind_ while the pinnace ranged south to look for the other ships thathad parted company during the two months' storm. These were never found, the _Elizabeth_ and the _Swan_ having gone home after parting company inthe storm that sank the _Marigold_. After a prolonged search the _GoldenHind_ stood north again. Meanwhile the astounding news of her arrivalwas spreading dismay all over the coast, where the old Spanishgovernor's plans were totally upset. The Indians had just been defeatedwhen this strange ship came sailing in from nowhere, to the utterconfusion of their enemies. The governor died of vexation, and all theSpanish authorities were nearly worried to death. They had never dreamtof such an invasion. Their crews were small, their lumbering vesselsvery lightly armed, their towns unfortified. 

But Drake went faster by sea than their news by land. Every vessel wasoverhauled, taken, searched, emptied of its treasure, and then sent backwith its crew and passengers at liberty. One day a watering partychanced upon a Spaniard from Potosi fast asleep with thirteen bars ofsilver by him. The bars were lifted quietly and the Spaniard leftsleeping peacefully. Another Spaniard suddenly came round a corner withhalf a ton of silver on eight llamas. The Indians came off to trade; andDrake, as usual, made friends with them at once. He had already beenattacked by other Indians on both coasts. But this was because theunknown English had been mistaken for the hated Spaniards. 

As he neared Lima, Drake quickened his pace lest the great annualtreasure ship of 1579 should get wind of what was wrong. A minortreasure ship was found to have been cleared of all her silver just intime to balk him. So he set every stitch of canvas she possessed andleft her driving out to sea with two other empty prizes. Then he stoleinto Lima after dark and came to anchor surrounded by Spanish vesselsnot one of which had set a watch. They were found nearly empty. But aship from Panama looked promising; so the pinnace started after her, butwas fired on and an Englishman was killed. Drake then followed her, after cutting every cable in the harbor, which soon became a pandemoniumof vessels gone adrift. The Panama ship had nothing of great valueexcept her news, which was that the great treasure ship _Nuestra Señorade la Concepcion_, 'the chiefest glory of the whole South Sea, ' was onher way to Panama. 

She had a very long start; and, as ill luck would have it, Drake gotbecalmed outside Callao, where the bells rang out in wild alarm. Thenews had spread inland and the Viceroy of Peru came hurrying down withall the troops that he could muster. Finding from some arrows that thestrangers were Englishmen, he put four hundred soldiers into the onlytwo vessels that had escaped the general wreck produced by Drake'scutting of the cables. When Drake saw the two pursuing craft, he tookback his prize crew from the Panama vessel, into which he put hisprisoners. Meanwhile a breeze sprang up and he soon drew far ahead. TheSpanish soldiers overhauled the Panama prize and gladly gave up thepursuit. They had no guns of any size with which to; fight the _GoldenHind_, and most of them were so sea-sick from the heaving ground-swellthat they couldn't have boarded her in any case. 

Three more prizes were then taken by the swift _Golden Hind_. Each onehad news which showed that Drake was closing on the chase. Another weekpassed with every stitch of canvas set. A fourth prize, taken off CapeSan Francisco, said that the treasure ship was only one day ahead. Butshe was getting near to Panama; so every nerve was strained anew. Presently Jack Drake, the Captain's page, yelled out _Sail-ho!_ andscrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake hadpromised to the first lookout who saw the chase. It was ticklish work, so near to Panama; and local winds might ruin all. So Drake, in ordernot to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the sternto moderate his pace. At eight o'clock the jars were cut adrift and the_Golden Hind_ sprang forward with the evening breeze, her crew at battlequarters and her decks all cleared for action The chase was called the'Spitfire' by the Spaniards because she was much better armed than anyother vessel there. But, all the same, her armament was nothing for hertonnage. The Spaniards trusted to their remoteness for protection; andthat was their undoing. 

To every Englishman's amazement the chase was seen to go about andcalmly come to hail the _Golden Hind_, which she mistook for a despatchvessel sent after her with some message from the Viceroy! Drake, askingnothing better, ran up alongside as Anton her captain hailed him with a_Who are you? A ship of Chili!_ answered Drake. Anton looked down on thestranger's deck to see it full of armed men from whom a roar of triumphcame. _English! strike sail!_ Then Drake's whistle blew sharply andinstant silence followed; on which he hailed Don Anton:--_Strike sail!Señor Juan de Anton, or I must send you to the bottom!--Come aboard anddo it yourself!_ bravely answered Anton. Drake's whistle blew one shrilllong blast, which loosed a withering volley at less than point-blankrange. Anton tried to bear away and shake off his assailant. But invain. The English guns now opened on his masts and rigging. Down camethe mizzen, while a hail of English shot and arrows prevented everyattempt to clear away the wreckage. The dumbfounded Spanish crew ranbelow, Don Anton looked overside to port; and there was the Englishpinnace, from which forty English boarders were nimbly climbing up hisown ship's side. Resistance was hopeless; so Anton struck and was takenaboard the _Golden Hind_. There he met Drake, who was already taking offhis armor. 'Accept with patience the usage of war, ' said Drake, layinghis hand on Anton's shoulder. 

For all that night, next day, and the next night following Drake sailedwest with his fabulous prize so as to get well clear of the trade routealong the coast. What the whole treasure was has never been revealed. But it certainly amounted to the equivalent of many millions at thepresent day. Among the official items were: 13 chests of pieces ofeight, 80 lbs. Of pure gold, jewels and plate, 26 ton weight of silver, and sundries unspecified. As the Spanish pilot's son looked over therail at this astounding sight, the Englishmen called out to say that hisfather was no longer the pilot of the old Spit-_fire_ but of the newSpit-_silver_. 

The prisoners were no less gratified than surprised by Drake's kindtreatment. He entertained Don Anton at a banquet, took him all over the_Golden Hind_, and entrusted him with a message to Don Martin, thetraitor of San Juan de Ulua. This was to say that if Don Martin hangedany more Englishmen, as he had just hanged Oxenham, he should soon begiven a present of two thousand Spanish heads. Then Drake gave everySpanish officer and man a personal gift proportioned to his rank, putall his accumulated prisoners aboard the emptied treasure ship, wishedthem a prosperous voyage and better luck next time, furnished the braveDon Anton with a letter of protection in case he should fall in with anEnglish vessel, and, after many expressions of goodwill on both sides, sailed north, the voyage 'made'; while the poor 'spit-silver' treasureship turned sadly east and steered for Panama. 

Lima, Panama, and Nombre de Dios were in wild commotion at the news; andevery sailor and soldier that the Spaniards had was going to and fro, uncertain whether to attack or to defend, and still more distracted asto the most elusive English whereabouts. One good Spanish captain, DonPedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, was all for going north, his instinct tellinghim that Drake would not come back among the angry bees after stealingall the honey. But, by the time the Captain-General of New Spain hadmade up his mind to take one of the many wrong directions he had beenthinking of, Drake was already far on his way north to found New Albion. 

Drake's triumph over all difficulties had won the hearts of his men morethan ever before, while the capture of the treasure ship had donenothing to loosen the bonds of discipline. Don Francisco de Zarate wrotea very intimate account of his experience as a prisoner on board the_Golden Hind. _ 'The English captain is one of the greatest mariners atsea, alike from his skill and his powers of command. His ship is a veryfast sailer and her men are all skilled hands of warlike age and so welltrained that they might be old soldiers of the Italian tertias, ' thecrack corps of the age in Spanish eyes. 'He is served with much plateand has all possible kinds of delicacies and scents, many of which hesays the Queen of England gave him. None of the gentlemen sit or coverin his presence without first being ordered to do so. They dine and supto the music of violins. His galleon carries about thirty guns and agreat deal of ammunition. ' This was in marked contrast to the commonSpanish practice, even on the Atlantic side. The greedy exploiters ofNew Spain grudged every ton of armament and every well-trained fightingsailor, both on account of the expense and because this form ofprotection took up room they wished to fill with merchandise. The resultwas, of course, that they lost more by capture than they gained byevading the regulation about the proper armament. 'His ship is not onlyof the very latest type but sheathed. ' Before copper sheathing wasinvented some generations later, the Teredo worm used to honeycombunprotected hulls in the most dangerous way. John Hawkins invented thesheathing used by Drake: a good thick tar-and-hair sheeting clamped onwith elm. 

Northwest to Coronado, then to Aguatulco, then fifteen hundred miles duewest, brought Drake about that distance west-by-south of the modern SanFrancisco. Here he turned east-north-east and, giving the land a wideberth, went on to perhaps the latitude of Vancouver Island, alwayslooking for the reverse way through America by the fabled NorthwestPassage. Either there was the most extraordinary June ever known inCalifornia and Oregon, or else the narratives of those on board have allbeen hopelessly confused, for freezing rain is said to have fallen onthe night of June the 3d in the latitude of 42°. In 48° 'there followedmost vile, thick, and stinking fogs' with still more numbing cold. Themeat froze when taken off the fire. The wet rigging turned to icicles. Six men could hardly do the work of three. Fresh from the tropics, thecrews were unfit for going any farther. A tremendous nor'wester settledthe question, anyway; and Drake ran south to 38° 30', where, in what isnow Drake's Bay, he came to anchor just north of San Francisco. 

Not more than once, if ever at all, and that a generation earlier, hadEuropeans been in northern California. The Indians took the Englishmenfor gods whom they knew not whether to love or fear. Drake with theessential kindliness of most, and the magnetic power of all, great borncommanders, soon won the natives' confidence. But their admiration 'asmen ravished in their minds' was rather overpowering; for, after 'a kindof most lamentable weeping and crying out, ' they came forward withvarious offerings for the new-found gods, prostrating themselves inhumble adoration and tearing their breasts and faces in a wild desire toshow the spirit of self-sacrifice. Drake and his men, all Protestants, were horrified at being made what they considered idols. So kneelingdown, they prayed aloud, raising hands and eyes to Heaven, hopingthereby to show the heathen where the true God lived. Drake then readthe Bible and all the Englishmen sang Psalms, the Indians, 'observingthe end of every pause, with one voice still cried _Oh!_ greatlyrejoicing in our exercises. ' As this impromptu service ended the Indiansgave back all the presents Drake had given them and retired in attitudesof adoration. 

In three days more they returned, headed by a Medicine-man, whom theEnglish called the 'mace-bearer. ' With the slow and stately measure of amystic dance this great high priest of heathen rites advanced chanting asort of litany. Both litany and dance were gradually taken up by tens, by hundreds, and finally by all the thousands of the devotees, whoaddressed Drake with shouts of _Hyoh!_ and invested him with a headdressof rare plumage and a necklace of quaint beads. It was, in fact, anative coronation without a soul to doubt the divine right of their newking. Drake's Protestant scruples were quieted by thinking 'to what goodend God had brought this to pass, and what honour and profit it mightbring to our country in time to come. So, in the name and to the use ofher most excellent Majesty, he took the sceptre, crown, and dignity' andproclaimed an English protectorate over the land he called New Albion. He then set up a brass plate commemorating this proclamation, and put anEnglish coin in the middle so that the Indians might see Elizabeth'sportrait and armorial device. 

The exaltation of the ecstatic devotees continued till the day he left. They crowded in to be cured by the touch of his hand--those were thetimes in which the sovereign was expected to cure the King's Evil by atouch. They also expected to be cured by inhaling the divine breath ofany one among the English gods. The chief narrator adds that the godswho pleased the Indians most, braves and squaws included, 'were commonlythe youngest of us, ' which shows that the human was not quite forgottenin the all-divine. When the time for sailing came, the devotees wereinconsolable. 'They not only in a sudden did lose all mirth, joy, gladcountenance, pleasant speeches, agility of body, and all pleasure, but, with sighs and sorrowings, they poured out woefull complayntes and moanswith bitter tears, and wringing of their hands, and tormenting ofthemselves. ' The last the English saw of them was the whole devotedtribe assembled on the hill around a sacrificial fire, whence theyimplored their gods to bring their heaven back to earth. 

From California Drake sailed to the Philippines; and then to theMoluccas, where the Portuguese had, if such a thing were possible, outdone even the Spaniards in their fiendish dealings with the natives. Lopez de Mosquito--viler than his pestilential name--had murdered theSultan, who was then his guest, chopped up the body, and thrown it intothe sea. Baber, the Sultan's son, had driven out the Portuguese from theisland of Ternate and was preparing to do likewise from the island ofTidore, when Drake arrived. Baber then offered Drake, for QueenElizabeth, the complete monopoly of the trade in spices if only Drakewould use the _Golden Hind_ as the flagship against the Portuguese. Drake's reception was full of Oriental state; and Sultan Baber was soentranced by Drake's musicians that he sat all afternoon among them in aboat towed by the _Golden Hind_. But it was too great a risk to take ahand in this new war with only fifty-six men left. So Drake traded forall the spices he could stow away and concluded a sort of understandingwhich formed the sheet anchor of English diplomacy in Eastern seas foranother century to come. Elizabeth was so delighted with this resultthat she gave Drake a cup (still at the family seat of Nutwell Court inDevonshire) engraved with a picture of his reception by the Sultan Baberof Ternate. 

Leaving Ternate, the _Golden Hind_ beat to and fro among the tortuousand only half-known channels of the Archipelago till the 9th of January, 1580, when she bore away before a roaring trade wind with all sail setand, so far as Drake could tell, a good clear course for home. Butsuddenly, without a moment's warning, there was a most terrific shock. The gallant ship reared like a stricken charger, plunged forward, grinding her trembling hull against the rocks, and then lay pounding outher life upon a reef. Drake and his men at once took in half thestraining sails; then knelt in prayer; then rose to see what could bedone by earthly means. To their dismay there was no holding ground onwhich to get an anchor fast and warp the vessel off. The lead could findno bottom anywhere aft. All night long the _Golden Hind_ remained fastcaught in this insidious death-trap. At dawn Parson Fletcher preached asermon and administered the Blessed Sacrament. Then Drake ordered tentons overboard--cannon, cloves, and provisions. The tide was now low andshe sewed seven feet, her draught being thirteen and the depth of wateronly six. Still she kept an even keel as the reef was to leeward and shehad just sail enough to hold her up. But at high tide in the afternoonthere was a lull and she began to heel over towards the unfathomabledepths. Just then, however, a quiver ran through her from stem to stern;an extra sail that Drake had ordered up caught what little wind therewas; and, with the last throb of the rising tide, she shook herself freeand took the water as quietly as if her hull was being launched. Therewere perils enough to follow: dangers of navigation, the arrival of aPortuguese fleet that was only just eluded, and all the ordinary risksof travel in times when what might be called the official guide tovoyagers opened with the ominous advice, _First make thy Will_. But thegreatest had now been safely passed. 

Meanwhile all sorts of rumors were rife in Spain, New Spain, andEngland. Drake had been hanged. That rumor came from the hanging of JohnOxenham at Lima. The _Golden Hind_ had foundered. That tale was whatWinter, captain of the _Elizabeth_, was not altogether unwilling shouldbe thought after his own failure to face another great antarctic storm. He had returned in 1578. News from Peru and Mexico came home in 1579;but no Drake. So, as 1580 wore on, his friends began to despair, theSpaniards and Portuguese rejoiced, while Burleigh, with all who foundDrake an inconvenience in their diplomatic way, began to hope thatperhaps the sea had smoothed things over. In August the London merchantswere thrown into consternation by the report of Drake's incrediblecaptures; for their own merchant fleet was just then off for Spain. Theywaited on the Council, who soothed them with the assurance that Drake'svoyage was a purely private venture so far as prizes were concerned. With this diplomatic quibble they were forced to be content. 

But worse was soon to follow. The king of Portugal died. Philip's armymarched on Lisbon immediately, and all the Portuguese possessions wereadded to the already overgrown empire of Spain. Worse still, thisannexation gave Philip what he wanted in the way of ships; for Portugalhad more than Spain. The Great Armada was now expected to be formedagainst England, unless Elizabeth's miraculous diplomacy could once moreget her clear of the fast-entangling coils. To add to the generalconfusion, this was also the year in which the Pope sent his pickedJesuits to England, and in which Elizabeth was carrying on her lastgreat international flirtation with ugly, dissipated Francis of Anjou, brother to the king of France. 

Into this imbroglio sailed the _Golden Hind_ with ballast of silver andcargo of gold. 'Is Her Majesty alive and well?' said Drake to the firstsail outside of Plymouth Sound. 'Ay, ay, she is, my Master, ' answeredthe skipper of a fishing smack, 'but there's a deal o' sickness here inPlymouth'; on which Drake, ready for any excuse to stay afloat, came toanchor in the harbor. His wife, pretty Mary Newman from the banks ofTavy, took boat to see him, as did the Mayor, whose business was to warnhim to keep quiet till his course was clear. So Drake wrote off to theQueen and all the Councillors who were on his side. The answer from theCouncillors was not encouraging; so he warped out quietly and anchoredagain behind Drake's Island in the Sound. But presently the Queen's ownmessage came, commanding him to an audience at which, she said, shewould be pleased to view some of the curiosities he had brought fromforeign parts. Straight on that hint he started up to town with spices, diamonds, pearls, and gold enough to win any woman's pardon and consent. 

The audience lasted six hours. Meanwhile the Council sat without any ofDrake's supporters and ordered all the treasure to be impounded in theTower. But Leicester, Walsingham, and Hatton, all members of Drake'ssyndicate, refused to sign; while Elizabeth herself, the managingdirector, suspended the order till her further pleasure should be known. The Spanish ambassador 'did burn with passion against Drake. ' TheCouncil was distractingly divided. The London merchants trembled fortheir fleet. But Elizabeth was determined that the blow to Philip shouldhurt him as much as it could without producing an immediate war; whiledown among Drake's own West-Countrymen 'the case was clear in seadivinitie, ' as similar cases had often been before. Tremayne, aDevonshire magistrate and friend of the syndicate, could hardly findwords to express his contentment with Drake, whom he called 'a man ofgreat government, and that by the rules of God and His Book. '

Elizabeth decided to stand by Drake. She claimed, what was true, that hehad injured no actual place or person of the King of Spain's, nothingbut property afloat, appropriate for reprisals. All England knew thestory of Ulua and approved of reprisals in accordance with the spirit ofthe age. And the Queen had a special grievance about Ireland, where theSpaniards were entrenched in Smerwick, thus adding to the confusion of arebellion that never quite died down at any time. Philip explained thatthe Smerwick Spaniards were there as private volunteers. Elizabethanswered that Drake was just the same. The English tide, at all events, was turning in his favor. The indefatigable Stowe, chronicler of London, records that 'the people generally applauded his wonderful longadventures and rich prizes. His name and fame became admirable in allplaces, the people swarming daily in the streets to behold him, vowinghatred to all that misliked him. '

The _Golden Hind_ had been brought round to London, where she was thegreatest attraction of the day. Finally, on the 4th of April, 1581, Elizabeth went on board in state, to a banquet 'finer than has ever beenseen in England since King Henry VIII, ' said the furious Spanishambassador in his report to Philip. But this was not her chief offencein Spanish eyes. For here, surrounded by her court, and in the presenceof an enormous multitude of her enthusiastic subjects, she openly defiedthe King of Spain. 'He hath demanded Drake's head of me, ' she laughedaloud, 'and here I have a gilded sword to strike it off. ' With that shebade Drake kneel. Then, handing the sword to Marchaumont, the specialenvoy of her French suitor, Francis of Anjou, she ordered him to givethe accolade. This done, she pronounced the formula of immemorial fame:_I bid thee rise, Sir Francis Drake!_

CHAPTER VIII

DRAKE CLIPS THE WINGS OF SPAIN

For three years after Drake had been dubbed Sir Francis by the Queen hewas the hero of every class of Englishmen but two: the extreme RomanCatholics, who wanted Mary Queen of Scots, and the merchants who weredoing business with Portugal and Spain. The Marian opposition to thegeneral policy of England persisted for a few years longer. But themerchants who were the inheritors of centuries of commercial intercoursewith England's new enemies were soon to receive a shock that completelychanged their minds. They were themselves one of the strongest factorsthat made for war in the knotty problem now to be solved at the cannon'smouth because English trade was seeking new outlets in every directionand was beating hard against every door that foreigners shut in itsface. These merchants would not, however, support the war party tillthey were forced to, as they still hoped to gain by other means whatonly war could win. 

The year that Drake came home (1580) Philip at last got hold of asea-going fleet, the eleven big Portuguese galleons taken when Lisbonfell. With the Portuguese ships, sailors, and oversea possessions, withmore galleons under construction at Santander in Spain, and with thegalleons of the Indian Guard built by the great Menendez to protect NewSpain: with all this performed or promised, Philip began to feel as ifthe hour was at hand when he could do to England what she had done tohim. 

In 1583 Santa Cruz, the best Spanish admiral since the death ofMenendez, proposed to form the nucleus of the Great Armada out of thefleet with which he had just broken down the last vestige of Portugueseresistance in the Azores. From that day on, the idea was never dropped. At the same time Elizabeth discovered the Paris Plot between Mary andPhilip and the Catholics of France, all of whom were bent on herdestruction. England stood to arms. But false ideas of naval defencewere uppermost in the Queen's Council. No attempt was made to strike aconcentrated blow at the heart of the enemy's fleet in his own waters. Instead of this the English ships were carefully divided among the threesquadrons meant to defend the approaches to England, Ireland, andScotland, because, as the Queen-in-Council sagely remarked, who could beexpected to know what the enemy's point of attack would be? The fact isthat when wielding the forces of the fleet and army the Queen and mostof her non-combatant councillors never quite reached that supreme pointof view from which the greatest statesmen see exactly where civilcontrol ends and civilian interference begins. Luckily for England, their mistakes were once more covered up by a turn of the internationalkaleidoscope. 

No sooner had the immediate danger of a great combined attack on Englandpassed away than Elizabeth returned to Drake's plan for a regular raidagainst New Spain, though it had to be one that was not designed tobring on war in Europe. Drake, who was a member of the Navy Boardcharged with the reorganization of the fleet, was to have command. Theships and men were ready. But the time had not yet come. 

Next year (1584) Amadas and Barlow, Sir Walter Raleigh's two prospectorsfor the 'plantation' of Virginia, were being delighted with the summerlands and waters of what is now North Carolina. We shall soon hear moreof Raleigh and his vision of the West. But at this time a good manyimportant events were happening in Europe; and it is these that we mustfollow first. 

William of Orange, the Washington of Holland, was assassinated atPhilip's instigation, while plots to kill Elizabeth and place Mary onthe throne began to multiply. The agents were executed, while a 'Bond ofAssociation' was signed by all Elizabeth's chief supporters, bindingthem to hunt down and kill all who tried to kill her--a plain hint forMary Queen of Scots to stop plotting or stand the consequences. 

But the merchants trading with Spain and Portugal were more than everfor keeping on good terms with Philip because the failure of the Spanishharvest had induced him to offer them special protection andencouragement if they would supply his country's needs at once. Everyavailable ton of shipping was accordingly taken up for Spain. TheEnglish merchant fleet went out, and big profits seemed assured. Butpresently the _Primrose_, 'a tall ship of London, ' came flying home tosay that Philip had suddenly seized the merchandise, imprisoned themen, and taken the ships and guns for use with the Great Armada. Thatwas the last straw. The peaceful traders now saw that they were wrongand that the fighting ones were right; and for the first time both couldrejoice over the clever trick by which John Hawkins had got his ownagain from Philip. In 1571, three years after Don Martin's treachery atSan Juan de Ulna, Hawkins, while commanding the Scilly Island squadron, led the Spanish ambassador to believe that he would go over to theSpanish cause in Ireland if his claims for damages were only paid infull and all his surviving men in Mexico were sent home. The cold andcrafty Philip swallowed this tempting bait; sent the men home withSpanish dollars in their pockets, and paid Hawkins forty thousandpounds, the worth of about two million dollars now. Then Hawkins usedthe information he had picked up behind the Spanish scenes to unravelthe Ridolfi Plot for putting Mary on the throne in 1572, the year of St. Bartholomew. No wonder Philip hated sea-dogs!

Things new and old having reached this pass, the whole of England, barthe Marians, were eager for the great 'Indies Voyage' of 1585. Londonerscrowded down to Woolwich 'with great jolitie' to see off their owncontingent on its way to join Drake's flag at Plymouth. Very probablyShakespeare went down too, for that famous London merchantman, the_Tiger_, to which he twice alludes--once in _Macbeth_ and once in_Twelfth Night_--was off with this contingent. Such a private fleet hadnever yet been seen: twenty-one ships, eight smart pinnaces, andtwenty-three hundred men of every rank and rating. The Queen wasprincipal shareholder and managing director. But, as usual in colonialattacks intended for disavowal if necessity arose, no prospectus orother document was published, nor were the shareholders of thisjoint-stock company known in any quite official way. It was the size ofthe fleet and the reputation of the officers that made it anational affair. Drake, now forty, was 'Admiral'; Frobisher, ofNorth-West-Passage fame, was 'Vice'; Knollys, the Queen's own cousin, 'Rear. ' Carleill, a famous general, commanded the troops and sailed inShakespeare's _Tiger_. Drake's old crew from the _Golden Hind_ cameforward to a man, among them Wright, 'that excellent mathematician andingineer, ' and big Tom Moone, the lion of all boarding-parties, each incommand of a ship. 

But Elizabeth was just then weaving the threads of an unusuallyintricate diplomatic pattern; so doubts and delays, orders andcounter-orders vexed Drake to the last. Sir Philip Sidney, too, camedown as a volunteer; which was another sore vexation, since his Europeanfame would have made him practically joint commander of the fleet, although he was not a naval officer at all. But he had the good sense togo back; whereupon Drake, fearing further interruptions from the court, ordered everything to be tumbled into the nearest ships and hurried offto sea under a press of sail. 

The first port of call was Vigo in the northwestern corner of Spain, where Drake's envoy told the astonished governor that Elizabeth wantedto know what Philip intended doing about embargoes now. If the governorwanted peace, he must listen to Drake's arguments; if war--well, Drakewas ready to begin at once. A three-days' storm interrupted theproceedings; after which the English intercepted the fugitive townsfolkwhose flight showed that the governor meant to make a stand, though hehad said the embargo had been lifted and that all the English prisonerswere at liberty to go. Some English sailors, however, were still beingheld; so Drake sent in an armed party and brought them off, with a goodpile of reprisal booty too. Then he put to sea and made for the SpanishMain by way of the Portuguese African islands. 

The plan of campaign drawn up for Burleigh's information still exists. It shows that Drake, the consummate raider, was also an admiral of thehighest kind. The items, showing how long each part should take and whatloot each place should yield, are exact and interesting. But it is inthe relation of every part to every other part and to the whole that theoriginal genius of the born commander shines forth in all its glory. After taking San Domingo he was to sack Margarita, La Hacha, and SantaMarta, razing their fortifications as he left. Cartagena and Nombre deDios came next. Then Carleill was to raid Panama, with the help of theMaroons, while Drake himself was to raid the coast of Honduras. Finally, with reunited forces, he would take Havana and, if possible, hold it byleaving a sufficient garrison behind. Thus he would paralyze New Spainby destroying all the points of junction along its lines ofcommunication just when Philip stood most in need of its help forcompleting the Great Armada. 

But, like a mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his strideduring the preliminary canter before the great race. The wind being foulfor the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde archipelago and capturedSantiago, which had been abandoned in terror on the approach of theEnglish 'Dragon, ' that sinister hero of Lope de Vega's epic onslaught_La Dragontea_. As good luck would have it, Carleill marched in on theanniversary of the Queen's accession, the 17th of November. So there wasa royal salute fired in Her Majesty's honor by land and sea. No treasurewas found, French privateers had sacked the place three years before andhad killed off everyone they caught; the Portuguese, therefore, were notgoing to wait to meet the English 'Dragon' too. The force that marchedinland failed to unearth the governor. So San Domingo, Santiago, andPorto Pravda were all burnt to the ground before the fleet bore away forthe West Indies. 

San Domingo in Hispaniola (Hayti) was made in due course, but only aftera virulent epidemic had seriously thinned the ranks. San Domingo was theoldest town in New Spain and was strongly garrisoned and fortified. ButCarleill's soldiers carried all before them. Drake battered down theseaward walls. The Spaniards abandoned the citadel at night, and theEnglish took the whole place as a New Year's gift for 1586. But againthere was no treasure. The Spaniards had killed off the Caribs in war orin the mines, so that nothing was now dug out. Moreover the citizenswere quite on their guard against adventurers and ready to hide whatthey had in the most inaccessible places. Drake then put the town up toransom and sent out his own Maroon boy servant to bring in the messagefrom the Spanish officer proposing terms. This Spaniard, hating allMaroons, ran his lance through the boy and cantered away. The boy cameback with the last ounce of his strength and fell dead at Drake's feet. Drake sent to say he would hang two Spaniards every day if the murdererwas not hanged by his own compatriots. As no one came he began with twofriars. Then the Spaniards brought in the offender and hanged him in thepresence of both armies. 

That episode cleared the air; and an interchange of courtesies andhospitalities immediately followed. But no business was done. Draketherefore began to burn the town bit by bit till twenty-five thousandducats were paid. It was very little for the capital. But the men pickedup a good deal of loot in the process and vented their ultra-Protestantzeal on all the 'graven images' that were not worth keeping for sale. On the whole the English were well satisfied. They had taken all theSpanish ships and armament they wanted, destroyed the rest, liberatedover a hundred brawny galley-slaves--some Turks among them--all anxiousfor revenge, and had struck a blow at Spanish prestige which echoed backto Europe. Spain never hid her light under a bushel; and here, in theGovernor's Palace, was a huge escutcheon with a horse standing on theearth and pawing at the sky. The motto blazoned on it was to the effectthat the earth itself was not enough for Spain--_Non sufficit orbis. _Drake's humor was greatly tickled, and he and his officers kept askingthe Spaniards to translate the motto again and again. 

Delays and tempestuous head winds induced Drake to let intermediatepoints alone and make straight for Cartagena on the South Americanmainland. Cartagena had been warned and was on the alert. It was strongby both nature and art. The garrison was good of its kind, though theSpaniards' custom of fighting in quilted jackets instead of armor putthem at a disadvantage. This custom was due to the heat and to the factthat the jackets were proof against the native arrows. 

There was an outer and an inner harbor, with such an intricate andwell-defended passage that no one thought Drake would dare go in. But hedid. Frobisher had failed to catch a pilot. But Drake did the trickwithout one, to the utter dismay of the Spaniards. After some more veryclever manoeuvres, to distract the enemy's attention from the real pointof attack, Carleill and the soldiers landed under cover of the dark andcame upon the town where they were least expected, by wading waist-deepthrough the water just out of sight of the Spanish gunners. Theentrenchments did not bar the way in this unexpected quarter. But winecasks full of rammed earth had been hurriedly piled there in case themad English should make the attempt. Carleill gave the signal. Goring'smusketeers sprang forward and fired into the Spaniards' faces. ThenSampson's pikemen charged through and a desperate hand-to-hand fightensued. Finally the Spaniards broke after Carleill had killed theirstandard-bearer and Goring had wounded and taken their commander. Theenemies ran pell-mell through the town together till the Englishreformed in the Plaza. Next day Drake moved in to attack the harborfort; whereupon it was abandoned and the whole place fell. 

But again there was a dearth of booty. The Spaniards were getting shy ofkeeping too many valuables where they could be taken. So negotiations, emphasized by piecemeal destruction, went on till sickness and thelateness of the season put the English in a sorry fix. The sack of thecity had yielded much less than that of San Domingo; and the men, whowere all volunteers, to be paid out of plunder, began to grumble attheir ill-success. Many had been wounded, several killed--big, faithfulTom Moone among them. A hundred died. More were ill. Two councils of warwere held, one naval, the other military. The military officers agreedto give up all their own shares to the men. But the naval officers, whowere poorer and who were also responsible for the expenses of theirvessels, could not concur. Finally 110, 000 ducats (equivalent inpurchasing power to nearly three millions of dollars) were accepted. 

It was now impossible to complete the programme or even to take Havana, in view of the renewed sickness, the losses, and the advance of theseason. A further disappointment was experienced when Drake just missedthe treasure fleet by only half a day, though through no fault of hisown. Then, with constantly diminishing numbers of effective men, thecourse was shaped for the Spanish 'plantation' of St. Augustine inFlorida. This place was utterly destroyed and some guns and money weretaken from it. Then the fleet stood north again till, on the 9th ofJune, it found Raleigh's colony of Roanoke. 

Ralph Lane, the governor, was in his fort on the island ready to braveit out. Drake offered a free passage home to all the colonists. But Lanepreferred staying and going on with his surveys and 'plantation. ' Drakethen filled up a store ship to leave behind with Lane. But a terrificthree-day storm wrecked the store ship and damped the colonists'enthusiasm so much that they persuaded Lane to change his mind. Thecolonists embarked and the fleet then bore away for home. Though balkedof much it had expected in the way of booty, reduced in strength bylosses, and therefore unable to garrison any strategic point which wouldthreaten the life of New Spain, its purely naval work was a true andglorious success. When he arrived at Plymouth, Drake wrote immediatelyto Burleigh: 'My very good Lord, there is now a very great gap opened, very little to the liking of the King of Spain. '

This 'very great gap' on the American side of the Atlantic was soon tobe matched by the still greater gap Drake was to make on the Europeanside by destroying the Spanish Armada and thus securing that mightiestof ocean highways through which the hosts of emigration afterwardspoured into a land endowed with the goodly heritage of English libertyand the English tongue. 

The year of Drake's return (1586) was no less troublous than itsimmediate predecessors. The discovery of the Babington Plot toassassinate Elizabeth and to place Mary on the throne, supported byScotland, France, and Spain, proved Mary's complicity, produced anactual threat of war from France, and made the Pope and Philip gnashtheir teeth with rage. The Roman Catholic allied powers had nosufficient navy, and Philip's credit was at its lowest ebb after Drake'sdevastating raid. The English were exultant, east and west; for the_True Report of a Worthie Fight performed in the voiage from Turkie byFive Shippes of London against 11 gallies and two frigats of the King ofSpain at Pantalarea, within the Straits_ [of Gibraltar] _Anno 1586_ wasgoing the rounds and running a close second to Drake's West Indiaachievement. The ignorant and thoughtless, both then and since, mistookthis fight, and another like it in 1590, to mean that Englishmerchantmen could beat off Spanish men-of-war. Nothing of the kind: theEnglish Levanters were heavily armed and admirably manned bywell-trained fighting crews; and what these actions really proved, ifproof was necessary, was that galleys were no match for broadsides fromthe proper kind of sailing ships. 

Turkey came into the problems of 1586 in more than name, for there was avast diplomatic scheme on foot to unite the Turks with such Portugueseas would support Antonio, the pretender to the throne of Portugal, andthe rebellious Dutch against Spain, Catholic France, and Mary Stuart'sScotland. Leicester was in the Netherlands with an English army, fighting indecisively, losing Sir Philip Sidney and angering Elizabethby accepting the governor-generalship without her leave and against herdiplomacy, which, now as ever, was opposed to any definite avowal thatcould possibly be helped. 

Meanwhile the Great Armada was working up its strength, and Drake wascommissioned to weaken it as much as possible. But, on the 8th ofFebruary, 1587, before he could sail, Mary was at last beheaded, andElizabeth was once more entering on a tricky course of tortuousdiplomacy too long by half to follow here. As the great crisisapproached, it had become clearer and clearer that it was a case of killor be killed between Elizabeth and Mary, and that England could notafford to leave Marian enemies in the rear when there might be a vastCatholic alliance in the front. But, as a sovereign, Elizabeth dislikedthe execution of any crowned head; as a wily woman she wanted to makethe most of both sides; and as a diplomatist she would not have open warand direct operations going down to the root of the evil if devious wayswould do. 

So the peace party of the Council prevailed again, and Drake's orderswere changed. He had been going as a lion. The peace party now tried tosend him as a fox. But he stretched his instructions to their utmostlimits and even defied the custom of the service by holding no councilof war when deciding to swoop on Cadiz. 

As they entered the harbor, the English saw sixty ships engaged inpreparations for the Great Armada. Many had no sails--to keep the crewsfrom deserting. Others were waiting for their guns to come from Italy. Ten galleys rowed out to protect them. The weather and surroundings wereperfect for these galleys. But as they came end-on in line-abreast Drakecrossed their T in line-ahead with the shattering broadsides of fourQueen's ships which soon sent them flying. Each galley was the uprightof the T, each English sailing ship the corresponding crosspiece. ThenDrake attacked the shipping and wrecked it right and left. Next morninghe led the pinnaces and boats into the inner harbor, where they cut outthe big galleon belonging to Santa Cruz himself, the Spanishcommander-in-chief. Then the galleys got their chance again--anabsolutely perfect chance, because Drake's fleet was becalmed at thevery worst possible place for sailing ships and the very best possibleplace for the well-oared galleys. But even under these extraordinarycircumstances the ships smashed the galleys up with broadside fire andsent them back to cover. Then the Spaniards towed some fire-ships out. But the English rowed for them, threw grappling irons into them, andgave them a turn that took them clear. Then, for the last time, thegalleys came on, as bravely but as uselessly as ever. When Drake sailedaway he left the shipping of Cadiz completely out of action for monthsto come, though fifteen sail escaped destruction in the inner harbor. His own losses were quite insignificant. 

The next objective was Cape St. Vincent, so famous through centuries ofnaval history because it is the great strategic salient thrust out intothe Atlantic from the southwest corner of Europe, and thus commands theflank approaches to and from the Mediterranean, to and from the coast ofAfrica, and, in those days, the route to and from New Spain by way ofthe Azores. Here Drake had trouble with Borough, his second-in-command, a friend of cautious Burleigh and a man hide-bound in the warfare of thepast--a sort of English Don. Borough objected to Drake's taking decisiveaction without the vote of a council of war. Remembering the terrors ofItalian textbooks, he had continued to regard the galleys with muchrespect in the harbor of Cadiz even after Drake had broken them withease. Finally, still clinging to the old ways of mere raids andreprisals, he stood aghast at the idea of seizing Cape St. Vincent andmaking it a base of operations. Drake promptly put him under arrest. 

Sagres Castle, commanding the roadstead of Cape St. Vincent, wasextraordinarily strong. The cliffs, on which it occupied about ahundred acres, rose sheer two hundred feet all round except at a narrowand well defended neck only two hundred yards across. Drake led thestormers himself. While half his eight hundred men kept up a continuousfire against every Spaniard on the wall the other half rushed piles offaggots in against the oak and iron gate. Drake was foremost in thiswork, carrying faggots himself and applying the first match. For twohours the fight went on; when suddenly the Spaniards sounded a parley. Their commanding officer had been killed and the woodwork of the gatehad taken fire. In those days a garrison that would not surrender wasput to the sword when captured; so these Spaniards may well be excused. Drake willingly granted them the honors of war; and so, even to his ownsurprise, the castle fell without another blow. The minor forts near byat once surrendered and were destroyed, while the guns of Sagres werethrown over the cliffs and picked up by the men below. The wholeneighboring coast was then swept clear of the fishing fleet which wasthe main source of supply used for the Great Armada. 

The next objective was Lisbon, the headquarters of the Great Armada, oneof the finest harbors in the world, and then the best fortified of all. Taking it was, of course, out of the question without a much largerfleet accompanied by an overwhelming army. But Drake reconnoitred togood effect, learnt wrinkles that saved him from disaster two yearslater, and retired after assuring himself that an Armada which could notfight him then could never get to England during the same season. 

Ship fevers and all the other epidemics that dogged the old sailingfleets and scourged them like the plague never waited long. Drake wassoon short-handed. To add to his troubles, Borough sailed away for home;whereupon Drake tried him and his officers by court-martial andcondemned them all to death. This penalty was never carried out, forreasons we shall soon understand. Since no reinforcements came fromhome, Cape St. Vincent could not be held any longer. There was, however, one more stroke to make. The great East-India Spanish treasure ship wascoming home; and Drake made up his mind to have her. 

Off the Azores he met her coming towards him and dipping her colorsagain and again to ask him who he was. 'But we would put out no flagtill we were within shot of her, when we hanged out flags, streamers, and pendants. Which done, we hailed her with cannon-shot; and havingshot her through divers times, she shot at us. Then we began to ply herhotly, our fly boat [lightly armed supply vessel of comparatively smallsize] and one of our pinnaces lying athwart her hawse [across her bows]at whom she shot and threw fire-works [incendiary missiles] but did themno hurt, in that her ordnance lay so high over them. Then she, seeing usready to lay her aboard [range up alongside], all of our ships plyingher so hotly, and resolutely determined to make short work of her, theyyielded to us. ' The Spaniards fought bravely, as they generally did. Butthey were only naval amateurs compared with the trained professionalsea-dogs. 

The voyage was now 'made' in the old sense of that term; for this prizewas 'the greatest ship in all Portugal, richly laden, to our Happy Joy. 'The relative values, then and now, are impossible to fix, because notonly was one dollar the equivalent in most ways of ten dollars now but, in view of the smaller material scale on which men's lives were lived, these ten dollars might themselves be multiplied by ten, or more, without producing the same effect as the multiplied sum would nowproduce on international affairs. Suffice it to say that the ship wasworth nearly five million dollars of actual cash, and ten, twenty, thirty, or many more millions if present sums of money are to beconsidered relatively to the national incomes of those poorer days. 

But better than spices, jewels, and gold were the secret documents whichrevealed the dazzling profits of the new East-India trade by sea. Fromthat time on for the next twelve years the London merchants and theirfriends at court worked steadily for official sanction in this mostpromising direction. At last, on the 31st of December, 1600, thedocuments captured by Drake produced their result, and the East-IndiaCompany, by far the greatest corporation of its kind the world has everseen, was granted a royal charter for exclusive trade. Drake maytherefore be said not only to have set the course for the United Statesbut to have actually discovered the route leading to the Empire ofIndia, now peopled by three hundred million subjects of the BritishCrown. 

So ended the famous campaign of 1587, popularly known as the singeing ofKing Philip's beard. Beyond a doubt it was the most consummate work ofnaval strategy which, up to that time, all history records. 

CHAPTER IX

DRAKE AND THE SPANISH ARMADA

With 1588 the final crisis came. Philip--haughty, gloomy, and ambitiousPhilip, unskilled in arms, but persistent in his plans--sat in hispalace at Madrid like a spider forever spinning webs that enemies toredown. Drake and the English had thrown the whole scheme of the Armada'smobilization completely out of gear. Philip's well-intentioned ordersand counter-orders had made confusion worse confounded; and though theSpanish empire held half the riches of the world it felt the lack ofready money because English sea power had made it all parts and no wholefor several months together. Then, when mobilization was resumed, Philipfound himself distracted by expert advice from Santa Cruz, his admiral, and from Parma, Alva's successor in the Netherlands. 

The general idea was to send the Invincible Armada up the EnglishChannel as far as the Netherlands, where Parma would be ready with amagnificent Spanish army waiting aboard troopships for safe conduct intoEngland. The Spanish regulars could then hold London up to ransom orburn it to the ground. So far, so good. But Philip, to whom amphibiouswarfare remained an unsolved mystery, thought that the Armada and theSpanish army could conquer England without actually destroying theEnglish fleet. He could not see where raids must end and conquest mustbegin. Most Spaniards agreed with him. Parma and Santa Cruz did not. Parma, as a very able general, wanted to know how his overseacommunications could be made quite safe. Santa Cruz, as a very ableadmiral, knew that no such sea road could possibly be safe while theubiquitous English navy was undefeated and at large. Some time or othera naval battle must be won, or Parma's troops, cut off from their baseof supplies and surrounded like an island by an angry sea of enemies, must surely perish. Win first at sea and then on land, said the expertwarriors, Santa Cruz and Parma. Get into hated England with the leastpossible fighting, risk, or loss, said the mere politician, Philip, andthen crush Drake if he annoys you. 

Early and late persistent Philip slaved away upon this 'Enterprize ofEngland. ' With incredible toil he spun his web anew. The ships werecollected into squadrons; the squadrons at last began to wear thesemblance of a fleet. But semblance only. There were far too manysoldiers and not nearly enough sailors. Instead of sending the fightingfleet to try to clear the way for the troopships coming later on, Philipmixed army and navy together. The men-of-war were not bad of their kind;but the kind was bad. They were floating castles, high out of the water, crammed with soldiers, some other landsmen, and stores, and with onlylight ordnance, badly distributed so as to fire at rigging andsuperstructures only, not at the hulls as the English did. Yet this wasnot the worst. The worst was that the fighting fleet was cumbered withtroopships which might have been useful in boarding, but which wereperfectly useless in fighting of any other kind--and the Englishmen-of-war were much too handy to be laid aboard by the lubberly Spanishtroopships. Santa Cruz worked himself to death. In one of his lastdispatches he begged for more and better guns. All Philip could do wasto authorize the purchase of whatever guns the foreign merchantmen inLisbon harbor could be induced to sell. Sixty second-rate pieces wereobtained in this way. 

Then, worn out by work and worry, Santa Cruz died, and Philip forced thecommand on a most reluctant landlubber, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, avery great grandee of Spain, but wholly unfitted to lead a fleet. Thedeath of Santa Cruz, in whom the fleet and army had great confidence, nearly upset the whole 'Enterprize of England. ' The captains were asunwilling to serve under bandylegged, sea-sick Sidonia as he wasunwilling to command them. Volunteering ceased. Compulsion failed tobring in the skilled ratings urgently required. The sailors were now notonly fewer than ever--sickness and desertion had been thinning theirranks--but many of these few were unfit for the higher kinds ofseamanship, while only the merest handful of them were qualified asseamen gunners. Philip, however, was determined; and so the doomedArmada struggled on, fitting its imperfect parts together into a stillmore imperfect whole until, in June, it was as ready as it ever could bemade. 

Meanwhile the English had their troubles too. These were also political. But the English navy was of such overwhelming strength that it couldstand them with impunity. The Queen, after thirty years of wonderful, iftortuous, diplomacy, was still disinclined to drop the art in which shewas supreme for that in which she counted for so much less and by whichshe was obliged to spend so very much more. There was still a littlepeace party also bent on diplomacy instead of war. Negotiations wereopened with Parma at Flushing and diplomatic 'feelers' went out towardsPhilip, who sent back some of his own. But the time had come for war. The stream was now too strong for either Elizabeth or Philip to stem oreven divert into minor channels. 

Lord Howard of Effingham, as Lord High Admiral of England, was chargedwith the defence at sea. It was impossible in those days to have anygreat force without some great nobleman in charge of it, because thepeople still looked on such men as their natural viceroys andcommanders. But just as Sir John Norreys, the most expert professionalsoldier in England, was made Chief of the Staff to the Earl of Leicesterashore, so Drake was made Chief of the Staff to Howard afloat, whichmeant that he was the brain of the fleet. 

A directing brain was sadly needed--not that brains were lacking, butthat some one man of original and creative genius was required to bringthe modern naval system into triumphant being. Like all political heads, Elizabeth was sensitive to public opinion; and public opinion wasignorant enough to clamor for protection by something that a man couldsee; besides which there were all those weaklings who have beendescribed as the old women of both sexes and all ages, and who havealways been the nuisance they are still. Adding together the old viewsof warfare, which nearly everybody held, and the human weaknesses wehave always with us, there was a most dangerously strong public opinionin favor of dividing up the navy so as to let enough different placesactually see that they had some visible means of divided defence. 

The 30th of March, 1588, is the day of days to be remembered in thehistory of sea power because it was then that Drake, writing fromPlymouth to the Queen-in-Council, first formulated the true doctrine ofmodern naval warfare, especially the cardinal principle that the best ofall defence is to attack your enemy's main fleet as it issues from itsports. This marked the birth of the system perfected by Nelson andthence passed on, with many new developments, to the British GrandFleet in the Great War of to-day. The first step was by far the hardest, for Drake had to convert the Queen and Howard to his own revolutionaryviews. He at last succeeded; and on the 7th of July sailed for Corunna, where the Armada had rendezvoused after being dispersed by a storm. 

Every man afloat knew that the hour had come. Yet Elizabeth, partly onthe score of expense, partly not to let Drake snap her apron-stringscompletely, had kept the supply of food and even of ammunition veryshort; so much so that Drake knew he would have to starve or elsereplenish from the Spanish fleet itself. As he drew near Corunna on the8th, the Spaniards were again reorganizing. Hundreds of perfectlyuseless landlubbers, shipped at Lisbon to complete the absurdlyundermanned ships, were being dismissed at Corunna. On the 9th, whenSidonia assembled a council of war to decide whether to put to sea ornot, the English van was almost in sight of the coast. But then thenorth wind flawed, failed, and at last chopped round. A roaringsou'wester came on; and the great strategic move was over. 

On the 12th the fleet was back in Plymouth replenishing as hard as itcould. Howard behaved to perfection. Drake worked the strategy andtactics. But Howard had to set the tone, afloat and ashore, to all whocame within his sphere of influence; and right well he set it. Hisdispatches at this juncture are models of what such documents should be;and their undaunted confidence is in marked contrast to what the doomedSpanish officers were writing at the selfsame time. 

The southwest wind that turned Drake back brought the Armada out andgave it an advantage which would have been fatal to England had thefleets been really equal, or the Spaniards in superior strength, for aweek was a very short time in which to replenish the stores thatElizabeth had purposely kept so low. Drake and Howard, so the storygoes, were playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe on Friday afternoonthe 19th of July when Captain Fleming of the _Golden Hind_ rushed up tosay the Spanish fleet was off the Lizard, only sixty miles away! Alleyes turned to Drake. Divining the right way to calm the people, hewhispered an order and then said out loud: 'There's time to end our gameand beat the Spaniards too. ' The shortness of food and ammunition thathad compelled him to come back instead of waiting to blockade nowthreatened to get him nicely caught in the very trap he had wished tocatch the Great Armada in himself; for the Spaniards, coming up with thewind, might catch him struggling out against the wind and crush his longemerging column, bit by bit, precisely as he had intended crushing theirown column as it issued from the Tagus or Corunna. 

But it was only the van that Fleming had sighted. Many a Spanishstraggler was still hull-down astern; and Sidonia had to wait for all toclose and form up properly. 

Meanwhile Drake and Howard were straining every nerve to get out ofPlymouth. It was not their fault, but the Queen's-in-Council, thatSidonia had unwittingly stolen this march on them. It was their glorythat they won the lost advantage back again. All afternoon and evening, all through that summer night, the sea-dog crews were warping out ofharbor. Torches, flares, and cressets threw their fitful light ontoiling lines of men hauling on ropes that moved the ships apparentlylike snails. But once in Plymouth Sound the whinnying sheaves and long_yo-hoes_! told that all the sail the ships could carry was being madefor a life-or-death effort to win the weather gage. Thus beat the heartof naval England that momentous night in Plymouth Sound, while beaconsblazed from height to height ashore, horsemen spurred off post-hastewith orders and dispatches, and every able-bodied landsman stood toarms. 

Next morning Drake was in the Channel, near the Eddystone, withfifty-four sail, when he sighted a dim blur to windward through thethickening mist and drizzling rain. This was the Great Armada. Rain cameon and killed the wind. All sail was taken in aboard the English fleet, which lay under bare poles, invisible to the Spaniards, who stillannounced their presence with some show of canvas. 

In actual size and numbers the Spaniards were superior at first. But asthe week-long running fight progressed the English evened up withreinforcements. Spanish vessels looked bigger than their tonnage, beinghigh built; and Spanish official reports likewise exaggerated the sizebecause their system of measurement made their three tons equal to anEnglish four. In armament and seamen-gunners the English were perhapsfive times as strong as the Armada--and seamen-gunners won the day. TheEnglish seamen greatly outnumbered the Spanish seamen, utterly surpassedthem in seamanship, and enjoyed the further advantage of having farhandier vessels to work. The Spanish grand total, for all ranks andratings was thirty thousand men; the English, only fifteen. But theSpaniards were six thousand short on arrival; and their actual seamen, many of whom were only half-trained, then numbered a bare seventhousand. The seventeen thousand soldiers only made the ships so manydeath-traps; for they were of no use afloat except as boardingparties--and no boarding whatever took place. The English fifteenthousand, on the other hand, were three-quarters seamen and one-quartersoldiers who were mostly trained as marines, and this total was actuallypresent. On the whole, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that theArmada was mostly composed of armed transports while all the Englishvessels that counted in the fighting were real men-of-war. 

In every one of the Armada's hundred and twenty-eight vessels, says anofficer of the Spanish flagship, 'our people kneeled down and offered aprayer, beseeching our Lord to give us victory against the enemies ofHis holy faith. ' The crews of the hundred and ninety-seven Englishvessels which, at one time or another, were present in some capacity onthe scene of action also prayed for victory to the Lord of Hosts, buttook the proper naval means to win it. 'Trust in the Lord--and keep yourpowder dry, ' said Oliver Cromwell when about to ford a river in thepresence of the enemy. And so, in other words, said Drake. 

All day long, on that fateful 20th of July, the visible Armada with itsswinging canvas was lying-to fifteen miles west of the invisible, bare-masted English fleet. Sidonia held a council of war, which, landsman-like, believed that the English were divided, one-half watchingParma, the other the Armada. The trained soldiers and sailors were forthe sound plan of attacking Plymouth first. Some admirals even proposedthe only perfect plan of crushing Drake in detail as he issued from theSound. All were in blissful ignorance of the astounding feat of Englishseamanship which had already robbed them of the only chance they everhad. But Philip, also landsman-like, had done his best to thwart his ownArmada; for Sidonia produced the royal orders forbidding any attack onEngland till he and Parma had joined hands. Drake, however, might becrushed piecemeal in the offing when still with his aftermost ships inthe Sound. So, with this true idea, unworkable because based on falseinformation, the generals and admirals dispersed to their vessels andwaited. But then, just as night was closing in, the weather liftedenough to reveal Drake's astonishing position. Immediately pinnaces wentscurrying to Sidonia for orders. But he had none to give. At one in themorning he learnt some more dumbfounding news: that the English hadnearly caught him at Corunna, that Drake and Howard had joined forces, and that both were now before him. 

Nor was even this the worst. For while the distracted Sidonia wasgetting his fleet into the 'eagle formation, ' so suitable for galleyswhose only fighting men were soldiers, the English fleet was stealingthe weather gage, his one remaining natural advantage. An Englishsquadron of eight sail manoeuvred coast-wise on the Armada's innerflank, while, unperceived by the Spanish lookout, Drake stole away tosea, beat round its outer flank, and then, making the most of a westerlyslant in the shifting breeze, edged in to starboard. The Spaniards sawnothing till it was too late, Drake having given them a berth just wideenough to keep them quiet. But when the sun rose, there, only a fewmiles off to windward, was the whole main body of the English fleet, coming on in faultless line-ahead, heeling nicely over on the port tackbefore the freshening breeze, and, far from waiting for the GreatArmada, boldly bearing down to the attack. With this consummate move thevictory was won. 

The rest was slaughter, borne by the Spaniards with a resolution thatnothing could surpass. With dauntless tenacity they kept their 'eagleformation, ' so useful at Lepanto, through seven dire days of mostone-sided fighting. Whenever occasion seemed to offer, the Spaniards didtheir best to close, to grapple, and to board, as had their heroes atLepanto. But the English merely laughed, ran in, just out of reach, poured in a shattering broadside between wind and water, stood off toreload, fired again, with equal advantage, at longer range, caught theslow galleons end-on, raked them from stem to stern, passed to and froin one, long, deadly line-ahead, concentrating at will on any giventarget; and did all this with well-nigh perfect safety to themselves. Inquite a different way close-to, but to the same effect at eitherdistance, long or short, the English 'had the range of them, ' as sailorssay to-day. Close-to, the little Spanish guns fired much too high tohull the English vessels, lying low and trim upon the water, with whosechanging humors their lines fell in so much more happily than those ofany lumbering Spaniards could. Far-off, the little Spanish guns didcorrespondingly small damage, even when they managed to hit; while theheavy metal of the English, handled by real seamen-gunners, inflictedcrushing damage in return. 

But even more important than the Englishmen's superiority in rig, hull, armament, and expert seamanship was their tactical use of the thoroughlymodern line-ahead. Any one who will take the letter T as an illustrationcan easily understand the advantage of 'crossing his T. ' The uprightrepresents an enemy caught when in column-ahead, as he would be, forinstance, when issuing from a narrow-necked port. In this formation hecan only use bow fire, and that only in succession, on a very narrowfront. But the fleet represented by the crosspiece, moving across thepoint of the upright, is in the deadly line-ahead, with all its nearbroadsides turned in one long converging line of fire against thehelplessly narrow-fronted enemy. If the enemy, sticking to medievaltactics, had room to broaden his front by forming column-abreast, asgalleys always did, that is, with several uprights side by side, hewould still be at the same sort of disadvantage; for this would onlymean a series of T's with each nearest broadside crossing each opposingupright as before. 

The herded soldiers and non-combatants aboard the Great Armada stood bytheir useless duties to the last. Thousands fell killed or wounded. Several times the Spanish scuppers actually ran a horrid red, as if thevery ships were bleeding. The priests behaved as bravely as the Jesuitsof New France--and who could be braver than those undaunted missionarieswere? Soldiers and sailors were alike. 'What shall we do now?' askedSidonia after the slaughter had gone on for a week. 'Order up morepowder, ' said Oquendo, as dauntless as before. Even then the eagleformation was still kept up. The van ships were the head. The biggestgalleons formed the body. Lighter vessels formed the wings. A reserveformed the tail. 

As the unflinching Armada stood slowly up the Channel a sail or twowould drop out by the way, dead-beat. One night several strange sailpassed suddenly by Drake. What should he do? To go about and follow themwith all astern of him doing the same in succession was not to bethought of, as his aftermost vessels were merchantmen, wholly untrainedto the exact combined manoeuvres required in a fighting fleet, thoughfirst-rate individually. There was then no night signal equivalent tothe modern 'Disregard the flagship's movements. ' So Drake dowsed hisstern light, went about, overhauled the strangers, and found they werebewildered German merchantmen. He had just gone about once more toresume his own station when suddenly a Spanish flagship loomed up besidehis own flagship the _Revenge_. Drake immediately had his pinnacelowered away to demand instant surrender. But the Spanish admiral wasDon Pedro de Valdes, a very gallant commander and a very proud grandee, who demanded terms; and, though his flagship (which had been incollision with a run-amuck) seemed likely to sink, he was quite ready togo down fighting. Yet the moment he heard that his summoner was Drake hesurrendered at discretion, feeling it a personal honor, according to theideas of the age, to yield his sword to the greatest seaman in theworld. With forty officers he saluted Drake, complimenting him on'valour and felicity so great that Mars and Neptune seemed to attendhim, as also on his generosity towards the fallen foe, a quality oftenexperienced by the Spaniards; whereupon, ' adds this eyewitness, 'SirFrancis Drake, requiting his Spanish compliments with honest Englishcourtesies, placed him at his own table and lodged him in his owncabin. ' Drake's enemies at home accused him of having deserted his fleetto capture a treasure ship--for there was a good deal of gold withValdes. But the charge was quite unfounded. 

A very different charge against Howard had more foundation. The Armadahad anchored at Calais to get its breath before running the gauntlet forthe last time and joining Parma in the Netherlands. But in the dead ofnight, when the flood was making and a strong west wind was blowing inthe same direction as the swirling tidal stream, nine English fire-shipssuddenly burst into flame and made for the Spanish anchorage. There wereno boats ready to grapple the fire-ships and tow them clear. There wasno time to weigh; for every vessel had two anchors down. Sidonia, enraged that the boats were not out on patrol, gave the order for thewhole fleet to cut their cables and make off for their lives. As thegreat lumbering hulls, which had of course been riding head to wind, swung round in the dark and confusion, several crashing collisionsoccurred. Next morning the Armada was strung along the Flemish coast indisorderly flight. Seeing the impossibility of bringing the leewardlyvessels back against the wind in time to form up, Sidonia ran down withthe windward ones and formed farther off. Howard then led in pursuit. But seeing the _capitana_ of the renowned Italian galleasses in distressnear Calais, he became a medieval knight again, left his fleet, and tookthe galleasse. For the moment that one feather in his cap seemed betterworth having than a general victory. 

Drake forged ahead and led the pursuit in turn. The Spaniards foughtwith desperate courage, still suffering ghastly losses. But, do whatthey could to bear up against the English and the wind, they were forcedto leeward of Dunkirk, and so out of touch with Parma. This was theresult of the Battle of Gravelines, fought on Monday the 29th of July, 1588, just ten days after Captain Fleming had rushed on to the bowlinggreen of Plymouth Hoe where Drake and Howard, their shore work done, were playing a game before embarking. In those ten days the gallantArmada had lost all chance of winning the overlordship of the sea andshaking the sea-dog grip off both Americas. A rising gale now forced itto choose between getting pounded to death on the shoals of Dunkirk orrunning north, through that North Sea in which the British Grand Fleetof the twentieth century fought against the fourth attempt in moderntimes to win a world-dominion. 

North, and still north, round by the surf-lashed Orkneys, then down thewild west coasts of the Hebrides and Ireland, went the forlorn Armada, losing ships and men at every stage, until at last the remnant straggledinto Spanish ports like the mere wreckage of a storm. 

CHAPTER X

'THE ONE AND THE FIFTY-THREE'

The next year, 1589, is famous for the unsuccessful Lisbon Expedition. Drake had the usual troubles with Elizabeth, who wanted him to go aboutpicking leaves and breaking branches before laying the axe to the rootof the tree. Though there were in the Narrow Seas defensive squadronsstrong enough to ward off any possible blow, yet the nervous landsmenwanted Corunna and other ports attacked and their shipping destroyed, for fear England should be invaded before Drake could strike his blow atLisbon. Then there were troubles about stores and ammunition. TheEnglish fleet had been reduced to the last pound of powder twice duringthe ten-days' battle with the Armada. Yet Elizabeth was again alarmed atthe expense of munitions. She never quite rose to the idea of onesupreme and finishing blow, no matter what the cost might be. 

This was a joint expedition, the first in which a really modern Englishfleet and army had ever taken part, with Sir John Norreys in command ofthe army. There was no trouble about recruits, for all men of spiritflocked in to follow Drake and Norreys. The fleet was perfectlyorganized into appropriate squadrons and flotillas, such as thencorresponded with the battleships, cruisers, and mosquito craft ofmodern navies. The army was organized into battalions and brigades, witha regular staff and all the proper branches of the service. 

The fleet made for Corunna, where Norreys won a brilliant victory. Acurious little incident of exact punctilio is worth recording. After thebattle, and when the fleet was waiting for a fair wind to get out of theharbor, the ships were much annoyed by a battery on the heights. Norreysundertook to storm the works and sent in the usual summons by a_parlementaire_ accompanied by a drummer. An angry Spaniard fired fromthe walls and the drummer fell dead. The English had hostages on whom totake reprisals. But the Spaniards were too quick for them. Within tenminutes the guilty man was tried inside the fort by drum-headcourt-martial, condemned to death, and swung out neatly from the walls, while a polite Spanish officer came over to assure the English troopsthat such a breach of discipline should not occur again. 

Lisbon was a failure. The troops landed and marched over the groundnorth of Lisbon where Wellington in a later day made works whose famehas caused their memory to become an allusion in English literature forany impregnable base--the Lines of Torres Vedras. The fleet and the armynow lost touch with each other; and that was the ruin of them all. Norreys was persuaded by Don Antonio, pretender to the throne ofPortugal which Philip had seized, to march farther inland, wherePortuguese patriots were said to be ready to rise _en masse_. ThisAntonio was a great talker and a first-rate fighter with his tongue. Buthis Portuguese followers, also great talkers, wanted to see a victorywon by arms before they rose. 

Before leaving Lisbon Drake had one stroke of good luck. A Spanishconvoy brought in a Hanseatic Dutch and German fleet of merchantmenloaded down with contraband of war destined for Philip's new Armada. Drake swooped on it immediately and took sixty well-found ships. Thenhe went west to the Azores, looking for what he called 'some comfortablelittle dew of Heaven, ' that is, of course, more prizes of a richer kind. But sickness broke out. The men died off like flies. Storms completedthe discomfiture. And the expedition got home with a great deal lessthan half its strength in men and not enough in value to pay for itsexpenses. It was held to have failed; and Drake lost favor. 

 * * * * *

With the sun of Drake's glory in eclipse at court and with Spain andEngland resting from warfare on the grander scale, there were no morebig battles the following year. But the year after that, 1591, isrendered famous in the annals of the sea by Sir Richard Grenville'sfight in Drake's old flagship, the _Revenge_. This is the immortalbattle of 'the one and the fifty-three' from which Raleigh's prose andTennyson's verse have made a glory of the pen fit to match the glory ofthe sword. 

Grenville had sat, with Drake and Sir Philip Sidney, on theParliamentary committee which recommended the royal charter granted toSir Walter Raleigh for the founding of the first English colony in whatis now the United States. Grenville's grandfather, Marshal of Calais toHenry VIII, had the faculty of rhyme, and, in a set of verses verypopular in their own day, showed what the Grenville family ambitionswere. 

 Who seeks the way to win renown, Or flies with wings to high desire, Who seeks to wear the laurel crown, Or hath the mind that would aspire-- Let him his native soil eschew, Let him go range and seek a new. 

Grenville himself was a wild and roving blade, no great commander, butan adventurer of the most daring kind by land or sea. He rather enjoyedthe consternation he caused by aping the airs of a pirate king. He had arough way with him at all times; and Ralph Lane was much set against hisbeing the commander of the 'Virginia Voyage' of which Lane himself wasthe governor on land. But in action he always was, beyond a doubt, thevery _beau idéal_ of a 'first-class fighting man. ' A striking instanceof his methods was afforded on his return from Virginia, when he foundan armed Spanish treasure ship ahead of him at sea. He had no boat toboard her with. But he knocked some sort of one together out of theship's chests and sprang up the Spaniard's side with his boarding partyjust as this makeshift boat was sinking under them. 

The last fight of the _Revenge_ is almost incredible from the oddsengaged--fifty-three vessels to one. But it is true; and neitherRaleigh's glowing prose nor Tennyson's glowing verse exaggerates it. Lord Thomas Howard, 'almost famished for want of prey, ' had beencruising in search of treasure ships when Captain Middleton, one of thegentlemen-adventurers who followed the gallant Earl of Cumberland, camein to warn him that Don Alonzo de Bazan was following with fifty-threesail. The English crews were partly ashore at the Azores; and Howard hadbarely time to bring them off, cut his cables, and work to windward ofthe overwhelming Spaniards. 

Grenville's men were last. The _Revenge_ had only 'her hundred fighterson deck and her ninety sick below' when the Spanish fleet closed roundhim. Yet, just as he had sworn to cut down the first man who touched asail when the master thought there was still a chance to slip through, so now he refused to surrender on any terms at all. Then, running downclose-hauled on the starboard tack, decks cleared for action and crew atbattle quarters, he steered right between two divisions of the Spanishfleet till 'the mountain-like _San Felipe_, of fifteen hundred tons, 'ranging up on his weather side, blanketed his canvas and left him almostbecalmed. Immediately the vessels which the _Revenge_ had weatheredhauled their wind and came up on her from to-leeward. Then, at threeo'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of September, 1591, that immortalfight began. 

The first broadside from the _Revenge_ took the _San Felipe_ on thewater-line and forced her to give way and stop her leaks. Then twoSpaniards ranged up in her place, while two more kept station on theother side. And so the desperate fight went on all through thatafternoon and evening and far on into the night. Meanwhile Howard, stillkeeping the weather gage, attacked the Spaniards from the rear andthought of trying to cut through them. But his sailing master swore itwould be the end of all Her Majesty's ships engaged, as it probablywould; so he bore away, wisely or not as critics may judge forthemselves. One vessel, the little _George Noble_ of London, avictualler, stood by the _Revenge_, offering help before the fightbegan. But Grenville, thanking her gallant skipper, ordered him to savehis vessel by following Howard. 

With never less than one enemy on each side of her, the _Revenge_ foughtfuriously on. _Boarders away!_ shouted the Spanish colonels as thevessels closed. _Repel boarders!_ shouted Grenville in reply. And theydid repel them, time and again, till the English pikes dripped red withSpanish blood. A few Spaniards gained the deck, only to be shot, stabbed, or slashed to death. Towards midnight Grenville was hit in thebody by a musket-shot fired from the tops--the same sort of shot thatkilled Nelson. The surgeon was killed while dressing the wound, andGrenville was hit in the head. But still the fight went on. The_Revenge_ had already sunk two Spaniards, a third sank afterwards, and afourth was beached to save her. But Grenville would not hear ofsurrender. When day broke not ten unwounded Englishmen remained. Thepikes were broken. The powder was spent. The whole deck was a wildentanglement of masts, spars, sails, and rigging. The undauntedsurvivors stood dumb as their silent cannon. But every Spanish hull inthe whole encircling ring of death bore marks of the _Revenge's_ rage. Four hundred Spaniards, by their own admission, had been killed, andquite six hundred wounded. One hundred Englishmen had thus accounted fora thousand Spaniards besides all those that sank!

Grenville now gave his last order: 'Sink me the ship, Master-Gunner!'But the sailing master and flag-captain, both wounded, protesting thatall lives should be saved to avenge the dead, manned the only remainingboat and made good terms with the Spanish admiral. Then Grenville wastaken very carefully aboard Don Bazan's flagship, where he was receivedwith every possible mark of admiration and respect. Don Bazan gave himhis own cabin. The staff surgeon dressed his many wounds. The Spanishcaptains and military officers stood hat in hand, 'wondering at hiscourage and stout heart, for that he showed not any signs of faintnessnor changing of his colour. ' Grenville spoke Spanish very well andhandsomely acknowledged the compliments they paid him. Then, gatheringhis ebbing strength for one last effort, he addressed them in words theyhave religiously recorded: '"Here die I, Richard Grenville, with ajoyful and quiet mind; for that I have ended my life as a true soldierought to do, that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, andhonour. Wherefore my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body. " ... And when he had said these and other suchlike words he gave up the ghostwith a great and stout courage. '

Grenville's latest wish was that the _Revenge_ and he should dietogether; and, though he knew it not, he had this wish fulfilled. For, two weeks later, when Don Bazan had collected nearly a hundred more sailaround him for the last stage home from the West Indies, a cyclone suchas no living man remembered burst full on the crowded fleet. Not eventhe Great Armada lost more vessels than Don Bazan did in thatwreck-engulfing week. No less than seventy went down. And with them sankthe shattered _Revenge_, beside her own heroic dead. 

 * * * * *

Drake might be out of favor at court. The Queen might grumble at the sadextravagance of fleets. Diplomats might talk of untying Gordian knotsthat the sword was made to cut. Courtiers and politicians might wonderwith which side to curry favor when it was an issue between twoparties--peace or war. The great mass of ordinary landsmen might wonderwhy the 'sea-affair' was a thing they could not understand. But all thiswas only the mint and cummin of imperial things compared with theexalting deeds that Drake had done. For, once the English sea-dogs hadshown the way to all America by breaking down the barriers of Spain, England had ceased to be merely an island in a northern sea and hadbecome the mother country of such an empire and republic as neitherrecord nor tradition can show the like of elsewhere. 

And England felt the triumph. She thrilled with pregnant joy. Poet andproseman both gave voice to her delight. Hear this new note ofexultation born of England's victory on the sea:

 As God hath combined the sea and land into one globe, so their mutual assistance is necessary to secular happiness and glory. The sea covereth one-half of this patrimony of man. Thus should man at once lose the half of his inheritance if the art of navigation did not enable him to manage this untamed beast; and with the bridle of the winds and the saddle of his shipping make him serviceable. Now for the services of the sea, they are innumerable: it is the great purveyor of the world's commodities; the conveyor of the excess of rivers; uniter, by traffique, of all nations; it presents the eye with divers colors and motions, and is, as it were with rich brooches, adorned with many islands. It is an open field for merchandise in peace; a pitched field for the most dreadful fights in war; yields diversity of fish and fowl for diet, material for wealth; medicine for sickness; pearls and jewels for adornment; the wonders of the Lord in the deep for all instruction; multiplicity of nature for contemplation; to the thirsty Earth fertile moisture; to distant friends pleasant meeting; to weary persons delightful refreshing; to studious minds a map of knowledge, a school of prayer, meditation, devotion, and sobriety; refuge to the distressed, portage to the merchant, customs to the prince, passage to the traveller; springs, lakes, and rivers to the Earth. It hath tempests and calms to chastise sinners and exercise the faith of seamen; manifold affections to stupefy the subtlest philosopher, maintaineth (as in Our Island) a wall of defence and watery garrison to guard the state. It entertains the Sun with vapors, the Stars with a natural looking-glass, the sky with clouds, the air with temperateness, the soil with suppleness, the rivers with tides, the hills with moisture, the valleys with fertility. But why should I longer detain you? The Sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, and the World to the World, by this art of arts--Navigation. 

Well might this pious Englishman, the Reverend Samuel Purchas, exclaimwith David: _Thy ways are in the Sea, and Thy paths in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known_. 

The poets sang of Drake and England, too. Could his 'Encompassment ofAll the Worlde' be more happily admired than in these four short lines:

 The Stars of Heaven would thee proclaim If men here silent were. The Sun himself could not forget His fellow traveller. 

What wonder that after Nombre de Dios and the Pacific, the West Indiesand the Spanish Main, Cadiz and the Armada, what wonder, after this, that Shakespeare, English to the core, rings out:--

 This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise; This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world; This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happy lands: This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. 

 * * * * *

 This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to herself do rest but true. 

CHAPTER XI

RALEIGH AND THE VISION OF THE WEST

Conquerors first, prospectors second, then the pioneers: that is theorder of those by whom America was opened up for English-speakingpeople. No Elizabethan colonies took root. Therefore the age ofElizabethan sea-dogs was one of conquerors and prospectors, not one ofpioneering colonists at all. 

Spain and Portugal alone founded sixteenth-century colonies that havehad a continuous life from those days to our own. Virginia and NewEngland, like New France, only began as permanent settlements afterDrake and Queen Elizabeth were dead: Virginia in 1607, New France in1608, New England in 1620. 

It is true that Drake and his sea-dogs were prospectors in their way. Sowere the soldiers, gentlemen-adventurers, and fighting traders intheirs. On the other hand, some of the prospectors themselves belong tothe class of conquerors, while many would have gladly been the pioneersof permanent colonies. Nevertheless the prospectors form a separateclass; and Sir Walter Raleigh, though an adventurer in every other wayas well, is undoubtedly their chief. His colonies failed. He never foundhis El Dorado. He died a ruined and neglected man. But still he was thechief of those whom we can only call prospectors, first, because theytried their fortune ashore, one step beyond the conquering sea-dogs, and, secondly, because their fortune failed them just one step short ofwhere the pioneering colonists began. 

 A man so various that he seemed to be Not one but all mankind's epitome

is a description written about a very different character. But it isreally much more appropriate to Sir Walter Raleigh. Courtier andwould-be colonizer, soldier and sailor, statesman and scholar, poet andmaster of prose, Raleigh had one ruling passion greater than all therest combined. In a letter about America to Sir Robert Cecil, the son ofQueen Elizabeth's principal minister of state, Lord Burleigh, heexpressed this great determined purpose of his life: _I shall yet liveto see it an Inglishe nation_. He had other interests in abundance, perhaps in superabundance; and he had much more than the usualtemptations to live the life of fashion with just enough of public dutyto satisfy both the queen and the very least that is implied by themotto _Noblesse oblige_. He was splendidly handsome and tall, a perfectblend of strength and grace, full of deep, romantic interest in greatthings far and near: the very man whom women dote on. And yet, throughall the seductions of the Court and all the storm and stress of Europe, he steadily pursued the vision of that West which he would make 'anInglishe nation. '

He left Oxford as an undergraduate to serve the Huguenots in Franceunder Admiral Coligny and the Protestants in Holland under William ofOrange. Like Hawkins and Drake, he hated Spain with all his heart andpaid off many a score against her by killing Spanish troops at Smerwickduring an Irish campaign marked by ruthless slaughter on both sides. Onhis return to England he soon attracted the charmed attention of thequeen. His spreading his cloak for her to tread on, lest she might wether feet, is one of those stories which ought to be true if it's not. In any case he won the royal favor, was granted monopolies, promotion, and estates, and launched upon the full flood-stream of fortune. 

He was not yet thirty when he obtained for his half-brother, SirHumphrey Gilbert, then a man of thirty-eight, a royal commission 'toinhabit and possess all remote and Heathen lands not in the possessionof any Christian prince. ' The draft of Gilbert's original prospectus, dated at London, the 6th of November, 1577, and still kept there in theRecord Office, is an appeal to Elizabeth in which he proposed 'todiscover and inhabit some strange place. ' Gilbert was a soldier and knewwhat fighting meant; so he likewise proposed 'to set forth certain shipsof war to the New Land, which, with your good licence, I will undertakewithout your Majesty's charge.... The New Land fish is a principal andrich and everywhere vendible merchandise; and by the gain thereofshipping, victual, munition, and the transporting of five or sixthousand soldiers may be defrayed. '

But Gilbert's associates cared nothing for fish and everything for gold. He went to the West Indies, lost a ship, and returned without a fortune. Next year he was forbidden to repeat the experiment. 

The project then languished until the fatal voyage of 1583, when Gilbertset sail with six vessels, intending to occupy Newfoundland as the basefrom which to colonize southwards until an armed New England should meetand beat New Spain. How vast his scheme! How pitiful its execution! Andyet how immeasurably beyond his wildest dreams the actual developmentto-day! Gilbert was not a sea-dog but a soldier with an uncannyreputation for being a regular Jonah who 'had no good hap at sea. ' Hewas also passionately self-willed, and Elizabeth had doubts about thepropriety of backing him. But she sent him a gilt anchor by way of goodluck and off he went in June, financed chiefly by Raleigh, whose namewas given to the flagship. 

Gilbert's adventure never got beyond its base in Newfoundland. His shipthe _Delight_ was wrecked. The crew of the _Raleigh_ mutinied and ranher home to England. The other four vessels held on. But the men, forthe most part, were neither good soldiers, good sailors, nor yet goodcolonists, but ne'er-do-wells and desperadoes. By September theexpedition was returning broken down. Gilbert, furious at the sailors'hints that he was just a little sea-shy, would persist in sticking tothe Lilliputian ten-ton _Squirrel_, which was woefully top-hampered withguns and stores. Before leaving Newfoundland he was implored to abandonher and bring her crew aboard a bigger craft. But no. 'Do not fear, ' heanswered; 'we are as near to Heaven by sea as land. ' One wild night offthe Azores the _Squirrel_ foundered with all hands. 

Amadas and Barlow sailed in 1584. Prospecting for Sir Walter Raleigh, they discovered several harbors in North Carolina, then part of the vast'plantation' of Virginia. Roanoke Island, Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, as well as the intervening waters, were all explored with enthusiasticthoroughness and zeal. Barlow, a skipper who was handy with his pen, described the scent of that fragrant summer land in terms whichattracted the attention of Bacon at the time and of Dryden a centurylater. The royal charter authorizing Raleigh to take what he could findin this strange land had a clause granting his prospective colonists'all the privileges of free denizens and persons native of England insuch ample manner as if they were born and personally resident in oursaid realm of England. '

Next year Sir Richard Grenville, who was Raleigh's cousin, convoyed outto Roanoke the little colony which Ralph Lane governed and which, as wehave seen in an earlier chapter, Drake took home discomfited in 1586. There might have been a story to tell of successful colonization, instead of failure, if Drake had kept away from Roanoke that year or ifhe had tarried a few days longer. For no sooner had the colony departedin Drake's vessels than a ship sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, 'freighted with all maner of things in most plentiful maner, ' arrived atRoanoke; and 'after some time spent in seeking our Colony up in thecountrey, and not finding them, returned with all the aforesaydprovision into England. ' About a fortnight later Sir Richard Grenvillehimself arrived with three ships. Not wishing to lose possession of thecountry where he had planted a colony the year before, he 'landedfifteene men in the Isle of Roanoak, furnished plentifully with allmaner of provision for two yeeres, and so departed for England. 'Grenville unfortunately had burnt an Indian town and all its standingcorn because the Indians had stolen a silver cup. Lane, too, had beensevere in dealing with the natives and they had turned from friends tofoes. These and other facts were carefully recorded on the spot by theofficial chronicler, Thomas Harriot, better known as a mathematician. 

Among the captains who had come out under Grenville in 1585 was ThomasCavendish, a young and daring gentleman-adventurer, greatlydistinguished as such even in that adventurous age, and the secondEnglish leader to circumnavigate the globe. When Drake was taking Lane'smen home in June, 1586, Cavendish was making the final preparations fora two-year voyage. He sailed mostly along the route marked out by Drake, and many of his adventures were of much the same kind. His prime objectwas to make the voyage pay a handsome dividend. But he did notableservice in clipping the wings of Spain. He raided the shipping off Chileand Peru, took the Spanish flagship, the famous _Santa Anna_, off thecoast of California, and on his return home in 1588 had the satisfactionof reporting: 'I burned and sank nineteen sail of ships, both small andgreat; and all the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burned andspoiled. '

While Cavendish was preying on Spanish treasure in America, and Drakewas 'singeing the King of Spain's beard' in Europe, Raleigh stillpursued his colonizing plans. In 1587 John White and twelve associatesreceived incorporation as the 'Governor and Assistants of the City ofRalegh in Virginia. ' The fortunes of this ambitious city were not unlikethose of many another 'boomed' and 'busted' city of much more recentdate. No time was lost in beginning. Three ships arrived at Roanoke onthe 22nd of July, 1587. Every effort was made to find the fifteen menleft behind the year before by Grenville to hold possession for theQueen. Mounds of earth, which may even now be traced, so piously havetheir last remains been cared for, marked the site of the fort. Fromnatives of Croatoan Island the newcomers learned that Grenville's menhad been murdered by hostile Indians. 

One native friend was found in Manteo, a chief whom Barlow had taken toEngland and Grenville had brought back. Manteo was now living with hisown tribe of sea-coast Indians on Croatoan Island. But the mischiefbetween red and white had been begun; and though Manteo had beenbaptized and was recognized as 'The Lord of Roanoke' the races werebecoming fatally estranged. 

After a month Governor White went home for more men and supplies, leaving most of the colonists at Roanoke. He found Elizabeth, Raleigh, and the rest all working to meet the Great Armada. Yet, even during thefollowing year, the momentous year of 1588, Raleigh managed to spare twopinnaces, with fifteen colonists aboard, well provided with all that wasmost needed. A Spanish squadron, however, forced both pinnaces to runback for their lives. After this frustrated attempt two more yearspassed before White could again sail for Virginia. In August, 1590, histrumpeter sounded all the old familiar English calls as he approachedthe little fort. No answer came. The colony was lost for ever. White hadarranged that if the colonists should be obliged to move away theyshould carve the name of the new settlement on the fort or surroundingtrees, and that if there was either danger or distress they should cut across above. The one word CROATOAN was all White ever found. There wasno cross. White's beloved colony, White's favorite daughter and herlittle girl, were perhaps in hiding. But supplies were running short. White was a mere passenger on board the ship that brought him; and thecrew were getting impatient, so impatient for refreshment' and a Spanishprize that they sailed past Croatoan, refusing to stop a single hour. 

Perhaps White learnt more than is recorded and was satisfied that allthe colonists were dead. Perhaps not. Nobody knows. Only a wanderingtradition comes out of that impenetrable mystery and circles round thenot impossible romance of young Virginia Dare. Her father was one ofWhite's twelve 'Assistants. ' Her mother, Eleanor, was White's daughter. Virginia herself, the first of all true 'native-born' Americans, wasborn on the 18th of August, 1587. Perhaps Manteo, 'Lord of Roanoke, 'saved the whole family whose name has been commemorated by that of theNorth Carolina county of Dare. Perhaps Virginia Dare alone survived tobe an 'Indian Queen' about the time the first permanent Anglo-Americancolony was founded in 1607, twenty years after her birth. Who knows?

 * * * * *

These twenty sundering years, from the end of this abortive colony in1587 to the beginning of the first permanent colony in 1607, constitutea period that saw the close of one age and the opening of another inevery relation of Anglo-American affairs. 

Nor was it only in Anglo-American affairs that change was rife. 'TheHonourable East India Company' entered upon its wonderful career. Shakespeare began to write his immortal plays. The chosen translatorsbegan their work on the Authorized Version of the English Bible. ThePuritans were becoming a force within the body politic as well as inreligion. Ulster was 'planted' with Englishmen and Lowland Scots. In themidst of all these changes the great Queen, grown old and very lonely, died in 1603; and with her ended the glorious Tudor dynasty of England. James, pusillanimous and pedantic son of Darnley and Mary Queen ofScots, ascended the throne as the first of the sinister Stuarts, and, truckling to vindictive Spain, threw Raleigh into prison under suspendedsentence of death. 

There was a break of no less than fifteen years in English efforts tocolonize America. Nothing was tried between the last attempt at Roanokein 1587 and the first attempt in Massachusetts in 1602, when thirty-twopeople sailed from England with Bartholomew Gosnold, formerly a skipperin Raleigh's employ. Gosnold made straight for the coast of Maine, whichhe sighted in May. He then coasted south to Cape Cod. Continuing southhe entered Buzzard's Bay, where he landed on Cuttyhunk Island. Here, ona little island in a lake--an island within an island--he built a fortround which the colony was expected to grow. But supplies began to runout. There was bad blood over the proper division of what remained. Thewould-be colonists could not agree with those who had no intention ofstaying behind. The result was that the entire project had to be givenup. Gosnold sailed home with the whole disgusted crew and a cargo ofsassafras and cedar. Such was the first prospecting ever done for whatis now New England. 

The following year, 1603, just after the death of Queen Elizabeth, somemerchant-venturers of Bristol sent out two vessels under Martin Pring. Like Gosnold, Pring first made the coast of Maine and then felt his waysouth. Unlike Gosnold, however, he 'bore into the great Gulfe' ofMassachusetts Bay, where he took in a cargo of sassafras at PlymouthHarbor. But that was all the prospecting done this time. There was noattempt at colonizing. 

Two years later another prospector was sent out by a more importantcompany. The Earl of Southampton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges were thechief promoters of this enterprise. Gorges, as 'Lord Proprietary of theProvince of Maine, ' is a well-known character in the subsequent historyof New England. Lord Southampton, as Shakespeare's only patron andgreatest personal friend, is forever famous through the world. The chiefprospector chosen by the company was George Weymouth, who landed on thecoast of Maine, explored a little of the surrounding country, kidnappedfive Indians, and returned to England with a glowing account of what hehad seen. 

The cumulative effect of the three expeditions of Gosnold, Pring, andWeymouth was a revival of interest in colonization. Prominent men soongot together and formed two companies which were formally chartered byKing James on the 10th of April, 1606. The 'first' or 'southern colony, 'which came to be known as the London Company because most of its memberslived there, was authorized to make its 'first plantation at any placeupon the coast of Virginia or America between the four-and-thirty andone-and-forty degrees of latitude. ' The northern or 'second colony, 'afterwards called the Plymouth Company, was authorized to settle anyplace between 38° and 45° north, thus overlapping both the first companyto the south and the French to the north. 

In the summer of the same year, 1606, Henry Challons took two ships ofthe Plymouth Company round by the West Indies, where he was caught in afog by the Spaniards. Later in the season Pring went out and explored'North Virginia. ' In May, 1607, a hundred and twenty men, under GeorgePopham, started to colonize this 'North Virginia. ' In August they landedin Maine at the mouth of the Kennebec, where they built a fort, somehouses, and a pinnace. Finding themselves short of provisions, two-thirds of their number returned to England late in the same year. The remaining third passed a terrible winter. Popham died, and RaleighGilbert succeeded him as governor. When spring came all the survivors ofthe colony sailed home in the pinnace they had built and the enterprisewas abandoned. The reports of the colonists, after their winter inMaine, were to the effect that the second or northern colony was 'nothabitable for Englishmen. '

In the meantime the permanent foundation of the first or southerncolony, the real Virginia, was well under way. The same number ofintending emigrants went out, a hundred and twenty. On the 26th ofApril, 1607, 'about four a-clocke in the morning, wee descried the Landof Virginia: the same day wee entered into the Bay of Chesupioc'[Chesapeake]. Thus begins the tale of Captain John Smith, of thefounding of Jamestown, and of a permanent Virginia, the first of thefuture United States. 

Now that we have seen one spot in vast America really become the promiseof the 'Inglishe nation' which Raleigh had longed for, we must returnonce more to Raleigh himself as, mocked by his tantalizing vision, helooked out on a changing world from his secular Mount Pisgah in theprison Tower of London. 

By this time he had felt both extremes of fortune to the full. Duringthe travesty of justice at his trial the attorney-general, having nosound argument, covered him with slanderous abuse. These are three ofthe false accusations on which he was condemned to death: 'Viperoustraitor, ' 'damnable atheist, ' and 'spider of hell. ' Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, and Grenville, all were dead. So Raleigh, last of the greatElizabethan lions, was caged and baited for the sport of Spain. 

Six of his twelve years of imprisonment were lightened by thecompanionship of his wife, Elizabeth Throgmorton, most beautiful of allthe late Queen's maids of honor. Another solace was the _History of theWorld_, the writing of which set his mind free to wander forth at willalthough his body stayed behind the bars. But the contrast was toopoignant not to wring this cry of anguish from his preface: 'Yet when weonce come in sight of the Port of death, to which all winds drive us, and when by letting fall that fatal Anchor, which can never be weighedagain, the navigation of this life takes end: Then it is, I say, thatour own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beatenfrom us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to theuttermost for all the pleasing passages of our life past. '

At length, in the spring of 1616, Raleigh was released, though stillunpardoned. He and his devoted wife immediately put all that remained oftheir fortune into a new venture. Twenty years before this he thought hecould make 'Discovery of the mighty, rich, and beautiful Empire ofGuiana, and of that great and golden city, which the Spaniards call ElDorado, and the natives call Manoa. ' Now he would go back to find the ElDorado of his dreams, somewhere inland, that mysterious Manoa amongthose southern Mountains of Bright Stones which lay behind the SpanishMain. The king's cupidity was roused; and so, in 1617, Raleigh wascommissioned as the admiral of fourteen sail. In November he arrived offthe coast that guarded all the fabled wealth still lying undiscovered inthe far recesses of the Orinocan wilds. _Guiana, Manoa, El Dorado_--theinland voices called him on. 

But Spaniards barred the way; and Raleigh, defying the instructions ofthe King, attacked them. The English force was far too weak and disasterfollowed. Raleigh's son and heir was killed and his lieutenant committedsuicide. His men began to mutiny. Spanish troops and ships came closingin; and the forlorn remnant of the expedition on which such hopes werebuilt went straggling home to England. There Raleigh was arrested andsent to the block on the 29th of October, 1618. He had played the greatgame of life-and-death and lost it. When he mounted the scaffold, heasked to see the axe. Feeling the edge, he smiled and said: 'Tis a sharpmedicine, but a cure for all diseases. ' Then he bared his neck and diedlike one who had served the Great Queen as her Captain of the Guard. 

CHAPTER XII

DRAKE'S END

Drake in disfavor after 1589 seems a contradiction that nothing canexplain. It can, however, be quite easily explained, though neverexplained away. He had simply failed to make the Lisbon Expeditionpay--a heinous offence in days when the navy was as much a revenuedepartment as the customs or excise. He had also failed to take Lisbonitself. The reasons why mattered nothing either to the disappointedgovernment or to the general public. 

But, six years later, in 1595, when Drake was fifty and Hawkinssixty-three, England called on them both to strike another blow atSpain. Elizabeth was helping Henry IV of France against the League ofFrench and Spanish Catholics. Henry, astute as he was gallant, had foundParis 'worth a mass' and, to Elizabeth's dismay, had gone straight overto the Church of Rome with terms of toleration for the Huguenots. Thewar against the Holy League, however, had not yet ended. The effect ofHenry's conversion was to make a more united France against theencroaching power of Spain. And every eye in England was soon turned onDrake and Hawkins for a stroke at Spanish power beyond the sea. 

Drake and Hawkins formed a most unhappy combination, made worse by thefact that Hawkins, now old beyond his years, soured by misfortune, andstaled for the sea by long spells of office work, was put in as a checkon Drake, in whom Elizabeth had lost her former confidence. Sir ThomasBaskerville was to command the troops. Here, at least, no better choicecould have possibly been made. Baskerville had fought with raredistinction in the Brest campaign and before that in the Netherlands. 

There was the usual hesitation about letting the fleet go far from home. The 'purely defensive' school was still strong; Elizabeth in certainmoods belonged to it; and an incident which took place about this timeseemed to give weight to the arguments of the defensivists. A smallSpanish force, obliged to find water and provisions in a hurry, putinto Mousehole in Cornwall and, finding no opposition, burnt severalvillages down to the ground. The moment these Spaniards heard that Drakeand Hawkins were at Plymouth they decamped. But this ridiculous raidthrew the country into doubt or consternation. Elizabeth was as brave asa lion for herself. But she never grasped the meaning of naval strategy, and she was supersensitive to any strong general opinion, however false. Drake and Hawkins, with Baskerville's troops (all in transports) andmany supply vessels for the West India voyage, were ordered to cruiseabout Ireland and Spain looking for enemies. The admirals at oncepointed out that this was the work of the Channel Fleet, not that of ajoint expedition bound for America. Then, just as the Queen was penningan angry reply, she received a letter from Drake, saying that the chiefSpanish treasure ship from Mexico had been seen in Porto Rico littlebetter than a wreck, and that there was time to take her if they couldonly sail at once. The expedition was on the usual joint-stock lines andElizabeth was the principal shareholder. She swallowed the bait whole;and sent sailing orders down to Plymouth by return. 

And so, on the 28th of August, 1595, twenty-five hundred men intwenty-seven vessels sailed out, bound for New Spain. Surprise wasessential; for New Spain, taught by repeated experience, was well armed;and twenty-five hundred men were less formidable now than five hundredtwenty years before. Arrived at the Canaries, Las Palmas was found toostrong to carry by immediate assault; and Drake had no time to attack itin form. He was two months late already; so he determined to push on tothe West Indies. 

When Drake reached Porto Rico, he found the Spanish in a measureforewarned and forearmed. Though he astonished the garrison by standingboldly into the harbor and dropping anchor close to a masked battery, the real surprise was now against him. The Spanish gunners got the rangeto an inch, brought down the flagship's mizzen, knocked Drake's chairfrom under him, killed two senior officers beside him, and wounded manymore. In the meantime Hawkins, worn out by his exertions, had died. Thisreception, added to the previous failures and the astonishing strengthof Porto Rico, produced a most depressing effect. Drake weighed anchorand went out. He was soon back in a new place, cleverly shielded fromthe Spanish guns by a couple of islands. After some more manoeuvres heattacked the Spanish fleet with fire-balls and by boarding. When aburning frigate lit up the whole wild scene, the Spanish gunners andmusketeers poured into the English ships such a concentrated fire thatDrake was compelled to retreat. He next tried the daring plan of runningstraight into the harbor, where there might still be a chance. But theSpaniards sank four of their own valuable vessels in the harbormouth--guns, stores, and all--just in the nick of time, and thuscompletely barred the way. 

Foiled again, Drake dashed for the mainland, seized La Hacha, burnt it, ravaged the surrounding country, and got away with a successful haul oftreasure; then he seized Santa Marta and Nombre de Dios, both of whichwere found nearly empty. The whole of New Spain was taking thealarm--_The Dragon's back again!_ Meanwhile a fleet of more than twiceDrake's strength was coming out from Spain to attack him in the rear. Nor was this all, for Baskerville and his soldiers, who had landed atNombre de Dios and started overland, were in full retreat along the roadfrom Panama, having found an impregnable Spanish position on the way. Itwas a sad beginning for 1596, the centennial year of England's firstconnection with America. 

'Since our return from Panama he never carried mirth nor joy in hisface, ' wrote one of Baskerville's officers who was constantly nearDrake. A council of war was called and Drake, making the best of it, asked which they would have, Truxillo, the port of Honduras, or the'golden towns' round about Lake Nicaragua. 'Both, ' answered Baskerville, 'one after the other. ' So the course was laid for San Juan on theNicaragua coast. A head wind forced Drake to anchor under the island ofVeragua, a hundred and twenty-five miles west of Nombre de Dios Bay andright in the deadliest part of that fever-stricken coast. The men beganto sicken and die off. Drake complained at table that the place hadchanged for the worse. His earlier memories of New Spain were of a landlike a 'pleasant and delicious arbour' very different from the 'vast anddesert wilderness' he felt all round him now. The wind held foul. Moreand more men lay dead or dying. At last Drake himself, the man of ironconstitution and steel nerves, fell ill and had to keep his cabin. Thenreports were handed in to say the stores were running low and that therewould soon be too few hands to man the ships. On this he gave the orderto weigh and 'take the wind as God had sent it. '

So they stood out from that pestilential Mosquito Gulf and came toanchor in the fine harbor of Puerto Bello, which the Spaniards hadchosen to replace the one at Nombre de Dios, twenty miles east. Here, inthe night of the 27th of January, Drake suddenly sprang out of hisberth, dressed himself, and raved of battles, fleets, Armadas, PlymouthHoe, and plots against his own command. The frenzy passed away. He fellexhausted, and was lifted back to bed again. Then 'like a Christian, heyielded up his spirit quietly. '

His funeral rites befitted his renown. The great new Spanish fort ofPuerto Bello was given to the flames, as were nearly all the Spanishprizes, and even two of his own English ships; for there were now nosailors left to man them. Thus, amid the thunder of the guns whose voicehe knew so well, and surrounded by consuming pyres afloat and on theshore, his body was committed to the deep, while muffled drums rolledout their last salute and trumpets wailed his requiem. 

APPENDIX

NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING

In the sixteenth century there was no hard-and-fast distinction betweennaval and all other craft. The sovereign had his own fighting vessels;and in the course of the seventeenth century these gradually evolvedinto a Royal Navy maintained entirely by the country as a whole anddevoted solely to the national defence. But in earlier days this modernsystem was difficult everywhere and impossible in England. The Englishmonarch, for all his power, had no means of keeping up a great army andnavy without the help of Parliament and the general consent of thepeople. The Crown had great estates and revenues; but nothing likeenough to make war on a national scale. Consequently king and peoplewent into partnership, sometimes in peace as well as war. When fightingstopped, and no danger seemed to threaten, the king would use hismen-of-war in trade himself, or even hire them out to merchants. Themerchants, for their part, furnished vessels to the king in time of war. Except as supply ships, however, these auxiliaries were never a greatsuccess. The privateers built expressly for fighting were the only shipsthat could approach the men-of-war. 

Yet, strangely enough, King Henry's first modern men-of-war grew out ofa merchant-ship model, and a foreign one at that. Throughout ancient andmedieval times the 'long ship' was the man-of-war while the 'round ship'was the merchantman. But the long ship was always some sort of galley, which, as we have seen repeatedly, depended on its oars and used sailsonly occasionally, and then not in action, while the round ship wasbuilt to carry cargo and to go under sail. The Italian naval architects, then the most scientific in the world, were trying to evolve two typesof vessel: one that could act as light cavalry on the wings of a galleyfleet, the other that could carry big cargoes safely through thepirate-haunted seas. In both types sail power and fighting power wereessential. Finally a compromise resulted and the galleasse appeared. Thegalleasse was a hybrid between the galley and the sailing vessel, between the 'long ship' that was several times as long as it was broadand the 'round ship' that was only two or three times as long as itsbeam. Then, as the oceanic routes gained on those of the inland seas, and as oceanic sea power gained in the same proportion, the galleonappeared. The galleon had no oars at all, as the hybrid galleasses had, and it gained more in sail power than it lost by dropping oars. It was, in fact, the direct progenitor of the old three-decker which some peoplestill alive can well remember. 

At the time the Cabots and Columbus were discovering America theVenetians had evolved the merchant-galleasse for their trade withLondon: they called it, indeed, the _galleazza di Londra_. Then, bythe time Henry VIII was building his new modern navy, the realgalleon had been evolved (out of the Italian new war- and oldermerchant-galleasses) by England, France, and Scotland; but by Englandbest of all. In original ideas of naval architecture England wasgenerally behind, as she continued to be till well within living memory. Nelson's captains competed eagerly for the command of French prizes, which were better built and from superior designs. The American frigatesof 1812 were incomparably better than the corresponding classes in theBritish service were; and so on in many other instances. But, in spiteof being rather slow, conservative, and rule-of-thumb, the English werealready beginning to develop a national sea-sense far beyond that of anyother people. They could not, indeed, do otherwise and live. Henry'spolicy, England's position, the dawn of oceanic strategy, and thediscovery of America, all combined to make her navy by far the mostimportant single factor in England's problems with the world at large. As with the British Empire now, so with England then: the choice laybetween her being either first or nowhere. 

Henry's reasoning and his people's instinct having led to the sameresolve, everyone with any sea-sense, especially shipwrights likeFletcher of Rye, began working towards the best types then obtainable. There were mistakes in plenty. The theory of naval architecture inEngland was never both sound and strong enough to get its own wayagainst all opposition. But with the issue of life and death alwaysdependent on sea power, and with so many men of every class followingthe sea, there was at all events the biggest rough-and-tumble school ofpractical seamanship that any leading country ever had. The twoessential steps were quickly taken: first, from oared galleys with verylittle sail power to the hybrid galleasse with much more sail and muchless in the way of oars; secondly, from this to the purely sailinggalleon. 

With the galleon we enter the age of sailing tactics which decided thefate of the oversea world. This momentous age began with Drake and theEnglish galleon. It ended with Nelson and the first-rate, three-decker, ship-of-the-line. But it was one throughout; for its beginning differedfrom its end no more than a father differs from his son. 

One famous Tudor vessel deserves some special notice, not because of herexcellence but because of her defects. The _Henry Grace à Dieu, _ or_Great Harry_ as she was generally called, launched in 1514, was Henry'sown flagship on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Shehad a gala suit of sails and pennants, all made of damasked cloth ofgold. Her quarters, sides, and tops were emblazoned with heraldictargets. Court artists painted her to show His Majesty on board wearingcloth of gold, edged with the royal ermine; as well as bright crimsonjacket, sleeves, and breeches, with a long white feather in his cap. Doubtless, too, His Majesty of France paid her all the propercompliments; while every man who was then what reporters are to-daytalked her up to the top of his bent. No single vessel ever had greaterpublicity till the famous first _Dreadnought_ of our own day appeared inthe British navy nearly four hundred years later. 

But the much advertised _Great Harry_ was not a mighty prototype of aworld-wide-copied class of battleships like the modern _Dreadnought_. With her lavish decorations, her towering superstructures fore and aft, and her general aping of a floating castle, she was the wonder of allthe landsmen in her own age, as she has been the delight of picturesquehistorians ever since. But she marked no advance in naval architecture, rather the reverse. She was the last great English ship of medievaltimes. Twenty-five years after the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Henry wascommanding another English fleet, the first of modern times, andtherefore one in which the out-of-date _Great Harry_ had no proper placeat all. She was absurdly top-hampered and over-gunned. And, for all herthousand tons, she must have bucketed about in the chops of the Channelwith the same sort of hobby-horse, see-sawing pitch that botheredCaptain Concas in 1893 when sailing an exact reproduction of Columbus'sflagship, the _Santa Maria_, across the North Atlantic to the greatWorld's Fair at Chicago. 

In her own day the galleon was the 'great ship, ' 'capital ship, ''ship-of-the-line-of-battle, ' or 'battleship' on which the main fightturned. But just as our modern fleets require three principal kinds ofvessels--battleships, cruisers, and 'mosquito' craft--so did the fleetsof Henry and Elizabeth. The galleon did the same work as the oldthree-decker of Nelson's time or the battleship of to-day. The 'pinnace'(quite different from more modern pinnaces) was the frigate or thecruiser. And, in Henry VIII's fleet of 1545, the 'row-barge' was theprincipal 'mosquito' craft, like the modern torpedo-boat, destroyer, oreven submarine. Of course the correspondence is far from being completein any class. 

The English galleon gradually developed more sail and gun power as wellas handiness in action. Broadside fire began. When used against theArmada, it had grown very powerful indeed. At that time the best guns, some of which are still in existence, were nearly as good as those atTrafalgar or aboard the smart American frigates that did so well in'1812. ' When galleon broadsides were fired from more than a single deck, the lower ones took enemy craft between wind and water very nicely. Inthe English navy the portholes had been cut so as to let the guns bepointed with considerable freedom, up or down, right or left. The hugetop-hampering 'castles' and other soldier-engineering works on deck weremodified or got rid of, while more canvas was used and to much betterpurpose. 

The pinnace showed the same sort of improvement during the sameperiod--from Drake's birth under Henry VIII in 1545 to the zenith of hiscareer as a sea-dog in 1588. This progenitor of the frigate and thecruiser was itself descended from the long-boat of the Norsemen andstill used oars as occasion served. But the sea-dogs made it primarily asailing vessel of anything up to a hundred tons and generally averagingover fifty. A smart pinnace, with its long, low, clean-run hull, if wellhandled under its Elizabethan fighting canvas of foresail and maintopsail, could play round a Spanish galleasse or absurdly castledgalleon like a lancer on a well-trained charger round a musketeerastraddle on a cart horse. [4] Henry's pinnaces still had lateen sailscopied from Italian models. Elizabeth's had square sails prophetic ofthe frigate's. Henry's had one or a very few small guns. Elizabeth's hadas many as sixteen, some of medium size, in a hundred-tonner. 

[4: Fuller in his _Worthies_ (1662) writes: 'Many were the wit-combatsbetwixt him [Shakespeare] and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld like aSpanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson (like theformer) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in hisperformances. Shakespeare, like the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and takeadvantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention. ']

The 'mosquito' fleet of Henry's time was represented by 'row-barges' ofhis own invention. Now that the pinnace was growing in size and sailpower, while shedding half its oars, some new small rowing craft waswanted, during that period of groping transition, to act as a tender orto do 'mosquito' work in action. The mere fact that Henry VIII placed nodependence on oars except for this smallest type shows how far he hadgot on the road towards the broadside-sailing-ship fleet. On the 16th ofJuly, 1541, the Spanish Naval Attaché (as we should call him now)reported to Charles V that Henry had begun 'to have new oared vesselsbuilt after his own design. ' Four years later these same'row-barges'--long, light, and very handy--hung round the sterns of theretreating Italian galleys in the French fleet to very good purpose, plying them with bow-chasers and the two broadside guns, till Strozzi, the Italian galley-admiral, turned back on them in fury, only to seethem slip away in perfect order and with complete immunity. 

By the time of the Armada the mosquito fleet had outgrown these littlerowing craft and had become more oceanic. But names, types, and theevolution of one type from another, with the application of the samename to changed and changing types, all tend to confusion unless thesubject is followed in such detail as is impossible here. 

The fleets of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth did far more to improve boththe theory and practice of naval gunnery than all the fleets in theworld did from the death of Drake to the adoption of rifled ordnancewithin the memory of living men. Henry's textbook of artillery, republished in 1588, the year of the Armada, contains very practicaldiagrams for finding the range at sea by means of the gunner's halfcircle--yet we now think range-finding a very modern thing indeed. Thereare also full directions for making common and even something likeshrapnel shells, 'star shells' to light up the enemy at night, armor-piercing arrows shot out of muskets, 'wild-fire' grenades, andmany other ultra-modern devices. 

Henry established Woolwich Dockyard, second to none both then and now, as well as Trinity House, which presently began to undertake the dutiesit still discharges by supervising all aids to navigation round theBritish Isles. The use of quadrants, telescopes, and maps on Mercator'sprojection all began in the reign of Elizabeth, as did many otherinventions, adaptations, handy wrinkles, and vital changes in strategyand tactics. Taken together, these improvements may well make us of thetwentieth century wonder whether we are so very much superior to thecomrades of Henry, Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Bacon, Raleigh, and Drake. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

A complete bibliography concerned with the first century ofAnglo-American affairs (1496-1596) would more than fill the presentvolume. But really informatory books about the sea-dogs proper are veryfew indeed, while good books of any kind are none too common. 

Taking this first century as a whole, the general reader cannot dobetter than look up the third volume of Justin Winsor's _Narrative andCritical History of America_ (1884) and the first volume of Avery's_History of the United States and its People_ (1904). Both giveelaborate references to documents and books, but neither professes to beat all expert in naval or nautical matters, and a good deal has beenwritten since. 

THE CABOTS. Cabot literature is full of conjecture and controversy. G. P. Winship's _Cabot Bibliography_ (1900) is a good guide to all but recentworks. Nicholls' _Remarkable Life of Sebastian Cabot_ (1869) shows morezeal than discretion. Harrisse's _John Cabot and his son Sebastian_(1896) arranges the documents in scholarly order but draws conclusionsbetraying a wonderful ignorance of the coast. On the whole, Dr. S. E. Dawson's very careful monographs in the _Transactions of the RoyalSociety of Canada_ (1894, 1896, 1897) are the happiest blend ofscholarship and local knowledge. Neither the Cabots nor their crewsappear to have written a word about their adventures and discoveries. Consequently the shifting threads of hearsay evidence soon becameinextricably tangled. Biggar's _Precursors of Cartier_ is an able andaccurate work. 

ELIZABETH. Turning to the patriot queen who had to steer England throughso many storms and tortuous channels, we could find no better shortguide to her political career than Beesley's volume about her in 'TwelveEnglish Statesmen. ' But the best all-round biography is _QueenElizabeth_ by Mandell Creighton, who also wrote an excellent epitome, called _The Age of Elizabeth_, for the 'Epochs of Modern History. '_Shakespeare's England_, published in 1916 by the Oxford UniversityPress, is quite encyclopaedic in its range. 

LIFE AFLOAT. The general evolution of wooden sailing craft may be tracedout in Part I of Sir George Holmes's convenient little treatise on_Ancient and Modern Ships_. There is no nautical dictionary devoted toElizabethan times. But a good deal can be picked up from the two handymodern glossaries of Dana and Admiral Smyth, the first being an Americanauthor, the second a British one. Smyth's _Sailor's Word Book_ has noalternative title. But Dana's _Seaman's Friend_ is known in Englandunder the name of _The Seaman's Manual_. Technicalities change so muchmore slowly afloat than ashore that even the ultra-modern editions ofPaasch's magnificent polyglot dictionary, _From Keel to Truck_, stillcontain many nautical terms which will help the reader out of some ofhis difficulties. 

The life of the sea-dogs, gentlemen-adventurers, andmerchant-adventurers should be studied in Hakluyt's collection of_Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques, and Discoveries_; thoughmany of his original authors were landsmen while a few were civilians aswell. This Elizabethan Odyssey, the great prose epic of the Englishrace, was first published in a single solemn folio the year after theArmada--1589. In the nineteenth century the Hakluyt Society reprintedand edited these _Navigations_ and many similar works, though notwithout employing some editors who had no knowledge of the Navy or thesea. In 1893 E. J. Payne brought out a much handier edition of the_Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America_ which gives the veryparts of Hakluyt we want for our present purpose, and gives them with arunning accompaniment of pithy introductions and apposite footnotes. Nearly all historians are both landsmen and civilians whose sins ofomission and commission are generally at their worst in naval andnautical affairs. But James Anthony Froude, whatever his other faultsmay be, did know something of life afloat, and his _English Seamen inthe Sixteenth Century_, despite its ultra-Protestant tone, is well worthreading. 

HAWKINS. _The Hawkins Voyages_, published by the Hakluyt Society, givethe best collection of original accounts. They deal with threegenerations of this famous family and are prefaced by a goodintroduction. _A Sea-Dog of Devon_, by R. A. J. Walling (1907) is the bestrecent biography of Sir John Hawkins. 

DRAKE. Politics, policy, trade, and colonization were all dependent onsea power; and just as the English Navy was by far the most importantfactor in solving the momentous New-World problems of that awakeningage, so Drake was by far the most important factor in the English Navy. _The Worlde Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake_ and _Sir Francis Drake hisVoyage_, 1595, are two of the volumes edited by the Hakluyt Society. But these contemporary accounts of his famous fights and voyages do notbring out the supreme significance of his influence as an admiral, moreespecially in connection with the Spanish Armada. It must always be amatter of keen, though unavailing, regret that Admiral Mahan, the greatAmerican expositor of sea power, began with the seventeenth, not thesixteenth, century. But what Mahan left undone was afterwards done toadmiration by Julian Corbett, Lecturer in History to the (British) NavalWar College, whose _Drake and the Tudor Navy_ (1912) is absolutelyindispensable to any one who wishes to understand how England won herfooting in America despite all that Spain could do to stop her. Corbett's _Drake_ (1890) in the 'English Men of Action' series is anexcellent epitome. But the larger book is very much the better. Manyilluminative documents on _The Defeat of the Spanish Armada_ were editedin 1894 by Corbett's predecessor, Sir John Laughton. The only other workthat need be consulted is the first volume of _The Royal Navy: aHistory_, edited by Sir William Laird Clowes (1897). This is not so goodan authority as Corbett; but it contains many details which help toround the story out, besides a wealth of illustration. 

RALEIGH. Gilbert, Cavendish, Raleigh, and the othergentlemen-adventurers, were soldiers, not sailors; and if they had goneafloat two centuries later they would have fought at the head ofmarines, not of blue-jackets; so their lives belong to a different kindof biography from that concerned with Hawkins, Frobisher. And Drake. Edwards's _Life of Sir Walter Raleigh_ (1868) contains all the mostinteresting letters and is a competent work of its own kind. Oldys'edition of Raleigh's _Works_ still holds the field though its eightvolumes were published so long ago as 1829. Raleigh's _Discovery ofGuiana_ is the favorite for reprinting. The Hakluyt Society has producedan elaborate edition (1847) while a very cheap and handy one has beenpublished in Cassell's National Library. W. G. Gosling's _Life of SirHumphry Gilbert_ (1911) is the best recent work of its kind. 

The likeliest of all the Hakluyt Society's volumes, so far as its titleis concerned, is one which has hardly any direct bearing on the subjectof our book. Yet the reader who is disappointed by the text of _DiversVoyages to America_ because it is not devoted to Elizabethan sea-dogswill be richly rewarded by the notes on pages 116-141. These quaint bitsof information and advice were intended for quite another purpose, Buttheir transcriber's faith in their wider applicability is fullyjustified. Here is the exact original heading under which they firstappeared: _Notes in Writing besides More Privie by Mouth that were givenby a Gentleman, Anno 1580, to M. Arthure Pette and to M. CharlesJackman, sent by the Marchants of the Muscovie Companie for thediscouerie of the northeast strayte, not all together vnfit for someother enterprises of discouerie hereafter to bee taken in hande. _

See also in _The Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th Ed. The articles on_Henry VIII_, _Elizabeth_, _Drake_, _Raleigh_, etc. 

 Index

 Alva, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, 98 et seq. 

 Amadas, in America (1584), 151, 210

 America; an obstacle to the circumnavigation of the world, 11; as a reputed source of gold and silver, 65

 _Angel_, The, ship, 86

 Anton, Señor Juan de, 133

 Antonio, Don, pretender to the throne of Portugal, 164; and the English at Lisbon, 194

 Antwerp, 98, 99, 100

 Armada, 145, 150, 153, 156, 164, 165, 172, 191, 214

 Aviles, Don Pedro Menendez de, 86

 Azores, 150, 169, 194

 Baber, Sultan in the Moluccas, 141

 Bacon, Francis, Lord, 62, 210

 Balboa crosses Isthmus of Panama (1513), 19

 Barlow, in America (1584), 151, 210

 Baskerville, Sir Thomas, 224, 227 et seq. 

 Bazan, Don Alonzo de, 197, 200

 Bible, authorized version of, 49, 216

 'Bond of Association, ' 152 Brazil, voyage of Hawkins to, 33-4

 Bristol, Cabot settles in, 3

 Burleigh, Lord, 87, 119, 144, 156, 162, 167, 206

 Cabot, John, transfers allegiance from Genoa to Venice (1476), 1; Cabottággio, 2; reaches Cape Breton (1497), 7; returns to Bristol, 7; receives a present of £10 from Henry VII, 8; disappears at sea (1498), 8-9, 14; believes America the eastern limit of the Old World, 11; bibliography, 241

 Cabot, Sebastian, second son of John, 9; takes command of expedition to America, 9; leaves men to explore Newfoundland, 9; coasts Greenland, 12; explores Atlantic Coast, 12; enters service of Ferdinand of Spain as Captain of the Sea, ' 15; Charles V makes him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of Pilots, ' 15; determines longitude of Moluccas, 15; voyage to South America, 15; makes a map of the world, 15; leaves Spain for England(1548), 16; receives pension from Edward VI, 16; feasts at Gravesend with the _Serchthrift_, 16-17; Governor of Muscovy Company, 16, 31; sailing of the _Serchthrift_, 32; bibliography, 241

 Cadiz, 165 et seq. 

 California, 137, 138, 212

 Canaries, 157, 226

 Cape Breton, Cabot reaches (1497), 7

 Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama sails around, 18

 Cape St. Vincent, Drake plans to capture, 167

 Caribs, 80, 158

 Carleill, 154, 156, 157, 160

 Cartagena, 88, 108 et seq. , 156, 159

 Cartier, Jacques, second voyage (1535), 12; discovers St. Lawrence, 71

 Cathay, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11; Sir Hugh Willoughby tries to find Northeast passage to, 30

 Cavendish, Thomas, 212

 Cecil, Sir Robert, 206

 Charles V of Spain, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22-25; his dominions, 23; feud with France, 23-24; hostile to England, 29; Spanish dominion, 71; father of Don John of Austria, 117

 Chesapeake Bay, 220

 Cockeram, Martin, 34

 Coligny, Admiral, 207

 Columbus, Christopher, citizen of Genoa, 1-2; visit to Iceland, 3; fame eclipses that of the Cabots, 13; reasons for his significance, 13; 400th anniversary of his discovery, 14; replica of the _Santa Maria_, 235

 _Complaynt of Scotland_, The, 42

 _Cordial Advice_, 40

 Corunna, 178, 192

 Cosa, Juan de la, makes first dated (1500) map of America, 14

 Croatoan Island, 213 et seq. 

 Crowndale, Drake's birthplace, 95

 Cumberland, Earl of, 197

 Cuttyhunk Island, 216

 Dare, Virginia, 215

 _Delight_, The, ship, 209

 De Soto, 19, 81

 Doughty, Thomas, 116, 120, 123 et seq. , 127

 _Dragon_, The, ship, 101

 Drake, Sir Francis, born the same year as modern sea-power (1545), 28; on the _Minion_, 92; Son of Edmund Drake, 95; boyhood, 96 et seq. ; as lieutenant, on escort to wool-fleet, 100; marries Mary Newman, 100; sails on Nombre de Dios expedition, 101 et seq. ; Drake and Nombre de Dios, 104; sees the Pacific, 110; attacks a Spanish treasure train, 111 et seq. ; returns to England (1573), 114; goes to Ireland, 115; recalled for consultation, 118; audience with the Queen, 119; plans to raid the Pacific, 119; sails ostensibly for Egypt, 120; his _Famous Voyage_ (1577), 121; has trouble with Doughty, 124; whom he puts to death, 125; winters in Patagonia, 125; overcomes disaffection of his men, 126; sails through Straits of Magellan, 128; enters Pacific, 128; takes the _Grand Captain of the South_, 129; scours the Pacific taking prizes, 130; at Lima, 130; pursues Spanish treasure ship, 131; captures Don Juan de Anton, 133; sails north, 137; considered a god by the Indians, 138 et seq. ; arrives at Moluccas, 141; lays foundation of English diplomacy in Eastern seas, 142; _Golden Hind_ aground, 142; uncertainty at home as to his fate, 144; arrives at Plymouth, 145; knighted by Elizabeth, 148; plans a raid on New Spain, 151; prepares for Indies voyage of 1585, 153; calls at Vigo, 155; plans a raid on New Spain, 156; captures Santiago and San Domingo, 157; takes Cartagena, 159; calls at Roanoke, 162; arrives at Plymouth, (1580), 162; expedition to Cadiz, 165; arrests Borough, 167; conquers Sagres Castle, 167; takes Spanish treasure ship, 169; defeats the Armada, 172-191; undertakes Lisbon expedition (1589), 192; his achievement, 201; in disfavor, 223; in unhappy combination with Hawkins, 224; West Indies voyage, 225; seizes La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, 227; his last days, 228; his death, 229; bibliography, 243-4

 Drake, Edmund, 95

 Drake, Jack, 121, 132

 Drake's Bay, 138

 East India Company, 63, 171, 215

 Edward VI, 29, 50

 Elizabeth, the England of, 48 et seq. ; early life, 50; and Mary, 51; and Anne of Cleves, 51; ascends the throne, 52; difficulty of her position, 53; and finance, 55; her court, 68; her love of luxury, 68-69; commandeers Spanish gold, 99; deposed by Pope, 100; tortuous Spanish policy, 117; consults Drake, 119; receives Drake on his return, 146; banquets on the _Golden Hind_, 148; knights Drake, 148; Babington Plot again, 163; beheads Mary Queen of Scots, 165; the Armada, 176 et seq. ; the Lisbon expedition, 192; dies, 216; bibliography, 242

 _Elizabeth_, The, ship, 121

 Essex, Earl of, 116, 118

 Field of the Cloth of Gold, 234

 Fleming, Captain, 179, 190

 Fletcher, Chaplain, 125, 128, 143

 Fletcher of Rye, discovers the art of tacking, 26; as a shipwright, 233

 Florida, 81, 82, 162

 Francis I, of France, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22, 24, 71

 Frobisher, Martin, 120, 154, 160, 220

 Fuller, Thomas, author of _The Worthies of England_, 101, 237

 Gamboa, Don Pedro Sarmiento de, 135

 Genoa, the home of Cabot and Columbus, 2

 _George Noble_, The, ship, 198

 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 208-210

 Gilbert, Raleigh, 219

 _God Save the King!_ 95

 _Golden Hind_, The, ship, 121, 127, 129, 132 et seq. , 136, 141, 142, 144, 145, 147, 154, 179

 Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 217

 Gosnold, Bartholomew, 216

 _Grand Captain of the South_, The, ship, 129

 Gravelines, battle at, 32, 190

 _Great Harry_, The, ship, 234

 Grenville, Sir Richard, 195 et seq. , 220

 Gresham, Sir Thomas, 60

 _Hakluyt's Voyages_, 33

 Hakluyt Society, 242 et seq. 

 Harriot, Thomas, 212

 Harrison's description of England, 69-70

 Hatton, Sir Christopher, 127, 146

 Hawkins, Sir John, son of William Hawkins, 34; enters slave trade with New Spain (1562), 74; takes 300 slaves at Sierra Leona, 75; second expedition (1564), 75; issues sailing orders, 76; John Sparke's account, 77; at Teneriffe, 77; meets Peter de Ponte, 78; Arbol Santo tree, 78; takes many Sapies, 79; at Sambula, 79; island of the Cannibals, 80; makes for Florida, 80; finds French settlement, 82 et seq. ; sells the _Tiger_, 85; sails north to Newfoundland, 85; arrives at Padstow, Cornwall (1565), 85; a favorite at court, 85; watched by Spain, 86; sets out on third voyage (1567), 86; begins the sea-dog fighting with Spain, 86; Drake joins the expedition, 86; disasters, 87; crosses from Africa to West Indies, 88; clashes with Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha, 88; at Cartagena, 89; at St. John de Ulua, 89; fight with the Spaniards, 90 et seq. ; parted from Drake in a storm, 93; leaves part of his men ashore, 93; voyage ends in disaster, 94; strikes another blow at Spain (1595), 223; unhappily combined with Drake, 224; sails for New Spain 226; dies, 226; bibliography, 243

 Hawkins, Sir Richard, grandson of William Hawkins, 35

 Hawkins, William, story of, in Hakluyt _Voyages_, 33 et seq. ; father of Sir John Hawkins, 34; grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, 35, and of the second William Hawkins, 35

 Hawkins, William, the Second, grandson of William Hawkins, 35

 Henry IV of France, 223

 Henry VII, Cabot enters service of, 3; refuses to patronize Columbus, 4; gives patent to the Cabots, 4-6

 Henry VIII, the monarch of the sea, 20; establishes a modern fleet and the office of the Admiralty, 21; a patron of sailors, 22; menaced by Scotland, France, and Spain, 25; defies the Pope, 25; defies Francis I, 26; birth of modern sea-power (1545), 28; and the voyage of Hawkins, 33-34; as a patron of the Navy, 232 et seq. 

 _Henry Grace à Dieu_, The, ship, 234

 Honduras, 156, 228

 Hore, his voyage to America, 33 et seq. 

 Hortop, Job, 94

 Howard of Effingham, Lord, 31, 176, 189, 197

 Hudson Strait, Sebastian Cabot misses, 12

 India, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11

 Ingram, David, 94

 Inquisition, Spanish, 29, 73

 Ireland, 147, 191

 Jackman, 122

 James I of England, 216, 218

 Jefferys, Thomas, 66

 _Jesus_, The, ship, see _Jesus of Lubeck_

 _Jesus of Lubeck_, The, ship, 75, 76, 86, 89, 91 et seq. 

 _Judith_, The, ship, 86, 92 et seq. , 98

 Knollys, 154

 _La Dragontea_, by Lope de Vega, 157

 La Hacha, 156, 227

 Lane, Ralph, 162, 196, 212

 La Rochelle, 100

 Laudonnière, René de, 82 et seq. 

 Leicester, Earl, of, 146, 164, 176

 Lepanto, 117, 185

 Lima, 130, 135, 144

 Lines of Torres Vedras, 194

 Lisbon, 144, 168, 192, 223 et seq. 

 Lloyd's, 59-61

 London merchants, 144, 140, 171, 218

 Lope de Vega, 157

 Madrid, 86, 172

 Magellan, Strait of, 120, 127, 128

 Manoa, 221, 222

 Map, Juan de la Cosa's earliest dated (1500) map of America, 14; of world by Sebastian Cabot (1544), 15; of America by Thomas Jefferys, 66

 Marigold, The, ship, 121, 126, 128, 129

 Martin, Don, 134, 153

 Mary, Queen of Scots, 31, 50 et seq. , 117, 121, 149, 152, 163, 164, 216

 _Matthew_, The, ship, 7

 Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 175

 Mendoza, 119

 Menendez, 115, 150

 Middleton, Captain, 197

 _Minion_, The, ship, 86, 91 et seq. 

 Monopoly, 58, 66

 Moone, Tom, 129, 154, 161

 Mosquito, Lopez de, 141

 Mountains of Bright Stones, 86, 221, 222

 Muscovy Company, 16, 31

 Navigation, encouraged by Henry VIII, 21, 25, 27; art of tacking discovered, 26; birth of modern sea-power, 28; sea-songs, 37 et seq. ; nautical terms, 42 et seq. ; Pette and Jackman's advice to traders, 122-123 ftn. ; Francisco de Zarate's account of Drake's _Golden Hind_, 136-137; appendix; note on Tudor shipping, 231-239; bibliography, 242

 New Albion, 136, 140

 Newfoundland fisheries, Bacon on, 62

 New France, 72, 205

 Nombre de Dios, 101 et seq. , 12O, 135, 156, 227

 Norreys, Sir John, 176, 193

 Northwest Passage, 120, 137

 Oxenham, John, 105, 109, 116, 144

 Pacific Ocean, taken possession of by Balboa (1513), 18; Drake enters, 128 et seq. 

 Panama, 19, 103, 108, 120, 132, 135, 156, 227

 Parma, 172 et seq. , 189

 _Pascha_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 114

 Pedro de Valdes, Don, 188

 _Pelican_, The, ship, 121, 127

 Philip of Spain, marries Queen Mary, 31; protests against Drake's actions, 87; plans to seize Scilly Isles, 115; soldiers sack Antwerp, 116; seizes Portugal, 144; prepares a fleet, 150; Paris plot with Mary, 150; seizes English merchant fleet, 152; duped by Hawkins, 153; his credit low, 163; resumes mobilization, 172; prepares the Armada, 174 et seq. 

 Philippines, Vasco da Gama reaches, 19; Drake sails to, 141

 Pines, Isle of, 103

 Plymouth, 96, 98, 114, 145, 162, 178-180, 217, 225

 Plymouth Company, 218

 Pole of _Plimmouth_, The, ship, 33

 Ponte, Peter de, 78

 Popham, George, 219

 Porto Rico, 225, 226

 Potosi, 28, 73, 95, 130

 _Primrose_, The, ship, 152

 Pring, Martin, 217

 Puerto Bello. 229

 Purchas, Samuel, 203

 Ralegh, City of, in Virginia, 213

 _Raleigh_, The, ship, 209

 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 195, 205-222; bibliography, 244-245

 Ranse, 103, 108

 _Revenge_, The, ship, 188, 192-204

 Ribaut, Jean, 82

 Roanoke Island, 162, 210 et seq. 

 Sagres Castle, 167

 St. Augustine, 86, 162

 San Domingo, 156, 157, 161

 _San Felipe_, The, ship, 197 et seq. 

 San Francisco, 137, 138

 San Juan de Ulua, 89, 98, 99, 153

 _Santa Anna_, The, ship, 212

 Santa Cruz, 150, 172 et seq. 

 Santa Marta, 156, 227

 Scilly Isles, 114, 115, 153

 _Serchthrift_, The, ship, 16-17, 32

 Shipping, note on Tudor, 231-239

 Sidney, Sir Philip, 155, 164, 195

 Slave Trade, 74 et seq. 

 _Solomon_, The, ship, 76

 Somerset, 29-30, 53, 96

 Southampton, Earl of, 217

 Spain, rights of discovery, 6; Spanish Inquisition, 29, 73; breach with England, 72; Spanish gold in London, 73; Spaniards in Florida, 81-82; the 'Spanish Fury' of 1576, 116; Drake clips the wings of Spain, 149-171; Drake and the Spanish Armada, 172-191; Lisbon expedition, 192 et seq. ; the last fight of the _Revenge_, 197 et seq. 

 Sparke, John, his account of Sir John Hawkins's Voyage to Florida, 77 et seq. 

 _Spitfire_, The, ship, 132

 _Squirrel_, The, ship, 210

 _Swallow_, The, ship, 86

 _Swan_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 121, 129

 Teneriffe, 77-78

 Ternate, Island of, 141, 142

 Têtu, Capt. , 112 et seq. 

 Throgmorton, Elizabeth, 220

 _Tiger_, The, ship, 60, 85, 154

 Torres Vedras, Lines of, 194

 Vasco da Gama finds sea route to India (1498), 18

 Venice, importance in trade, 2; Cabot becomes a citizen of, 2

 Venta Cruz, 111

 Vera Cruz, 89

 Verrazano, 71

 Virginia, 62, 151. 196, 205, 210, 219

 Walsingham, Sir Francis, 118, 146

 West Indies, 84, 157, 201, 208, 219, 225 et seq. 

 _Westward Ho!_ Kingsley's, 105

 Weymouth, George, 218

 White, John, 212 et seq. 

 _William and John_, The, ship, 86

 William of Orange, 152, 207. 

 Willoughby, Sir Hugh, tries to find Northwest Passage, 30; dies in Lapland, 30

 Woolwich, 153, 238

 _Worthies of England_, The, by Thomas Fuller, 101, 237

 Zarate, Don Francisco de, 136