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diff --git a/old/old/12855.txt b/old/old/12855.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..abac437 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/12855.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6007 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Elizabethan Sea Dogs, by William Wood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Elizabethan Sea Dogs + +Author: William Wood + +Release Date: July 8, 2004 [EBook #12855] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN SEA DOGS *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Graeme Mackreth and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +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 the +United States back to its earliest form in 'the Newe Worlde called +America.' But who prepared the way for the pioneers from the Old World +and what ensured their safety in the New? The title of the present +volume, _Elizabethan Sea-Dogs_, gives the only answer. It was during the +reign of Elizabeth, the last of the Tudor sovereigns of England, that +Englishmen won the command of the sea under the consummate leadership of +Sir Francis Drake, the first of modern admirals. Drake and his +companions are known to fame as Sea-Dogs. They won the English right of +way into Spain's New World. And Anglo-American history begins with that +century of maritime adventure and naval war in which English sailors +blazed and secured the long sea-trail for the men of every other kind +who 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, like +Christopher Columbus, was a seafaring citizen of Genoa, transferred his +allegiance to Venice. + +The Roman Empire had fallen a thousand years before. Rome now held +temporal sway only over the States of the Church, which were weak in +armed force, even when compared with the small republics, dukedoms, and +principalities which lay north and south. But Papal Rome, as the head +and heart of a spiritual empire, was still a world-power; and the +disunited Italian states were first in the commercial enterprise of the +age as well as in the glories of the Renaissance. North of the Papal +domain, which cut the peninsula in two parts, stood three renowned +Italian cities: Florence, the capital of Tuscany, leading the world in +arts; Genoa, the home of Caboto and Columbus, teaching the world the +science of navigation; and Venice, mistress of the great trade route +between Europe and Asia, controlling the world's commerce. + +Thus, in becoming a citizen of Venice, Giovanni Caboto the Genoese was +leaving the best home of scientific navigation for the best home of +sea-borne trade. His very name was no bad credential. Surnames often +come from nicknames; and for a Genoese to be called _Il Caboto_ was as +much as for an Arab of the Desert to be known to his people as The +Horseman. _Cabottaggio_ now means no more than coasting trade. But +before there was any real ocean commerce it referred to the regular +sea-borne trade of the time; and Giovanni Caboto must have either upheld +an exceptional family tradition or struck out an exceptional line for +himself to have been known as John the Skipper among the many other +expert skippers hailing from the port of Genoa. + +There was nothing strange in his being naturalized in Venice. Patriotism +of the kind that keeps the citizen under the flag of his own country +was hardly known outside of England, France, and Spain. Though the +Italian states used to fight each other, an individual Italian, +especially when he was a sailor, always felt at liberty to seek his +fortune in any one of them, or wherever he found his chance most +tempting. So the Genoese Giovanni became the Venetian Zuan without any +patriotic wrench. Nor was even the vastly greater change to plain John +Cabot so very startling. Italian experts entered the service of a +foreign monarch as easily as did the 'pay-fighting Swiss' or Hessian +mercenaries. Columbus entered the Spanish service under Ferdinand and +Isabella 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 of +Merchant-Venturers was even then two centuries old. Columbus, writing of +his visit to Iceland, says, 'the English, _especially those of Bristol_, +go there with their merchandise.' Iceland was then what Newfoundland +became, the best of distant fishing grounds. It marked one end of the +line of English sea-borne commerce. The Levant marked the other. The +Baltic formed an important branch. Thus English trade already stretched +out over all the main lines. Long before Cabot's arrival a merchant +prince of Bristol, named Canyng, who employed a hundred artificers and +eight hundred seamen, was trading to Iceland, to the Baltic, and, most +of all, to the Mediterranean. The trade with Italian ports stood in high +favor among English merchants and was encouraged by the King; for in +1485, the first year of the Tudor dynasty, an English consul took office +at Pisa and England made a treaty of reciprocity with Tuscany. + +Henry VII, first of the energetic Tudors and grandfather of Queen +Elizabeth, was a thrifty and practical man. Some years before the event +about to be recorded in these pages Columbus had sent him a trusted +brother with maps, globes, and quotations from Plato to prove the +existence of lands to the west. Henry had troubles of his own in +England. So he turned a deaf ear and lost a New World. But after +Columbus had found America, and the Pope had divided all heathen +countries between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, Henry decided to see +what he could do. + + * * * * * + +Anglo-American history begins on the 5th of March, 1496, when the +Cabots, father and three sons, received the following patent from the +King: + +_Henrie, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of +Irelande, to all, to whom these presentes shall come, Greeting--Be it +knowen, that We have given and granted, and by these presentes do give +and grant for Us and Our Heyres, to our well beloved John Gabote, +citizen of Venice, to Lewes, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the sayde +John, 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, under +our banners and ensignes, with five shippes, of what burden or quantitie +soever they bee: and as many mariners or men as they will have with them +in the saide shippes, upon their owne proper costes and charges, to +seeke out, discover, and finde, whatsoever Iles, Countreyes, Regions, or +Provinces, of the Heathennes and Infidelles, whatsoever they bee, and in +what part of the worlde soever they bee, whiche before this time have +been unknowen to all Christians. We have granted to them also, and to +every of them, the heires of them, and every of them, and their +deputies, and have given them licence to set up Our banners and ensignes +in every village, towne, castel, yle, or maine lande, of them newly +founde. And that the aforesaide John and his sonnes, or their heires and +assignes, may subdue, occupie, and possesse, all such townes, cities, +castels, and yles, of them founde, which they can subdue, occupie, and +possesse, as our vassailes and lieutenantes, getting unto Us the rule, +title, and jurisdiction of the same villages, townes, castels, and firme +lande so founde._ + +The patent then goes on to provide for a royalty to His Majesty of +one-fifth of the net profits, to exempt the patentees from custom duty, +to exclude competition, and to exhort good subjects of the Crown to help +the Cabots in every possible way. This first of all English documents +connected with America ends with these words: _Witnesse our Selfe at +Westminster, 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_. The +pointed omission of the word South made it clear that Henry had no +intention of infringing Spanish rights of discovery. Spanish claims, +however, were based on the Pope's division of all the heathen world and +were 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 his +patent, not with the 'five shippes' the King had authorized, but in the +little _Matthew_, with a crew of only eighteen men, nearly all +Englishmen accustomed to the North Atlantic. The _Matthew_ made Cape +Breton, the easternmost point of Nova Scotia, on the 24th of June, the +anniversary of St. John the Baptist, now the racial fete-day of the +French Canadians. Not a single human inhabitant was to be seen in this +wild new land, shaggy with forests primeval, fronted with bold, scarped +shores, and beautiful with romantic deep bays leading inland, league +upon league, past rugged forelands and rocky battlements keeping guard +at the frontiers of the continent. Over these mysterious wilds Cabot +raised St. George's Cross for England and the banner of St. Mark in +souvenir of Venice. Had he now reached the fabled islands of the West or +discovered other islands off the eastern coast of Tartary? He did not +know. But he hurried back to Bristol with the news and was welcomed by +the King and people. A Venetian in London wrote home to say that 'this +fellow-citizen of ours, who went from Bristol in quest of new islands, +is Zuan Caboto, whom the English now call a great admiral. He dresses +in silk; they pay him great honour; and everyone runs after him like +mad.' The Spanish ambassador was full of suspicion, in spite of the fact +that Cabot had not gone south. Had not His Holiness divided all +Heathendom between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, to Spain the West +and to Portugal the East; and was not this landfall within what the +modern world would call the Spanish sphere of influence? The ambassador +protested to Henry VII and reported home to Ferdinand and Isabella. + +Henry VII meanwhile sent a little present 'To Hym that founde the new +Isle--L10.' It was not very much. But it was about as much as nearly a +thousand dollars now; and it meant full recognition and approval. This +was a good start for a man who couldn't pay the King any royalty of +twenty per cent. because he hadn't made a penny on the way. Besides, it +was followed up by a royal annuity of twice the amount and by renewed +letters-patent for further voyages and discoveries in the west. So Cabot +took good fortune at the flood and went again. + +This time there was the full authorized flotilla of five sail, of which +one turned back and four sailed on. Somewhere on the way John Cabot +disappeared from history and his second son, Sebastian, reigned in his +stead. Sebastian, like John, apparently wrote nothing whatever. But he +talked a great deal; and in after years he seems to have remembered a +good many things that never happened at all. Nevertheless he was a very +able man in several capacities and could teach a courtier or a +demagogue, as well as a geographer or exploiter of new claims, the art +of climbing over other people's backs, his father's and his brothers' +backs included. He had his troubles; for King Henry had pressed upon him +recruits from the gaols, which just then were full of rebels. But he had +enough seamen to manage the ships and plenty of cargo for trade with the +undiscovered natives. + +Sebastian perhaps left some of his three hundred men to explore +Newfoundland. He knew they couldn't starve because, as he often used to +tell his gaping listeners, the waters thereabouts were so thick with +codfish that he had hard work to force his vessels through. This first +of American fish stories, wildly improbable as it may seem, may yet have +been founded on fact. When acres upon acres of the countless little +capelin swim inshore to feed, and they themselves are preyed on by +leaping acres of voracious cod, whose own rear ranks are being preyed on +by hungry seals, sharks, herring-hogs, or dogfish, then indeed the +troubled surface of a narrowing bay is literally thick with the silvery +flash of capelin, the dark tumultuous backs of cod, and the swirling +rushes of the greater beasts of prey behind. Nor were certain other fish +stories, told by Sebastian and his successors about the land of cod, +without some strange truths to build on. Cod have been caught as long as +a man and weighing over a hundred pounds. A whole hare, a big guillemot +with his beak and claws, a brace of duck so fresh that they must have +been swallowed alive, a rubber wading boot, and a very learned treatise +complete in three volumes--these are a few of the curiosities actually +found in sundry stomachs of the all-devouring cod. + +The new-found cod banks were a mine of wealth for western Europe at a +time when everyone ate fish on fast days. They have remained so ever +since because the enormous increase of population has kept up a +constantly increasing demand for natural supplies of food. Basques and +English, Spaniards, French, and Portuguese, were presently fishing for +cod all round the waters of northeastern North America and were even +then beginning to raise questions of national rights that have only been +settled in this twentieth century after four hundred years. + +Following the coast of Greenland past Cape Farewell, Sebastian Cabot +turned north to look for the nearest course to India and Cathay, the +lands of silks and spices, diamonds, rubies, pearls, and gold. John +Cabot had once been as far as Mecca or its neighborhood, where he had +seen the caravans that came across the Desert of Arabia from the fabled +East. Believing the proof that the world was round, he, like Columbus +and so many more, thought America was either the eastern limits of the +Old World or an archipelago between the extremest east and west already +known. Thus, in the early days before it was valued for itself, America +was commonly regarded as a mere obstruction to navigation--the more +solid the more exasperating. Now, in 1498, on his second voyage to +America, John Cabot must have been particularly anxious to get through +and show the King some better return for his money. But he simply +disappears; and all we know is what various writers gleaned from his son +Sebastian later on. + +Sebastian said he coasted Greenland, through vast quantities of +midsummer ice, until he reached 67 deg. 30' north, where there was hardly +any night. Then he turned back and probably steered a southerly course +for Newfoundland, as he appears to have completely missed what would +have seemed to him the tempting way to Asia offered by Hudson Strait and +Bay. Passing Newfoundland, he stood on south as far as the Virginia +capes, perhaps down as far as Florida. A few natives were caught. But no +real trade was done. And when the explorers had reported progress to the +King the general opinion was that North America was nothing to boast of, +after all. + +A generation later the French sent out several expeditions to sail +through North America and make discoveries by the way. Jacques Cartier's +second, made in 1535, was the greatest and most successful. He went up +the St. Lawrence as high as the site of Montreal, the head of ocean +navigation, where, a hundred and forty years later, the local wits +called La Salle's seigneury 'La Chine' in derision of his unquenchable +belief 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 are +now the United States and Canada. The point of the witling joke against +La Salle was a new version of the old adage: Go farther and fare worse. +The point of European opinion about America throughout the wonderful +sixteenth century was that those who did go farther north than Mexico +were certain to fare worse. And--whatever the cause--they generally did. +So there was yet a third reason why the fame of Columbus eclipsed the +fame of the Cabots even among those English-speaking peoples whose +New-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 we +should now call a monster publicity campaign. Thirdly, our present +point: the southern lands associated with Columbus and with Spain +yielded immense and most romantic profits during the most romantic +period of the sixteenth century. The northern lands connected with the +Cabots did nothing of the kind. + +Priority, publicity, and romantic wealth all favored Columbus and the +south then as the memory of them does to-day. The four hundredth +anniversary of his discovery of an island in the Bahamas excited the +interest of the whole world and was celebrated with great enthusiasm in +the United States. The four hundredth anniversary of the Cabots' +discovery of North America excited no interest at all outside of Bristol +and Cape Breton and a few learned societies. Even contemporary Spain did +more for the Cabots than that. The Spanish ambassador in London +carefully collected every scrap of information and sent it home to his +king, 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 a +bullock's hide, still occupies a place of honor in the Naval Museum at +Madrid; and there it stands as a contemporary geographic record to show +that St. George's Cross was the first flag ever raised over eastern +North America, at all events north of Cape Hatteras. + +The Cabots did great things though they were not great men. John, as we +have seen already, sailed out of the ken of man in 1498 during his +second voyage. Sly Sebastian lived on and almost saw Elizabeth ascend +the throne in 1558. He had made many voyages and served many masters in +the meantime. In 1512 he entered the service of King Ferdinand of Spain +as a 'Captain of the Sea' with a handsome salary attached. Six years +later the Emperor Charles V made him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of +Pilots.' Another six years and he is sitting as a nautical assessor to +find out the longitude of the Moluccas in order that the Pope may know +whether they fall within the Portuguese or Spanish hemisphere of +exploitation. Presently he goes on a four years' journey to South +America, is hindered by a mutiny, explores the River Plate (La Plata), +and returns in 1530, about the time of the voyage to Brazil of 'Master +William Haukins,' of which we shall hear later on. + +In 1544 Sebastian made an excellent and celebrated map of the world +which gives a wonderfully good idea of the coasts of North America from +Labrador to Florida. This map, long given up for lost, and only +discovered three centuries after it had been finished, is now in the +National Library in Paris.[1] + +[1: An excellent facsimile reproduction of it, together with a copy of +the marginal text, is in the collections of the American Geographical +Society of New York.] + +Sebastian had passed his threescore years and ten before this famous +map appeared. But he was as active as ever twelve years later again. He +had left Spain for England in 1548, to the rage of Charles V, who +claimed him as a deserter, which he probably was. But the English +boy-king, Edward VI, gave him a pension, which was renewed by Queen +Mary; and his last ten years were spent in England, where he died in the +odor of sanctity as Governor of the Muscovy Company and citizen of +London. Whatever his faults, he was a hearty-good-fellow with his boon +companions; and the following 'personal mention' about his octogenarian +revels at Gravesend is well worth quoting exactly as the admiring +diarist wrote it down on the 27th of April, 1556, when the pinnace +_Serchthrift_ was on the point of sailing to Muscovy and the Directors +were 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 he +sailed for the English Crown and had an English crew. Columbus, too, was +an Italian, though in the service of the Spanish Crown. It was the +Portuguese Vasco da Gama who in the very year of John Cabot's second +voyage (1498) found the great sea route to India by way of the Cape of +Good Hope. Two years later the Cortereals, also Portuguese, began +exploring the coasts of America as far northwest as Labrador. Twenty +years later again the Portuguese Magellan, sailing for the King of +Spain, discovered the strait still known by his name, passed through it +into the Pacific, and reached the Philippines. There he was killed. But +one of his ships went on to make the first circumnavigation of the +globe, a feat which redounded to the glory of both Spain and Portugal. +Meanwhile, in 1513, the Spaniard Balboa had crossed the Isthmus of +Panama and waded into the Pacific, sword in hand, to claim it for his +king. Then came the Spanish explorers--Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Coronado, +and many more--and later on the conquerors and founders of New +Spain--Cortes, Pizarro, and their successors. + +[2: Basque fishermen and whalers apparently forestalled Jacques +Cartier's discovery of the St. Lawrence in 1535; perhaps they knew the +mainland of America before John Cabot in 1497. But they left no written +records; and neither founded an oversea dominion nor gave rights of +discovery to their own or any other race.] + +During all this time neither France nor England made any lodgment in +America, though both sent out a number of expeditions, both fished on +the cod banks of Newfoundland, and each had already marked out her own +'sphere of influence.' The Portuguese were in Brazil; the Spaniards, in +South and Central America. England, by right of the Bristol voyages, +claimed the eastern coasts of the United States and Canada; France, in +virtue 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 with +momentous things at home. France was torn with religious wars. Tudor +England had much work to do before any effective English colonies could +be planted. Oversea dominions are nothing without sufficient sea power, +naval and mercantile, to win, to hold, and foster them. But Tudor +England was gradually forming those naval and merchant services without +which there could have been neither British Empire nor United States. + +Henry VIII had faults which have been trumpeted about the world from his +own day to ours. But of all English sovereigns he stands foremost as the +monarch of the sea. Young, handsome, learned, exceedingly accomplished, +gloriously strong in body and in mind, Henry mounted the throne in 1509 +with the hearty good will of nearly all his subjects. Before England +could become the mother country of an empire overseas, she had to shake +off her medieval weaknesses, become a strongly unified modern state, and +arm herself against any probable combination of hostile foreign states. +Happily for herself and for her future colonists, Henry was richly +endowed with strength and skill for his task. With one hand he welded +England into political unity, crushing disruptive forces by the way. +With the other he gradually built up a fleet the like of which the world +had never seen. He had the advantage of being more independent of +parliamentary supplies than any other sovereign. From his thrifty father +he had inherited what was then an almost fabulous sum--nine million +dollars in cash. From what his friends call the conversion, and his +enemies the spoliation, of Church property in England he obtained many +millions more. Moreover, the people as a whole always rallied to his +call whenever he wanted other national resources for the national +defence. + +Henry's unique distinction is that he effected the momentous change from +an ancient to a modern fleet. This supreme achievement constitutes his +real title to the lasting gratitude of English-speaking peoples. His +first 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 was +to establish in 1546 'The Office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs.' +During the thirty-seven years between his accession and the creation of +this Navy Board the pregnant change was made. + +'King Henry loved a man.' He had an unerring eye for choosing the right +leaders. He delighted in everything to do with ships and shipping. He +mixed freely with naval men and merchant skippers, visited the +dockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and always +befriended Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of +tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. Nor was the King only a +patron. He invented a new type of vessel himself and thoroughly mastered +scientific gunnery. He was the first of national leaders to grasp the +full significance of what could be done by broadsides fired from sailing +ships against the mediaeval type of vessel that still depended more on +oars than on sails. + +Henry's maritime rivals were the two greatest monarchs of continental +Europe, Francis I of France and Charles V of Spain. Henry, Francis, and +Charles were all young, all ambitious, and all exceedingly capable men. +Henry had the fewest subjects, Charles by far the most. Francis had a +compact kingdom well situated for a great European land power. Henry had +one equally well situated for a great European sea power. Charles ruled +vast dominions scattered over both the New World and the Old. The +destinies of mankind turned mostly on the rivalry between these three +protagonists and their successors. + +Charles V was heir to several crowns. He ruled Spain, the Netherlands, +the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and important principalities in +northern Italy. He was elected Emperor of Germany. He owned enormous +oversea dominions in Africa; and the two Americas soon became New Spain. +He governed each part of his European dominions by a different title and +under a different constitution. He had no fixed imperial capital, but +moved 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 the +machinery of government in Madrid, and became so unpopular elsewhere. +Charles had been brought up in Flanders; he was genial in the Flemish +way; and he understood his various states in the Netherlands, which +furnished him with one of his main sources of revenue. Another and much +larger source of revenue poured in its wealth to him later on, in +rapidly increasing volume, from North and South America. + +Charles had inherited a long and bitter feud with France about the +Burgundian dominions on the French side of the Rhine and about domains +in Italy; besides which there were many points of violent rivalry +between things French and Spanish. England also had hereditary feuds +with France, which had come down from the Hundred Years' War, and which +had ended in her almost final expulsion from France less than a century +before. Scotland, nursing old feuds against England and always afraid of +absorption, naturally sided with France. Portugal, small and open to +Spanish invasion by land, was more or less bound to please Spain. + +During the many campaigns between Francis and Charles the English +Channel swarmed with men-of-war, privateers, and downright pirates. +Sometimes England took a hand officially against France. But, even when +England was not officially at war, many Englishmen were privateers and +not a few were pirates. Never was there a better training school of +fighting seamanship than in and around the Narrow Seas. It was a +continual struggle for an existence in which only the fittest survived. +Quickness was essential. Consequently vessels that could not increase +their speed were soon cleared off the sea. + +Spain suffered a good deal by this continuous raiding. So did the +Netherlands. But such was the power of Charles that, although his navies +were much weaker than his armies, he yet was able to fight by sea on two +enormous fronts, first, in the Mediterranean against the Turks and other +Moslems, secondly, in the Channel and along the coast, all the way from +Antwerp to Cadiz. Nor did the left arm of his power stop there; for his +fleets, his transports, and his merchantmen ranged the coasts of both +Americas from one side of the present United States right round to the +other. + +Such, in brief, was the position of maritime Europe when Henry found +himself 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 again +defied the Pope by suppressing the monasteries and severing the Church +of England from the Roman discipline. The Pope had struck back with a +bull of excommunication designed to make Henry the common enemy of +Catholic Europe. + +Henry had been steadily building ships for years. Now he redoubled his +activity. He blooded the fathers of his daughter's sea-dogs by smashing +up a pirate fleet and sinking a flotilla of Flemish privateers. The +mouth of the Scheldt, in 1539, was full of vessels ready to take a +hostile army into England. But such a fighting fleet prepared to meet +them that Henry's enemies forbore to strike. + +In 1539, too, came the discovery of the art of tacking, by Fletcher of +Rye, Henry's shipwright friend, a discovery forever memorable in the +annals of seamanship. Never before had any kind of craft been sailed a +single foot against the wind. The primitive dugout on which the +prehistoric savage hoisted the first semblance of a sail, the ships of +Tarshish, the Roman transport in which St. Paul was wrecked, and the +Spanish caravels with which Columbus sailed to worlds unknown, were, in +principle of navigation, all the same. But now Fletcher ran out his +epoch-making vessel, with sails trimmed fore and aft, and dumbfounded +all the shipping in the Channel by beating his way to windward against a +good stiff breeze. This achievement marked the dawn of the modern +sailing age. + +And so it happened that in 1545 Henry, with a new-born modern fleet, was +able to turn defiantly on Francis. The English people rallied +magnificently to his call. What was at that time an enormous army +covered the lines of advance on London. But the fleet, though employing +fewer men, was relatively a much more important force than the army; and +with the fleet went Henry's own headquarters. His lifelong interest in +his navy now bore the first-fruits of really scientific sea power on an +oceanic scale. There was no great naval battle to fix general attention +on one dramatic moment. Henry's strategy and tactics, however, were new +and full of promise. He repeated his strategy of the previous war by +sending out a strong squadron to attack the base at which the enemy's +ships were then assembling; and he definitely committed the English +navy, alone among all the navies in the world, to sailing-ship tactics, +instead of continuing those founded on the rowing galley of immemorial +fame. 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--this +change was quite as important as the change in the nineteenth century +from 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 kind +of navy which would count in any struggle for oversea dominion after the +discovery of America had made sea power no longer a question of coasts +and 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 be +remembered in this history; for 1545 was also the year in which the +mines of Potosi first aroused the Old World to the riches of the New; it +was the year, too, in which Sir Francis Drake was born. Moreover, there +was another significant birth in this same year. The parole aboard the +Portsmouth fleet was _God save the King_! The answering countersign was +_Long to reign over us_! These words formed the nucleus of the national +anthem now sung round all the Seven Seas. The anthems of other countries +were born on land. _God save the King_! sprang from the navy and the +sea. + + * * * * * + +The Reformation quickened seafaring life in many ways. After Henry's +excommunication every Roman Catholic crew had full Papal sanction for +attacking every English crew that would not submit to Rome, no matter +how Catholic its faith might be. Thus, in addition to danger from +pirates, privateers, and men-of-war, an English merchantman had to risk +attack by any one who was either passionately Roman or determined to use +religion as a cloak. Raids and reprisals grew apace. The English were by +no 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, rightly +or wrongly, the general English view was that the Papal attitude was one +of attack while their own was one of defence. Papal Europe of course +thought quite the reverse. + +Henry died in 1547, and the Lord Protector Somerset at once tried to +make England as Protestant as possible during the minority of Edward VI, +who was not yet ten years old. This brought every English seaman under +suspicion in every Spanish port, where the Holy Office of the +Inquisition was a great deal more vigilant and businesslike than the +Custom House or Harbor Master. Inquisitors had seized Englishmen in +Henry's time. But Charles had stayed their hand. Now that the ruler of +England was an open heretic, who appeared to reject the accepted forms +of Catholic belief as well as the Papal forms of Roman discipline, the +hour had come to strike. War would have followed in ordinary times. But +the Reformation had produced a cross-division among the subjects of all +the Great Powers. If Charles went to war with a Protestant Lord +Protector of England then some of his own subjects in the Netherlands +would probably revolt. France had her Huguenots; England her +ultra-Papists; Scotland some of both kinds. Every country had an unknown +number of enemies at home and friends abroad. All feared war. + +Somerset neglected the navy. But the seafaring men among the +Protestants, as among those Catholics who were anti-Roman, took to +privateering more than ever. Nor was exploration forgotten. A group of +merchant-adventurers sent Sir Hugh Willoughby to find the Northeast +Passage to Cathay. Willoughby's three ships were towed down the Thames +by oarsmen dressed in sky-blue jackets. As they passed the palace at +Greenwich they dipped their colors in salute. But the poor young king +was 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 Mary +was on the throne. Next year, strange to say, the charter of the new +Muscovy Company was granted by Philip of Armada fame, now joint +sovereign of England with his newly married wife, soon to be known as +'Bloody Mary.' One of the directors of the company was Lord Howard of +Effingham, father of Drake's Lord Admiral, while the governor was our +old friend Sebastian Cabot, now in his eightieth year. Philip was Crown +Prince of the Spanish Empire, and his father, Charles V, was very +anxious that he should please the stubborn English; for if he could only +become both King of England and Emperor of Germany he would rule the +world by sea as well as land. Philip did his ineffective best: drank +English beer in public as if he liked it and made his stately Spanish +courtiers drink it too and smile. He spent Spanish gold, brought over +from America, and he got the convenient kind of Englishmen to take it as +spy-money for many years to come. But with it he likewise sowed some +dragon's teeth. The English sea-dogs never forgot the iron chests of +Spanish New-World gold, and presently began to wonder whether there was +no sure way in far America by which to get it for themselves. + +In the same year, 1555, the Marian attack on English heretics began and +the sea became safer than the land for those who held strong anti-Papal +views. The Royal Navy was neglected even more than it had been lately by +the Lord Protector. But fighting traders, privateers, and pirates +multiplied. 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 sailing +of the _Serchthrift_, bound northeast for Muscovy. In 1557 Philip came +back to England for the last time and manoeuvred her into a war which +cost her Calais, the last English foothold on the soil of France. During +this war an English squadron joined Philip's vessels in a victory over +the French off Gravelines, where Drake was to fight the Armada thirty +years later. + +This first of the two battles fought at Gravelines brings us down to +1558, the year in which Mary died, Elizabeth succeeded her, and a very +different English age began. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES + + +Two stories from Hakluyt's _Voyages_ will illustrate what sort of work +the English were attempting in America about 1530, near the middle of +King Henry's reign. The success of 'Master Haukins' and the failure of +'Master Hore' are quite typical of several other adventures in the New +World. + +'Olde M. William Haukins of Plimmouth, a man for his wisdome, valure, +experience, and skill in sea causes much esteemed and beloved of King +Henry the eight, and being one of the principall Sea Captaines in the +West partes of England in his time, not contented with the short voyages +commonly then made onely to the knowen coastes of Europe, armed out a +tall and goodlie ship of his owne, of the burthen of 250 tunnes, called +the Pole of Plimmouth, wherewith he made three long and famous voyages +vnto the coast of Brasill, a thing in those days very rare, especially +to 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 arriving +on the coast of Brasil, used there such discretion, and behaved himselfe +so wisely with those savage people, that he grew into great familiaritie +and friendship with them. Insomuch that in his 2 voyage one of the +savage kings of the Countrey of Brasil was contented to take ship with +him, and to be transported hither into England. This kinge was presented +unto King Henry 8. The King and all the Nobilitie did not a little +marvel; for in his cheeks were holes, and therein small bones planted, +which in his Countrey was reputed for a great braverie.' The poor +Brazilian monarch died on his voyage back, which made Hawkins fear for +the life of Martin Cockeram, whom he had left in Brazil as a hostage. +However, the Brazilians took Hawkins's word for it and released +Cockeram, who lived another forty years in Plymouth. 'Olde M. William +Haukins' was the father of Sir John Hawkins, Drake's companion in arms, +whom we shall meet later. He was also the grandfather of Sir Richard +Hawkins, another naval hero, and of the second William Hawkins, one of +the founders of the greatest of all chartered companies, the Honourable +East India Company. + +Hawkins knew what he was about. 'Master Hore' did not. Hore was a +well-meaning, plausible fellow, good at taking up new-fangled ideas, bad +at carrying them out, and the very cut of a wildcat company-promoter, +except for his honesty. He persuaded 'divers young lawyers of the Innes +of Court and Chancerie' to go to Newfoundland. A hundred and twenty men +set off in this modern ship of fools, which ran into Newfoundland at +night and was wrecked. There were no provisions; and none of the 'divers +lawyers' seems to have known how to catch a fish. After trying to live +on 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 a +French fishing smack came in; whereupon the lawyers seized her, put her +wretched crew ashore, and sailed away with all the food she had. The +outraged Frenchmen found another vessel, chased the lawyers back to +England, and laid their case before the King, who 'out of his Royall +Bountie' reimbursed the Frenchmen and let the 'divers lawyers' go scot +free. + + +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 the +sea in the ships of the Tudor age? There are very few quite authentic +descriptions of life afloat before the end of the sixteenth century; and +even then we rarely see the ship and crew about their ordinary work. +Everybody was all agog for marvellous discoveries. Nobody, least of all +a seaman, bothered his head about describing the daily routine on board. +We know, however, that it was a lot of almost incredible hardship. Only +the fittest could survive. Elizabethan landsmen may have been quite as +prone to mistake comfort for civilization as most of the world is said +to be now. Elizabethan sailors, when afloat, most certainly were not; +and for the simple reason that there was no such thing as real comfort +in 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 discovery +of America, and were probably touched up a little by the scribe. The +original manuscript is now in Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a true +nautical composition--a very rare thing indeed; for genuine sea-songs +didn't often get into print and weren't enjoyed by landsmen when they +did. The setting is that of a merchantman carrying passengers whose +discomforts 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 beddes 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 and +belay!_ which means hauling aft and making fast the sheet of a mainsail +or foresail. _What ho! no nearer!_ is _What ho! no higher_ now. But old +salts remember _no nearer!_ and it may be still extant. Seasickness +seems to have been the same as ever--so was the desperate effort to +pretend 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 doubt +is whether the _Martial-men_ are Navy men, as distinguished from +merchant-service men aboard a king's ship, or whether they are soldiers +who want to take all sailors down a peg or two. This seems the more +probable explanation. Soldiers 'ranked' sailors afloat in the sixteenth +century; and Drake's was the first fleet in the world in which +seamen-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 that +landsmen 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 their +decaying Fortunes by Navigation_, as most of the sea-dogs (and +gentlemen-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 the +nineteenth century, and sometimes even on board of steamers, victualling +was 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 genuine +sea-songs and shore-going imitations will be glad to know that the +_Mermaid_ is genuine, though the usual air to which it was sung afloat +was harsh and decidedly inferior to the one used ashore. This example of +the old 'fore-bitters' (so-called because sung from the fore-bitts, a +convenient mass of stout timbers near the foremast) did not luxuriate in +the repetitions of its shore-going rival: _With a comb and a glass in +her 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 of +Scotland_, written in 1548, seems to be the only man who took more +interest in the means than in the ends of seamanship. He was undoubtedly +a landsman. But he loved the things of the sea; and his work is well +worth reading as a vocabulary of the lingo that was used on board a +Tudor ship. When the seamen sang it sounded like 'an echo in a cave.' +Many of the outlandish words were Mediterranean terms which the +scientific Italian navigators had brought north. Others were of Oriental +origin, which was very natural in view of the long connection between +East and West at sea. Admiral, for instance, comes from the Arabic for a +commander-in-chief. _Amir-al-bahr_ means commander of the sea. Most of +the nautical technicalities would strike a seaman of the present day as +being quite modern. The sixteenth-century skipper would be readily +understood by a twentieth-century helmsman in the case of such orders as +these: _Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep close!_ Our modern +sailor in the navy, however, would be hopelessly lost in trying to +follow directions like the following: _Make ready your cannons, middle +culverins, 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 more +into touch with America; for the old sea-dog DIRECTIONS FOR THE TAKYNG +OF A PRIZE were admirably summed up in _The Seaman's Grammar_, which was +compiled by 'Captaine John Smith, sometime Governour of Virginia and +Admiral 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 all +your 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 the +out-sides of all her upper works and fore and main-tops, as well for the +countenance 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 they +strip themselves into their fighting sails, which is, only the foresail, +the main and fore topsails, because the rest should not be fired nor +spoiled; besides, they would be troublesome to handle, hinder our sights +and the using of our arms._ + +'He makes ready his close-fights, fore and aft.' [Bulkheads set up to +cover 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' for +the King of Spain, and springs his luff_[brings his vessel close by the +wind]. + +'Give him a chase-piece with your broadside, and run a good berth a-head +of 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 with +him! Give him a volley of small shot, also your prow and broadside as +before, 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 your +broadside, and let her fall off with the wind to give him also your full +chase, your weather-broad-side, and bring her round so that the stern +may also discharge, and your tacks close aboard again!' ... + +'The wind veers, the sea goes too high to board her, and we are shot +through and through, and between wind and water.' + +'Try the pump! Bear up the helm! Sling a man overboard to stop the +leaks, _that is_, truss him up around the middle in a piece of canvas +and a rope, with his arms at liberty, with a mallet and plugs lapped in +oakum and well tarred, and a tar-pauling clout, which he will quickly +beat 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 the +hawse, on the bow, midships, or, rather than fail, on his quarter; or +make fast your grapplings to his close-fights and sheer off' [which +would 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 the +other all they can to get clear, lest they should both burn together and +so sink: and, if they be generous, and the fire be quenched, they will +drink kindly one to the other, heave their canns over-board, and begin +again as before...._ + +'Chirurgeon, look to the wounded, and wind up the slain, and give them +three 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! Boatswain +and the rest, repair sails and shrouds! Cook, see you observe your +directions 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 there +be 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 all +the different peoples who speak the sea-borne English tongue. In the +reign of Elizabeth there was only one English-speaking nation. This +nation consisted of a bare five million people, fewer than there are +to-day in London or New York. But hardly had the Great Queen died before +Englishmen began that colonizing movement which has carried their +language the whole world round and established their civilization in +every quarter of the globe. Within three centuries after Elizabeth's day +the use of English as a native speech had grown quite thirtyfold. Within +the same three centuries the number of those living under laws and +institutions derived from England had grown a hundredfold. + +The England of Elizabeth was an England of great deeds, but of greater +dreams. Elizabethan literature, take it for all in all, has never been +surpassed; myriad-minded Shakespeare remains unequalled still. +Elizabethan England was indeed 'a nest of singing birds.' Prose was +often far too pedestrian for the exultant life of such a mighty +generation. As new worlds came into their expectant ken, the glowing +Elizabethans wished to fly there on the soaring wings of verse. To them +the tide of fortune was no ordinary stream but the 'white-maned, proud, +neck-arching tide' that bore adventurers to sea 'with pomp of waters +unwithstood.' + +The goodly heritage that England gave her offspring overseas included +Shakespeare and the English Bible. The Authorized Version entered into +the very substance of early American life. There was a marked difference +between Episcopalian Virginia and Puritan New England. But both took +their stand on this version of the English Bible, in which the springs +of Holy Writ rejoiced to run through channels of Elizabethan prose. It +is true that Elizabeth slept with her fathers before this book of books +was printed, and that the first of the Stuarts reigned in her stead. +Nevertheless the Authorized Version is pure Elizabethan. All its +translators were Elizabethans, as their dedication to King James, still +printed with every copy, gratefully acknowledges in its reference to +'the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth of most +happy memory.' + +These words of the reverend scholars contain no empty compliment. +Elizabeth was a great sovereign and in some essential particulars, a +very great national leader. This daughter of Henry VIII and his second +wife, Anne Boleyn the debonair, was born a heretic in 1533. Her father +was then defying both Spain and the Pope. Within three years after her +birth her mother was beheaded; and by Act of Parliament Elizabeth +herself was declared illegitimate. She was fourteen when her father +died, leaving the kingdom to his three children in succession, Elizabeth +being the third. Then followed the Protestant reign of the boy-king +Edward VI, during which Elizabeth enjoyed security; then the Catholic +reign of her Spanish half-sister, 'Bloody Mary,' during which her life +hung by the merest thread. + +At first, however, Mary concealed her hostility to Elizabeth because she +thought the two daughters of Henry VIII ought to appear together in her +triumphal entry into London. From one point of view--and a feminine one +at that--this was a fatal mistake on Mary's part: for never did +Elizabeth show to more advantage. She was just under twenty, while Mary +was nearly twice her age. Mary had, indeed, provided herself with one +good foil in the person of Anne of Cleves, the 'Flemish mare' whose flat +coarse face and lumbering body had disgusted King Henry thirteen years +before, when Cromwell had foisted her upon him as his fourth wife. But +with poor, fat, straw-colored Anne on one side, and black-and-sallow, +foreign-looking, man-voiced Mary on the other, the thoroughly English +Princess 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 splendid +figure looked equally well on horseback or on foot. A little full in the +eye, and with a slightly aquiline nose, she appeared, as she really was, +keenly observant and commanding. Though these two features just +prevented her from being a beauty, the bright blue eyes and the finely +chiselled nose were themselves quite beautiful enough. Nor was she less +taking to the ear than to the eye; for, in marked contrast to gruff +foreign Mary and wheezy foreign Anne, she had a rich, clear, though +rather too loud, English voice. When the Court reined up and dismounted, +Elizabeth became even more the centre of attraction. Mary marched +stiffly on. Anne plodded after. But as for Elizabeth--perfect in +dancing, riding, archery, and all the sports of chivalry--'she trod the +ling 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 of +all she had learnt in her twenty-five years of adventurous life. +Fortunately for herself and, on the whole, most fortunately for both +England and America, she had a remarkable power of inspiring devotion to +the service of their queen and country in men of both the cool and +ardent types; and this long after her personal charms had gone. +Government, religion, finance, defence, and foreign affairs were in a +perilous state of flux, besides which they have never been more +distractingly mixed up with one another. Henry VII had saved money for +twenty-five years. His three successors had spent it lavishly for +fifty. Henry VIII had kept the Church Catholic in ritual while making it +purely national in government. The Lord Protector Somerset had made it +as Protestant as possible under Edward VI. Mary had done her best to +bring 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 handsome +young queen a fair chance and not a little favor. Foreign affairs were +worse. France was still the hereditary enemy; and the loss of Calais +under Mary had exasperated the whole English nation. Scotland was a +constant menace in the north. Spain was gradually changing from friend +to foe. The Pope was disinclined to recognize Elizabeth at all. + +To understand how difficult her position was we must remember what sort +of constitution England had when the germ of the United States was +forming. The Roman Empire was one constituent whole from the emperor +down. The English-speaking peoples of to-day form constituent wholes +from the electorate up. In both cases all parts were and are in constant +relation to the whole. The case of Elizabethan England, however, was +very different. There was neither despotic unity from above nor +democratic unity from below, but a mixed and fluctuating kind of +government in which Crown, nobles, parliament, and people formed certain +parts which had to be put together for each occasion. The accepted +general idea was that the sovereign, supreme as an individual, looked +after the welfare of the country in peace and war so far as the Crown +estates permitted; but that whenever the Crown resources would not +suffice then the sovereign could call on nobles and people for whatever +the common weal required. _Noblesse oblige_. In return for the estates +or monopolies which they had acquired the nobles and favored commoners +were expected to come forward with all their resources at every national +crisis precisely as the Crown was expected to work for the common weal +at all times. When the resources of the Crown and favored courtiers +sufficed, no parliament was called; but whenever they had to be +supplemented then parliament met and voted whatever it approved. +Finally, every English freeman was required to do his own share towards +defending the country in time of need, and he was further required to +know the proper use of arms. + +The great object of every European court during early modern times was +to get both the old feudal nobility and the newly promoted commoners to +revolve round the throne as round the centre of their solar system. By +sheer force of character--for the Tudors, had no overwhelming army like +the Roman emperors'--Henry VIII had succeeded wonderfully well. +Elizabeth now had to piece together what had been broken under Edward VI +and Mary. She, too, succeeded--and with the hearty goodwill of nearly +all her subjects. + +Mary had left the royal treasury deeply in debt. Yet Elizabeth succeeded +in paying off all arrears and meeting new expenditure for defence and +for the court. The royal income rose. England became immensely richer +and more prosperous than ever before. Foreign trade increased by leaps +and bounds. Home industries flourished and were stimulated by new +arrivals from abroad, because England was a safe asylum for the +craftsmen whom Philip was driving from the Netherlands, to his own great +loss and his rival's gain. + +English commercial life had been slowly emerging from medieval ways +throughout the fifteenth century. With the beginning of the sixteenth +the rate of emergence had greatly quickened. The soil-bound peasant who +produced enough food for his family from his thirty acres was being +gradually replaced by the well-to-do yeoman who tilled a hundred acres +and upwards. Such holdings produced a substantial surplus for the +market. This increased the national wealth, which, in its turn, +increased both home and foreign trade. The peasant merely raised a +little wheat and barley, kept a cow, and perhaps some sheep. The yeoman +or tenant farmer had sheep enough for the wool trade besides some +butter, cheese, and meat for the nearest growing town. He began to +'garnish his cupboards with pewter and his joined beds with tapestry and +silk hangings, and his tables with carpets and fine napery.' He could +even feast his neighbors and servants after shearing day with +new-fangled foreign luxuries like dates, mace, raisins, currants, and +sugar. + +But Elizabethan society presented striking contrasts. In parts of +England, the practice of engrossing and enclosing holdings was +increasing, as sheep-raising became more profitable than farming. The +tenants thus dispossessed either swelled the ranks of the vagabonds who +infested the highways or sought their livelihood at sea or in London, +which provided the two best openings for adventurous young men. The +smaller provincial towns afforded them little opportunity, for there the +trades were largely in the hands of close corporations descended from +the medieval craft guilds. These were eventually to be swept away by the +general trend of business. Their dissolution had indeed already begun; +for smart village craftsmen were even then forming the new industrial +settlements from which most of the great manufacturing towns of England +have sprung. Camden the historian found Birmingham full of ringing +anvils, Sheffield 'a town of great name for the smiths therein,' Leeds +renowned 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 minimum +living wage. The influx of gold and silver from America had sent all +prices soaring. Meat became almost prohibitive for the 'submerged +tenth'--there was a rapidly submerging tenth. Beef rose from one cent a +pound in the forties to four in 1588, the year of the Armada. How would +the lowest paid of craftsmen fare on twelve cents a day, with butter at +ten cents a pound? Efforts were made, again and again, to readjust the +ratio between prices and wages. But, as a rule, prices increased much +faster than wages. + +All these things--the increase of surplus hands, the high cost of +living, grievances about wages and interest--tended to make the farms +and workshops of England recruiting-grounds for the sea; and the young +men would strike out for themselves as freighters, traders, privateers, +or downright pirates, lured by the dazzling chance of great and sudden +wealth. + +'The gamble of it' was as potent then as now, probably more potent +still. It was an age of wild speculation accompanied by all the usual +evils that follow frenzied ways. It was also an age of monopoly. Both +monopoly and speculation sent recruits into the sea-dog ranks. Elizabeth +would grant, say, to Sir Walter Raleigh, the monopoly of sweet wines. +Raleigh would naturally want as much sweet wine imported as England +could be induced to swallow. So, too, would Elizabeth, who got the duty. +Crews would be wanted for the monopolistic ships. They would also be +wanted for 'free-trading' vessels, that is, for the ships of the +smugglers who underbid, undersold, and tried to overreach the +monopolist, who represented law, though not quite justice. But +speculation ran to greater extremes than either monopoly or smuggling. +Shakespeare's 'Putter-out of five for one' was a typical Elizabethan +speculator exploiting the riskiest form of sea-dog trade for all--and +sometimes for more than all--that it was worth. A merchant-adventurer +would pay a capitalist, say, a thousand pounds as a premium to be +forfeited if his ship should be lost, but to be repaid by the capitalist +fivefold to the merchant if it returned. Incredible as it may seem to +us, there were shrewd money-lenders always ready for this sort of deal +in life--or life-and-death--insurance: an eloquent testimony to the +risks encountered in sailing unknown seas in the midst of well-known +dangers. + +Marine insurance of the regular kind was, of course, a very different +thing. It was already of immemorial age, going back certainly to +medieval and probably to very ancient times. All forms of insurance on +land are mere mushrooms by comparison. Lloyd's had not been heard of. +But there were plenty of smart Elizabethan underwriters already +practising the general principles which were to be formally adopted two +hundred years later, in 1779, at Lloyd's Coffee House. A policy taken +out on the _Tiger_ immortalized by Shakespeare would serve as a model +still. And what makes it all the more interesting is that the +Elizabethan underwriters calculated the _Tiger's_ chances at the very +spot where the association known as Lloyd's transacts its business +to-day, the Royal Exchange in London. This, in turn, brings Elizabeth +herself upon the scene; for when she visited the Exchange, which Sir +Thomas Gresham had built to let the merchants do their street work under +cover, she immediately grasped its full significance and 'caused it by +an Herald and a Trumpet to be proclaimed The Royal Exchange,' the name +it bears to-day. An Elizabethan might well be astonished by what he +would 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 a +gigantic insurance company at all, but an association of cautiously +elected members who carry on their completely independent private +business in daily touch with each other--precisely as Elizabethans did. +Lloyd's method differs wholly from ordinary insurance. Instead of +insuring vessel and cargo with a single company or man the owner puts +his case before Lloyd's, and any member can then write his name +underneath for any reasonable part of the risk. The modern +'underwriter,' all the world over, is the direct descendant of the +Elizabethan who wrote his name under the conditions of a given risk at +sea. + +Joint-stock companies were in one sense old when Elizabethan men of +business 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 generally +knew each other and something of the business too. The favorite number +of total shares was just sixteen. There were sixteen land-shares in a +Celtic household, sixteen shares in Scottish vessels not individually +owned, sixteen shares in the theatre by which Shakespeare 'made his +pile.' But sixteenths, and even hundredths, were put out of date when +speculation on the grander scale began and the area of investment grew. +The New River Company, for supplying London with water, had only a few +shares then, as it continued to have down to our own day, when they +stood at over a thousand times par. The Ulster 'Plantation' in Ireland +was more remote and appealed to more investors and on wider +grounds--sentimental grounds, both good and bad, included. The Virginia +'Plantation' was still more remote and risky and appealed to an +ever-increasing number of the speculating public. Many an investor put +money on America in much the same way as a factory hand to-day puts +money on a horse he has never seen or has never heard of otherwise than +as something out of which a lot of easy money can be made provided luck +holds good. + +The modern prospectus was also in full career under Elizabeth, who +probably had a hand in concocting some of the most important specimens. +Lord Bacon wrote one describing the advantages of the Newfoundland +fisheries in terms which no promoter of the present day could better. +Every type of prospectus was tried on the investing public, some +genuine, many doubtful, others as outrageous in their impositions on +human credulity as anything produced in our own times. The +company-promoter was abroad, in London, on 'Change, and at court. What +with royal favor, social prestige, general prosperity, the new national +eagerness to find vent for surplus commodities, and, above all, the +spirit of speculation fanned into flame by the real and fabled wonders +of America, what with all this the investing public could take its +choice of 'going the limit' in a hundred different and most alluring +ways. England was surprised at her own investing wealth. The East India +Company raised eight million dollars with ease from a thousand +shareholders and paid a first dividend of 87-1/2 per cent. Spices, +pearls, and silks came pouring into London; and English goods found vent +increasingly abroad. + +Vastly expanding business opportunities of course produced the spirit of +the trust--and of very much the same sort of trust that Americans think +so ultra-modern now. Monopolies granted by the Crown and the volcanic +forces of widespread speculation prevented some of the abuses of the +trust. But there were Elizabethan trusts, for all that, though many a +promising scheme fell through. The Feltmakers' Hat Trust is a case in +point. They proposed buying up all the hats in the market so as to +oblige all dealers to depend upon one central warehouse. Of course they +issued a prospectus showing how everyone concerned would benefit by this +benevolent plan. + +Ben Jonson and other playwrights were quick to seize the salient +absurdities of such an advertisement. In _The Staple of News_ Jonson +proposed 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 to +suit all purchasers. In _The Devil is an Ass_ he is a little more +outspoken. + + 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 of +the Alum Trust. All the leading characters of much more modern times +were there already; Fitzdottrell, ready to sell his estates in order to +become His Grace the Duke of Drown'dland, Gilthead, the London +moneylender who 'lives by finding fools,' and My Lady Tailbush, who +pulls the social wires at court. And so the game went on, usually with +the 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 American +trust with the additional advantage of an authorized government monopoly +so long as the agreed-upon duty was paid. Then there was the Starch +Monopoly, a very profitable one because starch was a new delight which +soon enabled Elizabethan fops to wear ruffed collars big enough to make +their heads--as one irreverent satirist exclaimed--'look like John +Baptist's on a platter.' + +But America? Could not America defeat the machinations of all monopolies +and other trusts? Wasn't America the land of actual gold and silver +where there was plenty of room for everyone? There soon grew up a wild +belief that you could tap America for precious metals almost as its +Indians tapped maple trees for sugar. The 'Mountains of Bright Stones' +were surely there. Peru and Mexico were nothing to these. Only find +them, and 'get-rich-quick' would be the order of the day for every true +adventurer. These mountains moved about in men's imaginations and on +prospectors' maps, always ahead of the latest pioneer, somewhere behind +the Back of Beyond. They and their glamour died hard. Even that staid +geographer of a later day, Thos. Jeffreys, added to his standard atlas +of America, in 1760, this item of information on the Far Northwest: +_Hereabouts are supposed to be the Mountains of Bright Stones mentioned +in the Map of ye Indian Ochagach._ + +Speculation of the wildcat kind was bad. But it was the seamy side of a +praiseworthy spirit of enterprise. Monopoly seems worse than +speculation. And so, in many ways, it was. But we must judge it by the +custom of its age. It was often unjust and generally obstructive. But it +did what neither the national government nor joint-stock companies had +yet learnt to do. Monopoly went by court favor, and its rights were +often scandalously let and sometimes sublet as well. But, on the whole, +the Queen, the court, and the country really meant business, and +monopolists had either to deliver the goods or get out. Monopolists sold +dispensations from unworkable laws, which was sometimes a good thing and +sometimes a bad. They sold licenses for indulgence in forbidden +pleasures, not often harmless. They thought out and collected all kinds +of indirect taxation and had to face all the troubles that confront the +framers of a tariff policy to-day. Most of all, however, in a +rough-and-ready way they set a sort of Civil Service going. They served +as Boards of Trade, Departments of the Interior, Customs, Inland +Revenue, and so forth. What Crown and Parliament either could not or +would not do was farmed out to monopolists. Like speculation the system +worked both ways, and frequently for evil. But, like the British +constitution, though on a lower plane, it worked. + +A monopoly at home--like those which we have been considering--was +endurable because it was a working compromise that suited existing +circumstances more or less, and that could be either mended or ended as +time went on. But a general foreign monopoly--like Spain's monopoly of +America--was quite unendurable. Could Spain not only hold what she had +discovered and was exploiting but also extend her sphere of influence +over what she had not discovered? Spain said Yes. England said No. The +Spaniards looked for tribute. The English looked for trade. In +government, in religion, in business, in everything, the two great +rivals were irreconcilably opposed. Thus the lists were set; and sea-dog +battles followed. + +Elizabeth was an exceedingly able woman of business and was practically +president of all the great joint-stock companies engaged in oversea +trade. Wherever a cargo could be bought or sold there went an English +ship to buy or sell it. Whenever the authorities in foreign parts tried +discrimination against English men or English goods, the English +sea-dogs growled and showed their teeth. And if the foreigners +persisted, the sea-dogs bit them. + +Elizabeth was extravagant at court; but not without state motives for at +least a part of her extravagance. A brilliant court attracted the upper +classes into the orbit of the Crown while it impressed the whole country +with the sovereign's power. Courtiers favored with monopolies had to +spend their earnings when the state was threatened. And might not the +Queen's vast profusion of jewelry be turned to account at a pinch? +Elizabeth could not afford to be generous when she was young. She grew +to be stingy when she was old. But she saved the state by sound finance +as well as by arms in spite of all her pomps and vanities. She had three +thousand dresses, and gorgeous ones at that, during the course of her +reign. Her bathroom was wainscoted with Venetian mirrors so that she +could see 'nine-and-ninety' reflections of her very comely person as +she dipped and splashed or dried her royal skin. She set a hot pace for +all the votaries of dress to follow. All kinds of fashions came in from +abroad with the rush of new-found wealth; and so, instead of being +sanely beautiful, they soon became insanely bizarre. 'An Englishman,' +says Harrison, 'endeavouring to write of our attire, gave over his +travail, and only drew the picture of a naked man, since he could find +no 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 as +are my countrymen of England. Women also do far exceed the lightness of +our men. What shall I say of their galligascons to bear out their attire +and 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 all +kind of curiosity is to be seen in far greater measure than in women of +higher calling. I might name hues devised for the nonce, ver d'oye +'twixt green and yallow, peas-porridge tawny, popinjay blue, and the +Devil-in-the-head.' + +Yet all this crude absurdity, 'from the courtier to the carter,' was the +glass reflecting the constantly increasing sea-borne trade, ever pushing +farther afield under the stimulus and protection of the sea-dogs. And +the Queen took precious good care that it all paid toll to her treasury +through the customs, so that she could have more money to build more +ships. And if her courtiers did stuff their breeches out with sawdust, +she took equally good care that each fighting man among them donned his +uniform and raised his troops or fitted out his ships when the time was +ripe for action. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS + + +Said Francis I of France to Charles V, King of Spain: 'Your Majesty and +the King of Portugal have divided the world between you, offering no +part of it to me. Show me, I pray you, the will of our father Adam, so +that I may see if he has really made you his only universal heirs!' Then +Francis sent out the Italian navigator Verrazano, who first explored the +coast from Florida to Newfoundland. Afterwards Jacques Cartier +discovered the St. Lawrence; Frenchmen took Havana twice, plundered the +Spanish treasure-ships, and tried to found colonies--Catholic in +Canada, 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 West +Indies, and most of South America; a small New Portugal confined to part +of Brazil; and a shadowy New France running vaguely inland from the Gulf +of St. Lawrence, nowhere effectively occupied, and mostly overlapping +prior English claims based on the discoveries of the Cabots. + +England and France had often been enemies. England and Spain had just +been allied in a war against France as well as by the marriage of Philip +and Mary. William Hawkins had traded with Portuguese Brazil under Henry +VIII, as the Southampton merchants were to do later on. English +merchants lived in Lisbon and Cadiz; a few were even settled in New +Spain; and a friendly Spaniard had been so delighted by the prospective +union of the English with the Spanish crown that he had given the name +of Londres (London) to a new settlement in the Argentine Andes. + +Presently, however, Elizabethan England began to part company with +Spain, to become more anti-Papal, to sympathize with Huguenots and other +heretics, and, like Francis I, to wonder why an immense new world should +be nothing but New Spain. Besides, Englishmen knew what the rest of +Europe knew, that the discovery of Potosi had put out of business nearly +all the Old-World silver mines, and that the Burgundian Ass (as Spanish +treasure-mules were called, from Charles's love of Burgundy) had enabled +Spain to make conquests, impose her will on her neighbors, and keep paid +spies in every foreign court, the English court included. Londoners had +seen Spanish gold and silver paraded through the streets when Philip +married Mary--'27 chests of bullion, 99 horseloads + 2 cartloads of gold +and silver coin, and 97 boxes full of silver bars!' Moreover, the Holy +Inquisition was making Spanish seaports pretty hot for heretics. In +1562, twenty-six English subjects were burnt alive in Spain itself. Ten +times as many were in prison. No wonder sea-dogs were straining at the +leash. + +Neither Philip nor Elizabeth wanted war just then, though each enjoyed a +thrust at the other by any kind of fighting short of that, and though +each winked at all kinds of armed trade, such as privateering and even +downright piracy. The English and Spanish merchants had commercial +connections going back for centuries; and business men on both sides +were 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. Except +for the fact that both Portugal and Spain allowed no trade with their +oversea possessions in any ships but their own, the circumstances +appeared to favor his enterprise. The American Indians were withering +away before the atrocious cruelties of the Portuguese and Spaniards, +being either killed in battle, used up in merciless slavery, or driven +off to alien wilds. Already the Portuguese had commenced to import +negroes from their West African possessions, both for themselves and for +trade with the Spaniards, who had none. Brazil prospered beyond +expectation and absorbed all the blacks that Portuguese shipping could +supply. The Spaniards had no spare tonnage at the time. + +John Hawkins, aged thirty, had made several trips to the Canaries. He +now formed a joint-stock company to trade with the Spaniards farther +off. Two Lord Mayors of London and the Treasurer of the Royal Navy were +among the subscribers. Three small vessels, with only two hundred and +sixty tons between them, formed the flotilla. The crews numbered just a +hundred men. 'At Teneriffe he received friendly treatment. From thence +he passed to Sierra Leona, where he stayed a good time, and got into his +possession, partly by the sword and partly by other means, to the number +of 300 Negroes at the least, besides other merchandises.... With this +prey he sailed over the ocean sea unto the island of Hispaniola [Hayti] +... and here he had reasonable utterance [sale] of his English +commodities, as also of some part of his Negroes, trusting the Spaniards +no further than that by his own strength he was able still to master +them.' At 'Monte Christi, another port on the north side of Hispaniola +... he made vent of [sold] the whole number of his Negroes, for which he +received by way of exchange such a quantity of merchandise that he did +not only lade his own three ships with hides, ginger, sugars, and some +quantity of pearls, but he freighted also two other hulks with hides and +other like commodities, which he sent into Spain,' where both hulks and +hides were confiscated as being contraband. + +Nothing daunted, he was off again in 1564 with four ships and a hundred +and seventy men. This time Elizabeth herself took shares and lent the +_Jesus of Lubeck_, a vessel of seven hundred tons which Henry VIII had +bought for the navy. Nobody questioned slavery in those days. The great +Spanish missionary Las Casas denounced the Spanish atrocities against +the Indians. But he thought negroes, who could be domesticated, would do +as substitutes for Indians, who could not be domesticated. The Indians +withered at the white man's touch. The negroes, if properly treated, +throve, and were safer than among their enemies at home. Such was the +argument for slavery; and it was true so far as it went. The argument +against, on the score of ill treatment, was only gradually heard. On the +score of general human rights it was never heard at all. + +'At departing, in cutting the foresail lashings a marvellous misfortune +happened to one of the officers in the ship, who by the pulley of the +sheet was slain out of hand.' Hawkins 'appointed all the masters of his +ships an Order for the keeping of good company in this manner:--The +small ships to be always ahead and aweather of the _Jesus_, and to speak +twice a-day with the _Jesus_ at least.... If the weather be extreme, +that the small ships cannot keep company with the _Jesus_, then all to +keep company with the _Solomon_.... If any happen to any misfortune, +then to show two lights, and to shoot off a piece of ordnance. If any +lose company and come in sight again, to make three yaws [zigzags in +their course] and strike the mizzen three times. SERVE GOD DAILY. LOVE +ONE ANOTHER. PRESERVE YOUR VICTUALS. BEWARE OF FIRE, AND KEEP GOOD +COMPANY.' + +John Sparke, the chronicler of this second voyage, was full of curiosity +over every strange sight he met with. He was also blessed with the pen +of a ready writer. So we get a story that is more vivacious than +Hakluyt's retelling of the first voyage or Hawkins's own account of the +third. Sparke saw for the first time in his life negroes, Caribs, +Indians, alligators, flying-fish, flamingoes, pelicans, and many other +strange sights. Having been told that Florida was full of unicorns he at +once concluded that it must also be full of lions; for how could the one +kind exist without the other kind to balance it? Sparke was a soldier +who never found his sea legs. But his diary, besides its other merits, +is particularly interesting as being the first account of America ever +written 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 levelling +of bases [small portable cannon] and arquebuses, with divers others, to +the number of fourscore, with halberds, pikes, swords, and targets.' But +when it was found that Hawkins had been taken for a privateer, and when +it is remembered that four hundred privateering vessels--English and +Huguenot--had captured seven hundred Spanish prizes during the previous +summer of 1563, there was and is less cause for 'amaze.' Once +explanations had been made, 'Peter de Ponte gave Master Hawkins as +gentle entertainment as if he had been his own brother.' Peter was a +trader with a great eye for the main chance. + +Sparke was lost in wonder over the famous Arbol Santo tree of Ferro, 'by +the dropping whereof the inhabitants and cattle are satisfied with +water, for other water they have none on the island.' This is not quite +the traveller's tale it appears to be. There are three springs on the +island of Teneriffe. But water is scarce, and the Arbol Santo, a sort of +gigantic laurel standing alone on a rocky ledge, did actually supply two +cisterns, one for men and the other for cattle. The morning mist +condensing on the innumerable smooth leaves ran off and was caught in +suitable 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, and +bodies as workmanlike as a jerkin-maker with us pinketh a jerkin.' It is +a nice question whether these Sapies gained or lost by becoming slaves +to white men; for they were already slaves to black conquerors who used +them as meat with the vegetables they forced them to raise. The Sapies +were sleek pacifists who found too late that the warlike Samboses, who +inhabited the neighboring desert, were not to be denied. + +'In the island of Sambula we found almadies or canoas, which are made of +one 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 and +a stern very proportionably made, and on the outside artificially +carved, and painted red and blue.' Neither _almadie_ nor canoa is, of +course, an African word. One is Arabic for a cradle (_el-mahd_); the +other, from which we get _canoe_, is what the natives told Columbus they +called their dugouts; and dugout canoes are very like primitive cradles. +Thus Sparke was the first man to record in English, from actual +experience, the aboriginal craft whose name, both East and West, was +suggested to primeval man by the idea of his being literally 'rocked in +the cradle of the deep.' + +Hawkins did not have it all his own way with the negroes, by whom he +once lost seven of his own men killed and twenty-seven wounded. 'But the +captain in a singular wise manner carried himself with countenance very +cheerful outwardly, although inwardly his heart was broken in pieces for +it; done to this end, that the Portugais, being with him, should not +presume to resist against him.' After losing five more men, who were +eaten by sharks, Hawkins shaped his course westward with a good cargo of +negroes and 'other merchandises.' 'Contrary winds and some tornados +happened to us very ill. But the Almighty God, who never suffereth His +elect to perish, sent us the ordinary Breeze, which never left us till +we came to an island of the Cannibals' (Caribs of Dominica), who, by the +by, had just eaten a shipload of Spaniards. + +Hawkins found the Spanish officials determined to make a show of +resisting unauthorized trade. But when 'he prepared 100 men well armed +with bows, arrows, arquebuses, and pikes, with which he marched +townwards,' the officials let the sale of blacks go on. Hawkins was +particularly anxious to get rid of his 'lean negroes,' who might die in +his hands and become a dead loss; so he used the 'gunboat argument' to +good effect. Sparke kept his eyes open for side-shows and was delighted +with the alligators, which he called crocodiles, perhaps for the sake of +the crocodile tears. 'His nature is to cry and sob like a Christian to +provoke his prey to come to him; and thereupon came this proverb, that +is applied unto women when they weep, _lachrymoe crocodili_.' + +From the West Indies Hawkins made for Florida, which was then an object +of exceptional desire among adventurous Englishmen. De Soto, one of +Pizarro's lieutenants, had annexed it to Spain and, in 1539, had started +off inland to discover the supposed Peru of North America. Three years +later he had died while descending the valley of the Mississippi. Six +years later again, the first Spanish missionary in Florida 'taking upon +him to persuade the people to subjection, was by them taken, and his +skin cruelly pulled over his ears, and his flesh eaten.' Hawkins's men +had 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 the +indefatigable Sparke, 'the captain in the ship's pinnace sailed along +the shore and went into every creek, speaking with divers of the +_Floridians_, because he would understand where the Frenchmen +inhabited.' Finally he found them 'in the river of _May_ [now St. John's +River] and standing in 30 degrees and better.' There was 'great store of +maize 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 the +second Huguenot colony in Florida. Rene de Laudonniere had founded it in +1564. The first one, founded two years earlier by Jean Ribaut, had +failed and Ribaut's men had deserted the place. They had started for +home in 1563, had suffered terrible hardships, had been picked up by an +English vessel, and taken, some to France and some to England, where the +court was all agog about the wealth of Florida. People said there were +mines so bright with jewels that they had to be approached at night +lest the flashing light should strike men blind. Florida became +proverbial; and Elizabethan wits made endless fun of it. _Stolida_, or +the land of fools, and _Sordida_, or the land of muck-worms, were some +of their _jeux d'esprit_. Everyone was 'bound for Florida,' whether he +meant to go there or not, despite Spanish spheres of influence, the +native 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 from +the first, for he took with him a Frenchman who had been in Ribaut's +colony two years before, and Sparke significantly says that 'the land is +more than any [one] king Christian is able to inhabit.' However this may +be, Hawkins found the second French colony as well as 'a French ship of +fourscore ton, and two pinnaces of fifteen ton apiece by her ... and a +fort, in which their captain Monsieur Laudonniere was, with certain +soldiers therein.' The colony had not been a success. Nor is this to be +wondered at when we remember that most of the 'certain soldiers' were +ex-pirates, who wanted gold, and 'who would not take the pains so much +as to fish in the river before their doors, but would have all things +put in their mouths.' Eighty of the original two hundred 'went a-roving' +to the West Indies, 'where they spoiled the Spaniards ... and were of +such haughty stomachs that they thought their force to be such that no +man durst meddle with them.... But God ... did indurate their hearts in +such sort that they lingered so long that a [Spanish] ship and galliasse +being made out of St. Domingo ... took twenty of them, whereof the most +part were hanged ... and twenty-five escaped ... to Florida, where ... +they were put into prison [by Laudonniere, against whom they had +mutinied] and ... four of the chiefest being condemned, at the request +of the soldiers did pass the arquebusers, and then were hanged upon a +gibbet.' Sparke got the delightful expression 'at the request of the +soldiers did pass the arquebusers' from a 'very polite' Frenchman. Could +any one tell you more politely, in mistranslated language, how to stand +up and be shot? + +Sparke was greatly taken with the unknown art of smoking. 'The +Floridians ... have an herb dried, who, with a cane and an earthen cup +in the end, with fire and the dried herbs put together, do suck through +the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and +therewith they live four or five days without meat or drink. And this +all the Frenchmen used for this purpose; yet do they hold opinion withal +that 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.' But +Hawkins was bent on trade, not colonizing. He sold the _Tiger_, a barque +of fifty tons, to Laudonniere for seven hundred crowns and sailed north +on the first voyage ever made along the coast of the United States by an +all-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 with +great profit to the venturers, as also to the whole realm, in bringing +home 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 in +London. The Queen was very gracious and granted him the well-known coat +of arms with the crest of 'a demi-Moor, bound and captive' in honor of +the great new English slave trade. The Spanish ambassador met him at +court and asked him to dinner, where, over the wine, Hawkins assured him +that he was going out again next year. Meanwhile, however, the famous +Captain-General of the Indian trade, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, the +best naval officer that Spain perhaps has ever had, swooped down on the +French in Florida, killed them all, and built the fort of St. Augustine +to guard the 'Mountains of Bright Stones' somewhere in the hinterland. +News of this slaughter soon arrived at Madrid, whence orders presently +went out to have an eye on Hawkins, whom Spanish officials thenceforth +regarded as the leading interloper in New Spain. + +Nevertheless Hawkins set out on his third and very 'troublesome' voyage +in 1567, backed by all his old and many new supporters, and with a +flotilla of six vessels, the _Jesus_, the _Minion_ (which then meant +darling), the _William and John_, the _Judith_, the _Angel_, and the +_Swallow_. This was the voyage that began those twenty years of sea-dog +fighting which rose to their zenith in the battle against the Armada; +and with this voyage Drake himself steps on to the stage as captain of +the _Judith_. + +There had been a hitch in 1566, for the Spanish ambassador had reported +Hawkins's after-dinner speech to his king. Philip had protested to +Elizabeth, and Elizabeth had consulted with Cecil, afterwards 'the great +Lord Burleigh,' ancestor of the Marquis of Salisbury, British Prime +Minister during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The result was that +orders went down to Plymouth stopping Hawkins and binding him over, in a +bond of five hundred pounds, to keep the peace with Her Majesty's right +good friend King Philip of Spain. But in 1567 times had changed again, +and Hawkins sailed with colors flying, for Elizabeth was now as ready to +hurt Philip as he was to hurt her, provided always that open war was +carefully avoided. + +But this time things went wrong from the first. A tremendous autumnal +storm scattered the ships. Then the first negroes that Hawkins tried to +'snare' proved to be like that other kind of prey of which the sarcastic +Frenchman wrote: 'This animal is very wicked; when you attack it, it +defends itself.' The 'envenomed arrows' of the negroes worked the +mischief. 'There hardly escaped any that had blood drawn of them, but +died in strange sort, with their mouths shut some ten days before they +died.' Hawkins himself was wounded, but, 'thanks be to God,' escaped +the lockjaw. After this the English took sides in a native war and +captured '250 persons, men, women, and children,' while their friend the +King captured '600 prisoners, whereof we hoped to have had our choice. +But the negro, in which nation is seldom or never found truth, that +night removed his camp and prisoners, so that we were fain to content +ourselves with those few we had gotten ourselves.' + +However, with 'between 400 and 500 negroes,' Hawkins crossed over from +Africa to the West Indies and 'coasted from place to place, making our +traffic with the Spaniards as we might, somewhat hardly, because the +King had straitly commanded all his governors by no means to suffer any +trade to be made with us. Notwithstanding, we had reasonable trade, and +courteous entertainment' for a good part of the way. In Rio de la Hacha +the Spaniards received the English with a volley that killed a couple of +men, whereupon the English smashed in the gates, while the Spaniards +retired. But, after this little bit of punctilio, trade went on under +cover of night so briskly that two hundred negroes were sold at good +prices. From there to Cartagena 'the inhabitants were glad of us and +traded willingly,' supply being short and demand extra high. + +Then came a real rebuff from the governor of Cartagena, followed by a +terrific storm 'which so beat the _Jesus_ that we cut down all her +higher buildings' (deck superstructures). Then the course was shaped for +Florida. But a new storm drove the battered flotilla back to 'the port +which serveth the city of Mexico, called St. John de Ulua,' the modern +Vera Cruz. The historic Vera Cruz was fifteen miles north of this +harbor. Here 'thinking us to be the fleet of Spain, the chief officers +of the country came aboard us. Which, being deceived of their +expectation, were greatly dismayed; but ... when they saw our demand was +nothing but victuals, were recomforted. I [for it is Hawkins's own +story] found in the same port 12 ships which had in them by report +L200,000 in gold and silver, all which, being in my possession [i.e., at +my mercy] with the King's Island ... I set at liberty.' + +What was to be done? Hawkins had a hundred negroes still to sell. But it +was four hundred miles to Mexico City and back again; and a new Spanish +viceroy was aboard the big Spanish fleet that was daily expected to +arrive in this very port. If a permit to sell came back from the capital +in time, well and good. If no more than time to replenish stores was +allowed, good enough, despite the loss of sales. But what if the Spanish +fleet arrived? The 'King's Island' was a low little reef right in the +mouth of the harbor, which it all but barred. Moreover, no vessel could +live through a northerly gale inside the harbor--the only one on that +coast--unless securely moored to the island itself. Consequently whoever +held the island commanded the situation altogether. + +There was not much time for consultation; for the very next morning 'we +saw open of the haven 13 great ships, the fleet of Spain.' It was a +terrible predicament. '_Now_, said I, _I am in two dangers, and forced +to 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 them +to enter with their accustomed treason.... If I had kept them out, then +there had been present shipwreck of all that fleet, which amounted in +value to six millions, which was in value of our money L1,800,000, which +I considered I was not able to answer, fearing the Queen's Majesty's +indignation.... Thus with myself revolving the doubts, I thought better +to abide the jut of the uncertainty than of the certainty.' So, after +conditions had been agreed upon and hostages exchanged, the thirteen +Spanish 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 in +overwhelming numbers, suddenly set upon the English by land and sea. +Every Englishman ashore was killed, except a few who got off in a boat +to the _Jesus_. The _Jesus_ and the _Minion_ cut their headfasts, hauled +clear by their sternfasts, drove back the boarding parties, and engaged +the Spanish fleet at about a hundred yards. Within an hour the Spanish +flagship and another were sunk, a third vessel was burning furiously, +fore and aft, while every English deck was clear of enemies. But the +Spaniards had swarmed on to the island from all sides and were firing +into 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 the +health of the gunners, who accounted for most of the five hundred and +forty 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 from +these traitors and villains.' + +The masts of the _Jesus_ went by the board and her old, strained timbers +splintered, loosened up, and were stove in under the storm of cannon +balls. Hawkins then gave the order to abandon ship after taking out what +stores they could and changing her berth so that she would shield the +little _Minion_. But while this desperate manoeuvre was being executed +down came two fire-ships. Some of the _Minion's_ crew then lost their +heads and made sail so quickly that Hawkins himself was nearly left +behind. + +The only two English vessels that escaped were the _Minion_ and the +_Judith_. When nothing else was left to do, Hawkins shouted to Drake to +lay the _Judith_ aboard the _Minion_, take in all the men and stores he +could, and put to sea. Drake, then only twenty-three, did this with +consummate skill. Hawkins followed some time after and anchored just out +of range. But Drake had already gained an offing that caused the two +little vessels to part company in the night, during which a whole gale +from the north sprang up, threatening to put the _Judith_ on a lee +shore. Drake therefore fought his way to windward; and, seeing no one +when the gale abated, and having barely enough stores to make a friendly +land, sailed straight home. Hawkins reported the _Judith_, without +mentioning Drake's name, as 'forsaking' the _Minion_. But no other +witness thought Drake to blame. + +Hawkins himself rode out the gale under the lee of a little island, then +beat about for two weeks of increasing misery, when 'hides were thought +very good meat, and rats, cats, mice, and dogs, parrots and monkeys that +were got at great price, none escaped.' The _Minion_ was of three +hundred tons; and so was insufferably overcrowded with three hundred +men, two hundred English and one hundred negroes. Drake's little +_Judith_, of only fifty tons, could have given no relief, as she was +herself overfull. Hawkins asked all the men who preferred to take their +chance on land to get round the foremast and all those who wanted to +remain afloat to get round the mizzen. About a hundred chose one course +and a hundred the other. The landing took place about a hundred and +fifty miles south of the Rio Grande. The shore party nearly all died. +But three lived to write of their adventures. David Ingram, following +Indian 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 a +passing Frenchman, and so got safely home. Job Hortop and Miles Philips +were caught by the Spaniards and sent back to Mexico. Philips escaped to +England fourteen years later. But Hortop was sent to Spain, where he +served twelve years as a galley-slave and ten as a servant before he +contrived 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 justified +in killing them. The English hostages were kept fast prisoners. 'If all +the miseries of this sorrowful voyage,' says Hawkins's report, 'should +be perfectly written, there should need a painful man with his pen, and +as 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 on +which so many hopes were set. And with this disastrous end began those +twenty years of sea-dog rage which found their satisfaction against the +Great Armada. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +DRAKE'S BEGINNING + + +We must now turn back for a moment to 1545, the year in which the Old +World, after the discovery of the mines of Potosi, first awoke to the +illimitable riches of the New; the year in which King Henry assembled +his epoch-making fleet; the year, too, in which the British National +Anthem was, so to say, born at sea, when the parole throughout the +waiting 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 Francis +Drake, greatest of sea-dogs and first of modern admirals. His father, +Edmund Drake, was a skipper in modest circumstances. But from time +immemorial there had been Drakes all round the countryside of Tavistock +and the family name stood high. Francis was called after his godfather, +Francis Russell, son and heir of Henry's right-hand reforming peer, Lord +Russell, progenitor of the Dukes of Bedford down to the present day. + +Though fortune thus seemed to smile upon Drake's cradle, his boyhood +proved to be a very stormy one indeed. He was not yet five when the +Protestant zeal of the Lord Protector Somerset stirred the Roman +Catholics of the West Country into an insurrection that swept the +anti-Papal minority before it like flotsam before a flood. Drake's +father was a zealous Protestant, a 'hot gospeller,' much given to +preaching; and when he was cast up by the storm on what is now Drake's +Island, just off Plymouth, he was glad to take passage for Kent. His +friends at court then made him a sort of naval chaplain to the men who +took care of His Majesty's ships laid up in Gillingham Reach on the +River Medway, just below where Chatham Dockyard stands to-day. Here, in +a vessel too old for service, most of Drake's eleven brothers were born +to a life as nearly amphibious as the life of any boy could be. The tide +runs in with a rush from the sea at Sheerness, only ten miles away; and +so, among the creeks and marshes, points and bends, through tortuous +channels and hurrying waters lashed by the keen east wind of England, +Drake reveled in the kind of playground that a sea-dog's son should +have. + +During the reign of Mary (1553-58) 'hot gospellers' like Drake's father +were of course turned out of the Service. And so young Francis had to be +apprenticed to 'the master of a bark, which he used to coast along the +shore, and sometimes to carry merchandise into Zeeland and France.' It +was hard work and a rough life for the little lad of ten. But Drake +stuck to it, and 'so pleased the old man by his industry that, being a +bachelor, at his death he bequeathed his bark unto him by will and +testament.' Moreover, after Elizabeth's accession, Drake's father came +into his own. He took orders in the Church of England, and in 1561, when +Francis was sixteen, became vicar of Upchurch on the Medway, the same +river 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 boatmen +touting for fares up-stream. But, before he went out with Sir John +Hawkins, on the 'troublesome' voyage which we have just followed, he +must have had a foretaste of something like his future raiding of the +Spanish Main; for the Channel swarmed with Protestant privateers, no +gentler, when they caught a Spaniard, than Spaniards were when they +caught them. He was twenty-two when he went out with Hawkins and would +be 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's +brother, wrote a petition to the Queen-in-Council for letters-of-marque +in reprisal for Ulua, and Drake dashed off for London with the missive +almost before the ink was dry. Now it happened that a Spanish treasure +fleet, carrying money from Italy and bound for Antwerp, had been driven +into Plymouth and neighboring ports by Huguenot privateers. This money +was urgently needed by Alva, the very capable but ruthless governor of +the Spanish Netherlands, who, having just drowned the rebellious Dutch +in blood, was now erecting a colossal statue to himself for having +'extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion, secured +justice, and established peace.' The Spanish ambassador therefore +obtained leave to bring it overland to Dover. + +But no sooner had Elizabeth signed the order of safe conduct than in +came Drake with the news of San Juan de Ulua. Elizabeth at once saw that +all the English sea-dogs would be flaming for revenge. Everyone saw that +the treasure would be safer now in England than aboard any Spanish +vessel in the Channel. So, on the ground that the gold, though payable +to Philip's representative in Antwerp, was still the property of the +Italian bankers who advanced it, Elizabeth sent orders down post-haste +to commandeer it. The enraged ambassador advised Alva to seize +everything English in the Netherlands. Elizabeth in turn seized +everything Spanish in England. Elizabeth now held the diplomatic trumps; +for existing treaties provided that there should be no reprisals without +a reasonable delay; and Alva had seized English property before giving +Elizabeth the customary time to explain. + +John Hawkins entered Plymouth five days later than Drake and started for +London 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 long +procession that carried the commandeered Spanish gold. + +The plot thickened fast; for England was now on the brink of war with +France over the secret aid Englishmen had been giving to the Huguenots +at La Rochelle. But suddenly Elizabeth was all smiles and affability for +France. And when her two great merchant fleets put out to sea, one, the +wine-fleet, bound for La Rochelle, went with only a small naval escort, +just enough to keep the pirates off; while the other, the big +wool-fleet, usually sent to Antwerp but now bound for Hamburg, went with +a 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, and +married pretty Mary Newman, all within a month. He was back on duty in +July. + +For the time being the war cloud passed away. Elizabeth's tortuous +diplomacy had succeeded, owing to dissension among her enemies. In the +following year (1570) the international situation was changed by the +Pope, who issued a bull formally deposing Elizabeth and absolving her +subjects from their allegiance to her. The French and Spanish monarchs +refused to publish this order because they did not approve of deposition +by the Pope. But, for all that, it worked against Elizabeth by making +her the official standing enemy of Rome. At the same time it worked for +her among the sea-dogs and all who thought with them. 'The case,' said +Thomas Fuller, author of _The Worthies of England_, 'the case was clear +in _sea divinitie_.' Religious zeal and commercial enterprise went hand +in hand. The case _was_ clear; and the English navy, now mobilized and +ready for war, made it much clearer still. + +_Westward Ho!_ in chief command, at the age of twenty-five, with the +tiny flotilla of the _Dragon_ and the _Swan_, manned by as good a lot of +daredevil experts as any privateer could wish to see! Out and back in +1570, and again in 1571, Drake took reprisals on New Spain, made money +for all hands engaged, and gained a knowledge of the American coast that +stood him in good stead for future expeditions. + + * * * * * + +It was 1572 when Drake, at the age of twenty-seven, sailed out of +Plymouth on the Nombre de Dios expedition that brought him into fame. +He led a Lilliputian fleet: the _Pascha_ and the _Swan_, a hundred tons +between them, with seventy-three men, all ranks and ratings, aboard of +them. But both vessels were 'richly furnished with victuals and apparels +for a whole year, and no less heedfully provided with all manner of +ammunition, artillery [which then meant every kind of firearm as well as +cannon], artificers' stuff and tools; but especially three dainty +pinnaces made in Plymouth, taken asunder all in pieces,' and stowed +aboard to be set up as occasion served. + +Without once striking sail Drake made the channel between Dominica and +Martinique in twenty-five days and arrived off a previously chosen +secret harbor on the Spanish Main towards the end of July. To his +intense surprise a column of smoke was rising from it, though there was +no settlement within a hundred miles. On landing he found a leaden plate +with this inscription: 'Captain Drake! If you fortune to come to this +Port, make hast away! For the Spaniards which you had with you here, the +last year, have bewrayed the place and taken away all that you left +here. I depart hence, this present 7th of July, 1572. Your very loving +friend, John Garrett.' That was fourteen days before. Drake, however, +was determined to carry out his plan. So he built a fort and set up his +pinnaces. But others had now found the secret harbor; for in came three +sail under Ranse, an Englishman, who asked that he be taken into +partnership, which was done. + +Then the combined forces, not much over a hundred strong, stole out and +along the coast to the Isle of Pines, where again Drake found himself +forestalled. From the negro crews of two Spanish vessels he discovered +that, only six weeks earlier, the Maroons had annihilated a Spanish +force on the Isthmus and nearly taken Nombre de Dios itself. These +Maroons were the descendants of escaped negro slaves intermarried with +the most warlike of the Indians. They were regular desperadoes, always, +and naturally, at war with the Spaniards, who treated them as vermin to +be killed at sight. Drake put the captured negroes ashore to join the +Maroons, with whom he always made friends. Then with seventy-three +picked men he made his dash for Nombre de Dios, leaving the rest under +Ranse to guard the base. + +Nombre de Dios was the Atlantic terminus, as Panama was the Pacific +terminus, of the treasure trail across the Isthmus of Darien. The +Spaniards, knowing nothing of Cape Horn, and unable to face the +appalling dangers of Magellan's straits, used to bring the Peruvian +treasure ships to Panama, whence the treasure was taken across the +isthmus to Nombre de Dios by _recuas_, that is, by mule trains under +escort. + +At evening Drake's vessel stood off the harbor of Nombre de Dios and +stealthily approached unseen. It was planned to make the landing in the +morning. 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 as +Plymouth'--with perhaps a whole battalion of the famous Spanish +infantry, 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, out +oars, give way!' Inside the bay a ship just arrived from sea was picking +up 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 off +to a landing some way beyond the town. + +Springing eagerly ashore the Englishmen tumbled the Spanish guns off +their platforms while the astonished sentry ran for dear life. In five +minutes the church bells were pealing out their wild alarms, trumpet +calls were sounding, drums were beating round the general parade, and +the civilians of the place, expecting massacre at the hands of the +Maroons, were rushing about in agonized confusion. Drake's men fell +in--they were all well-drilled--and were quickly told off into three +detachments. The largest under Drake, the next under Oxenham--the hero +of Kingsley's _Westward Ho!_--and the third, of twelve men only, to +guard the pinnaces. Having found that the new fort on the hill +commanding the town was not yet occupied, Drake and Oxenham marched +against 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 drum +rolling, fire-pikes blazing, swords flashing, and all ranks yelling like +fiends. Drake was only of medium stature. But he had the strength of a +giant, the pluck of a bulldog, the spring of a tiger, and the cut of a +man that is born to command. Broad-browed, with steel-blue eyes and +close-cropped auburn hair and beard, he was all kindliness of +countenance to friends, but a very 'Dragon' to his Spanish foes. + +As Drake's men reached the Plaza, his trumpeter blew one blast of +defiance and then fell dead. Drake returned the Spanish volley and +charged immediately, the drummer beating furiously, pikes levelled, and +swords brandished. The Spaniards did not wait for him to close; for +Oxenham's party, fire-pikes blazing, were taking them in flank. Out went +the Spaniards through the Panama gate, with screaming townsfolk +scurrying before them. Bang went the gate, now under English guard, as +Drake made for the Governor's house. There lay a pile of silver bars +such as his men had never dreamt of: in all, about four hundred tons of +silver ready for the homeward fleet--enough not only to fill but sink +the _Pascha_, _Swan_, and pinnaces. But silver was then no more to Drake +than it was once to Solomon. What he wanted were the diamonds and pearls +and gold, which were stored, he learned, in the King's Treasure House +beside the bay. + +A terrific storm now burst. The fire-pikes and arquebuses had to be +taken under cover. The wall of the King's Treasure House defied all +efforts to breach it. And the Spaniards who had been shut into the +town, discovering how few the English were, reformed for attack. Some of +Drake's men began to lose heart. But in a moment he stepped to the front +and ordered Oxenham to go round and smash in the Treasure House gate +while 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 a +wound he had managed to conceal. There was no holding the men now. They +gave him a cordial, after which he bound up his leg, for he was a +first-rate surgeon, and repeated his orders as before. But there were a +good many wounded; and, with Drake no longer able to lead, the rest all +begged to go back. So back to their boats they went, and over to the +Bastimentos or Victualling Islands, which contained the gardens and +poultry runs of the Nombre de Dios citizens. + +Here they were visited, under a flag of truce, by the Spanish officer +commanding the reinforcement just sent across from Panama. He was all +politeness, airs, and graces, while trying to ferret out the secret of +their real strength. Drake, however, was not to be outdone either in +diplomacy or war; and a delightful little comedy of prying and veiling +courtesies was played out, to the great amusement of the English +sea-dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up, the Spanish officer +departed, pouring forth a stream of high-flown compliments, which Drake, +who was a Spanish scholar, answered with the like. Waving each other a +ceremonious adieu the two leaders were left no wiser than before. + +Nombre de Dios, now strongly reinforced and on its guard, was not an +easy nut to crack. But Panama? Panama meant a risky march inland and a +still riskier return by the regular treasure trail. But with the help of +the Maroons, who knew the furtive byways to a foot, the thing might yet +be done. Ranse thought the game not worth the candle and retired from +the partnership, much to Drake's delight. + +A good preliminary stroke was made by raiding Cartagena. Here Drake +found a frigate deserted by its crew, who had gone ashore to see fair +play in a duel fought about a seaman's mistress. The old man left in +charge confessed that a Seville ship was round the point. Drake cut her +out at once, in spite of being fired at from the shore. Next, in came +two more Spanish sail to warn Cartagena that 'Captain Drake has been at +Nombre de Dios and taken it, and if a blest bullet hadn't hit him in the +leg he would have sacked it too.' + +Cartagena, however, was up in arms already; so Drake put all his +prisoners ashore unhurt and retired to reconsider his position, leaving +Diego, a negro fugitive from Nombre de Dios, to muster the Maroons for a +raid overland to Panama. Then Drake, who sank the _Swan_ and burnt his +prizes because he had only men enough for the _Pascha_ and the pinnaces, +disappeared into a new secret harbor. But his troubles were only +beginning; for word came that the Maroons said that nothing could be +done inland till the rains were over, five months hence. This meant a +long wait; however, what with making supply depots and picking up prizes +here 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's +Providence ever failed us yet?' Within an hour a Spanish vessel hove in +sight, making such very heavy weather of it that boarding her was out of +the question. But 'We spent not two hours in attendance till it pleased +God to send us a reasonable calm, so that we might use our guns and +approach her at pleasure. We found her laden with victuals, which we +received as sent of God's great mercy.' Then 'Yellow Jack' broke out, +and the men began to fall sick and die. The company consisted of +seventy-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 the +overland march with a company of fifty, all told, of whom thirty-one +were picked Maroons. The fourth day out Drake climbed a forest giant on +the top of the Divide, saw the Atlantic behind him and the Pacific far +in front, and vowed that if he lived he would sail an English ship over +the great South Sea. Two days more and the party left the protecting +forest for the rolling pampas where the risk of being seen increased at +every step. Another day's march and Panama was sighted as they topped +the crest of one of the bigger waves of ground. A clever Maroon went +ahead to spy out the situation and returned to say that two _recuas_ +would leave at dusk, one coming from Venta Cruz, fifteen miles northwest +of Panama, carrying silver and supplies, and the other from Panama, +loaded with jewels and gold. Then a Spanish sentry was caught asleep by +the advanced party of Maroons, who smelt him out by the match of his +fire-lock. In his gratitude for being protected from the Maroons, this +man confirmed the previous information. + +The excitement now was most intense; for the crowning triumph of a +two-years' great adventure was at last within striking distance of the +English crew. Drake drew them up in proper order; and every man took off +his shirt and put it on again outside his coat, so that each would +recognize the others in the night attack. Then they lay listening for +the mule-bells, till presently the warning tinkle let them know that +_recuas_ were approaching from both Venta Cruz and Panama. The first, or +silver train from Venta Cruz, was to pass in silence; only the second, +or gold train from Panama, was to be attacked. Unluckily one of the +Englishmen had been secretly taking pulls at his flask and had just +become pot-valiant when a stray Spanish gentleman came riding up from +Venta Cruz. The Englishman sprang to his feet, swayed about, was +tripped up by Maroons and promptly sat upon. But the Spaniard saw his +shirt, reined up, whipped round, and galloped back to Panama. This took +place so silently at the extreme flank in towards Panama that it was not +observed by Drake or any other Englishman. Presently what appeared to be +the gold train came within range. Drake blew his whistle; and all set on +with glee, only to find that the Panama _recua_ they were attacking was +a decoy sent on to spring the trap and that the gold and jewels had been +stopped. + +The Spaniards were up in arms. But Drake slipped away through the +engulfing forest and came out on the Atlantic side, where he found his +rear-guard intact and eager for further exploits. He was met by Captain +Tetu, a Huguenot just out from France, with seventy men. Tetu gave Drake +news of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and this drew the French and +English Protestants together. They agreed to engage in further raiding +of Spaniards, share and share alike by nationalities, though Drake had +now only thirty-one men against Tetu's seventy. Nombre de Dios, they +decided, was not vulnerable, as all the available Spanish forces were +concentrated there for its defence, and so they planned to seize a +Spanish train of gold and jewels just far enough inland to give them +time to get away with the plunder before the garrison could reach them. +Somewhere on the coast they established a base of operations and then +marched overland to the Panama trail and lay in wait. + +This time the marauders were successful. When the Spanish train of gold +and jewels came opposite the ambush, Drake's whistle blew. The leading +mules were stopped. The rest lay down, as mule-trains will. The guard +was overpowered after killing a Maroon and wounding Captain Tetu. And +when the garrison of Nombre de Dios arrived a few hours later the gold +and 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, leaving +Tetu and two of his devoted Frenchmen to be rescued later. When they +arrived, worn out, at the rendezvous, not a man was in sight. Drake +built a raft out of unhewn tree trunks and, setting up a biscuit bag as +a sail, pushed out with two Frenchmen and one Englishman till he found +his boats. The plunder was then divided up between the French and the +English, while Oxenham headed a rescue party to bring Tetu to the coast. +One Frenchman was found. But Tetu and the other had been caught by +Spaniards. + +The _Pascha_ was given to the accumulated Spanish prisoners to sail away +in. The pinnaces were kept till a suitable, smart-sailing Spanish craft +was found, boarded, and captured to replace them; whereupon they were +broken up and their metal given to the Maroons. Then, in two frigates, +with ballast of silver and cargo of jewels and gold, the thirty +survivors of the adventure set sail for home. 'Within 23 days we passed +from the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived at +Plymouth on Sunday about sermon time, August 9, 1573, at what time the +news of our Captain's return, brought unto his friends, did so speedily +pass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire to see +him, that very few or none remained with the preacher, all hastening to +see the evidence of God's love and blessing towards our Gracious Queen +and country, by the fruit of our Captain's labour and success. _Soli Deo +Gloria._' + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE' + + +When Drake left for Nombre de Dios in the spring of 1572, Spain and +England were both ready to fly at each other's throats. When he +Came back in the summer of 1573, they were all for making +friends--hypocritically so, but friends. Drake's plunder stank in the +nostrils of the haughty Dons. It was a very inconvenient factor in the +diplomatic problem for Elizabeth. Therefore Drake disappeared and his +plunder too. He went to Ireland on service in the navy. His plunder was +divided up in secrecy among all the high and low contracting parties. + +In 1574 the Anglo-Spanish scene had changed again. The Spaniards had +been so harassed by the English sea-dogs between the Netherlands and +Spain that Philip listened to his great admiral, Menendez, who, +despairing of direct attack on England, proposed to seize the Scilly +Isles and from that naval base clear out a way through all the pirates +of the English Channel. War seemed certain. But a terrible epidemic +broke out in the Spanish fleet. Menendez died. And Philip changed his +policy again. + +This same year John Oxenham, Drake's old second-in-command, sailed over +to his death. The Spaniards caught him on the Isthmus of Darien and +hanged 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 good +company, but one of those 'Italianate' Englishmen who gave rise to the +Italian proverb: _Inglese italianato e diavolo incarnato--_'an +Italianized Englishman is the very Devil.' Doughty was patronized by the +Earl of Essex, who had great influence at court. + +The next year, 1576, is noted for the 'Spanish Fury.' Philip's sea power +was so hampered by the Dutch and English privateers, and he was so +impotent 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 of +Antwerp, killing all who opposed them and practically ruining the city +from which Charles V used to draw such splendid subsidies. The result +was a strengthening of Dutch resistance everywhere. + +Elizabeth had been unusually tortuous in her policy about this time. But +in 1577 she was ready for another shot at Spain, provided always that it +entailed no open war. Don John of Austria, natural son of Charles V, had +all the shining qualities that his legitimate half-brother Philip +lacked. He was the hero of Lepanto and had offered to conquer the Moors +in Tunis if Philip would let him rule as king. Philip, crafty, cold, and +jealous, of course refused and sent him to the Netherlands instead. Here +Don John formed the still more aspiring plan of pacifying the Dutch, +marrying Mary Queen of Scots, deposing Elizabeth, and reigning over all +the British Isles. The Pope had blessed both schemes. But the Dutch +insisted on the immediate withdrawal of the Spanish troops. This +demolished Don John's plan. But it pleased Philip, who could now ruin +his brilliant brother by letting him wear himself out by trying to +govern the Netherlands without an army. Then the Duke of Anjou, brother +to the King of France, came into the fast-thickening plot at the head of +the French rescuers of the Netherlands from Spain. But a victorious +French army in the Netherlands was worse for England than even Spanish +rule there. So Elizabeth tried to support the Dutch enough to annoy +Philip and at the same time keep them independent of the French. + +In her desire to support them against Philip indirectly she found it +convenient to call Drake into consultation. Drake then presented to Sir +Francis 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 of +Spain, for which she desired revenge. He showed me a plot [map] willing +me to note down where he might be most annoyed. But I refused to set my +hand to anything, affirming that Her Majesty was mortal, and that if it +should please God to take Her Majesty away that some prince might reign +that might be in league with the King of Spain, and then would my own +hand be a witness against myself.' Elizabeth was forty-four. Mary Queen +of Scots was watching for the throne. Plots and counter-plots were +everywhere. + +Shortly after this interview Drake was told late at night that he should +have audience of Her Majesty next day. On seeing him, Elizabeth went +straight to the point. 'Drake, I would gladly be revenged on the King of +Spain for divers injuries that I have received.' 'And withal,' says +Drake, 'craved my advice therein; who told Her Majesty the only way was +to annoy him by the Indies.' On that he disclosed his whole daring +scheme for raiding the Pacific. Elizabeth, who, like her father, 'loved +a man' who was a man, fell in with this at once. Secrecy was of course +essential. 'Her Majesty did swear by her Crown that if any within her +realm did give the King of Spain to understand hereof they should lose +their heads therefor.' At a subsequent audience 'Her Majesty gave me +special commandment that of all men my Lord Treasurer should not know of +it.' The cautious Lord Treasurer Burleigh was against what he considered +dangerous forms of privateering and was for keeping on good terms with +Spanish arms and trade as long as possible. Mendoza, lynx-eyed +ambassador of Spain, was hoodwinked. But Doughty, the viper in Drake's +bosom, was meditating mischief: not exactly treason with Spain, but at +least a breach of confidence by telling Burleigh. + +De Guaras, chief Spanish spy in England, was sorely puzzled. Drake's +ostensible destination was Egypt, and his men were openly enlisted for +Alexandria. The Spaniards, however, saw far enough through this to +suppose that he was really going back to Nombre de Dios. It did not seem +likely, though quite possible, that he was going in search of the +Northwest Passage, for Martin Frobisher had gone out on that quest the +year before and had returned with a lump of black stone from the arctic +desolation of Baffin Island. No one seems to have divined the truth. +Cape Horn was unknown. The Strait of Magellan was supposed to be the +only opening between South America and a huge antarctic continent, and +its reputation for disasters had grown so terrible, and rightly +terrible, that it had been given up as the way into the Pacific. The +Spanish way, as we have seen, was overland from Nombre de Dios to +Panama, 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 conspiracy +between the Spaniards and Mary Queen of Scots, now a prisoner of nine +years' standing. + +'THE FAMOUS VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE _into the South Sea, and +therehence about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the year of our +Lord 1577_' well deserves its great renown. Drake's flotilla seems +absurdly 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 of +eighty, fifty, thirty, and fifteen. There were altogether less than +three hundred tons and two hundred men. The crews numbered a hundred and +fifty. The rest were gentlemen-adventurers, special artificers, two +trained 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 he +omitted to make provision for ornament and delight, carrying with him +expert musicians, rich furniture (all the vessels for his table, yea, +many belonging even to the cook-room, being of pure silver), and divers +shows of all sorts of curious workmanship whereby the civility and +magnificence of his native country might amongst all nations +withersoever he should come, be the more admired.'[3] + +[3: The little handbook issued by Pette and Jackman in 1580, for those +whom we should now call commercial travellers, is full of 'tips' about +'Thinges to be carried with you, whereof more or lesse is to be carried +for a shewe of our commodities to bee made.' For instance:--'Kersies of +all orient couleurs, specially of stamel (fine worsted), brode cloth of +orient couleurs also. Taffeta hats. Deepe cappes for mariners. Quilted +Cappes of Levant Taffeta of divers coulours, for the night. Garters of +Silke. 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, of +divers colours. Looking glasses for Women, great and fayre. Comes of +Ivorie. Handkerchewes, with silk of divers colours, wrought. Glasen eyes +to 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 shewe +that the people here use weight and measure, which is a certayne shewe +of wisedome, and of a certayne government settled here.' There are also +elaborate directions about what to take 'For banketing on shipborde of +persons of credite' [and prospective customers]. 'First, the sweetest +perfumes to set under hatches to make the place smell sweete against +their 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, and +casting-bottels of glass, to besprinckel the gests withal, after their +coming aborde. The sweet oyle of Xante and excellent French vinegar and +a 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 the +spirittes of man. Synomomme Water and Imperiall Water is to be had with +you to comfort your sicke in the voyage.' + +No feature is neglected. 'Take with you the large mappe of London and +let the river be drawn full of shippes to make the more showe of your +great trade. The booke of the Attyre of All Nations carried with you and +bestowed in gift would be much esteemed. Tinder boxes, with steel, +flint, and matches. A painted Bellowes, for perhaps they have not the +use of them. All manner of edge tools. Note specially what dyeing they +use.' After many more items the authors end up with two bits of good +advice. 'Take with you those things that bee in the Perfection of +Goodnesse to make your commodities in credit in time to come.' 'Learn +what the Country hath before you offer your commodities for sale; for if +you bring thither what you yourself desire to lade yourself home with, +you must not sell yours deare lest hereafter you purchase theirs not so +cheape as you would.'] + +Sou'sou'west went Drake's flotilla and made its landfall 'towards the +Pole Antartick' off the 'Land of Devils' in 31 deg. 40' south, northeast of +Montevideo. Frightful storms had buffeted the little ships about for +weary weeks together, and all hands thought they were the victims of +some magician on board, perhaps the 'Italianate' Doughty, or else of +native witchcraft from the shore. The experienced old pilot, who was a +Portuguese, explained that the natives had sold themselves to Devils, +who were kinder masters than the Spaniards, and that 'now when they see +ships they cast sand into the air, whereof ariseth a most gross thick +fogg and palpable darkness, and withal horrible, fearful, and +intolerable winds, rains, and storms.' + +But witchcraft was not Thomas Doughty's real offence. Even before +leaving England, and after betraying Elizabeth and Drake to Burleigh, +who wished to curry favor with the Spanish traders rather than provoke +the Spanish power, Doughty was busy tampering with the men. A +storekeeper had to be sent back for peculation designed to curtail +Drake's range of action. Then Doughty tempted officers and men: talked +up 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, and +threatened with dire punishment if he did not mend his ways. But he +would not mend his ways. He had a brother on board and a friend, a 'very +craftie lawyer'; so stern measures were soon required. Drake held a sort +of court-martial which condemned Doughty to death. Then Doughty, having +played his last card and lost, determined to die 'like an officer and +gentleman.' + +Drake solemnly 'pronounced him the child of Death and persuaded him +that he would by these means make him the servant of God.' Doughty fell +in with the idea and the former friends took the Sacrament together, +'for which Master Doughty gave him hearty thanks, never otherwise +terming him than "My good Captaine."' Chaplain Fletcher having ended +with the absolution, Drake and Doughty sat down together 'as cheerfully +as ever in their lives, each cheering up the other and taking their +leave 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 no +record has remained. After this Doughty walked to the place of +execution, 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 the +block.' 'Lo! this is the end of traitors!' said Drake as the executioner +raised the head aloft. + +Drake, like Magellan, decided to winter where he was, in Port St. Julian +on the east coast of Patagonia. His troubles with the men were not yet +over; for the soldiers resented being put on an equality with the +sailors, and the 'very craftie lawyer' and Doughty's brother were +anything but pleased with the turn events had taken. Then, again, the +faint-hearts murmured in their storm-beaten tents against the horrors of +the awful Straits. So Drake resolved to make things clear for good and +all. 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 speak +here let every man take good notice of and let him write it down; for I +will speak nothing but I will answer it in England, yea, and before Her +Majesty, and I have it here already set down.' Then, after reminding +them of the great adventure before them and saying that mutiny and +dissension must stop at once, he went on: 'For by the life of God it +doth even take my wits from me to think of it. Here is such controversy +between the gentlemen and sailors that it doth make me mad to hear it. I +must have the gentleman to haul with the mariner and the mariner with +the gentleman. I would know him that would refuse to set his hand to a +rope! But I know there is not any such here.' To those whose hearts +failed them he offered the _Marigold_. 'But let them go homeward; for +if I find them in my way, I will surely sink them.' Not a man stepped +forward. Then, turning to the officers, he discharged every one of them +for 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 their +united patriotism. 'We have set by the ears three mighty Princes [the +sovereigns of England, Spain, and Portugal]; and if this voyage should +not have success we should not only be a scorning unto our enemies but a +blot on our country for ever. What triumph would it not be for Spain and +Portugal! The like of this would never more be tried.' Then he gave back +every man his rank again, explaining that he and they were all servants +of Her Majesty together. With this the men marched off, loyal and +obedient, to their tents. + +Next week Drake sailed for the much dreaded Straits, before entering +which he changed the _Pelican's_ name to the _Golden Hind_, which was +the crest of Sir Christopher Hatton, one of the chief promoters of the +enterprise and also one of Doughty's patrons. Then every vessel struck +her topsail to the bunt in honor of the Queen as well as to show that +all discoveries and captures were to be made in her sole name. Seventeen +days of appalling dangers saw them through the Straits, where icy +squalls came rushing down from every quarter of the baffling channels. +But the Pacific was still worse. For no less than fifty-two consecutive +days a furious gale kept driving them about like so many bits of +driftwood. 'The like of it no traveller hath felt, neither hath there +ever been such a tempest since Noah's flood.' The little English vessels +fought for their very lives in that devouring hell of waters, the +loneliest and most stupendous in the world. The _Marigold_ went down +with all hands, and Parson Fletcher, who heard their dying call, thought +it was a judgment. At last the gale abated near Cape Horn, where Drake +landed with a compass, while Parson Fletcher set up a stone engraved +with the Queen's name and the date of the discovery. + +Deceived by the false trend of the coast shown on the Spanish charts +Drake went a long way northwest from Cape Horn. Then he struck in +northeast and picked up the Chilean Islands. It was December, 1578; but +not a word of warning had reached the Spanish Pacific when Drake stood +in to Valparaiso. Seeing a sail, the crew of the _Grand Captain of the +South_ got up a cask of wine and beat a welcome on their drums. In the +twinkling of an eye gigantic Tom Moone was over the side at the head of +a party of boarders who laid about them with a will and soon drove the +Spaniards below. Half a million dollars' worth of gold and jewels was +taken with this prize. + +Drake then found a place in Salado Bay where he could clean the _Golden +Hind_ while the pinnace ranged south to look for the other ships that +had parted company during the two months' storm. These were never found, +the _Elizabeth_ and the _Swan_ having gone home after parting company in +the storm that sank the _Marigold_. After a prolonged search the _Golden +Hind_ stood north again. Meanwhile the astounding news of her arrival +was spreading dismay all over the coast, where the old Spanish +governor's plans were totally upset. The Indians had just been defeated +when this strange ship came sailing in from nowhere, to the utter +confusion of their enemies. The governor died of vexation, and all the +Spanish authorities were nearly worried to death. They had never dreamt +of such an invasion. Their crews were small, their lumbering vessels +very lightly armed, their towns unfortified. + +But Drake went faster by sea than their news by land. Every vessel was +overhauled, taken, searched, emptied of its treasure, and then sent back +with its crew and passengers at liberty. One day a watering party +chanced upon a Spaniard from Potosi fast asleep with thirteen bars of +silver by him. The bars were lifted quietly and the Spaniard left +sleeping peacefully. Another Spaniard suddenly came round a corner with +half a ton of silver on eight llamas. The Indians came off to trade; and +Drake, as usual, made friends with them at once. He had already been +attacked by other Indians on both coasts. But this was because the +unknown English had been mistaken for the hated Spaniards. + +As he neared Lima, Drake quickened his pace lest the great annual +treasure ship of 1579 should get wind of what was wrong. A minor +treasure ship was found to have been cleared of all her silver just in +time to balk him. So he set every stitch of canvas she possessed and +left her driving out to sea with two other empty prizes. Then he stole +into Lima after dark and came to anchor surrounded by Spanish vessels +not one of which had set a watch. They were found nearly empty. But a +ship from Panama looked promising; so the pinnace started after her, but +was fired on and an Englishman was killed. Drake then followed her, +after cutting every cable in the harbor, which soon became a pandemonium +of vessels gone adrift. The Panama ship had nothing of great value +except her news, which was that the great treasure ship _Nuestra Senora +de la Concepcion_, 'the chiefest glory of the whole South Sea,' was on +her way to Panama. + +She had a very long start; and, as ill luck would have it, Drake got +becalmed outside Callao, where the bells rang out in wild alarm. The +news had spread inland and the Viceroy of Peru came hurrying down with +all the troops that he could muster. Finding from some arrows that the +strangers were Englishmen, he put four hundred soldiers into the only +two vessels that had escaped the general wreck produced by Drake's +cutting of the cables. When Drake saw the two pursuing craft, he took +back his prize crew from the Panama vessel, into which he put his +prisoners. Meanwhile a breeze sprang up and he soon drew far ahead. The +Spanish soldiers overhauled the Panama prize and gladly gave up the +pursuit. They had no guns of any size with which to; fight the _Golden +Hind_, and most of them were so sea-sick from the heaving ground-swell +that they couldn't have boarded her in any case. + +Three more prizes were then taken by the swift _Golden Hind_. Each one +had news which showed that Drake was closing on the chase. Another week +passed with every stitch of canvas set. A fourth prize, taken off Cape +San Francisco, said that the treasure ship was only one day ahead. But +she was getting near to Panama; so every nerve was strained anew. +Presently Jack Drake, the Captain's page, yelled out _Sail-ho!_ and +scrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake had +promised 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 order +not to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the stern +to 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 battle +quarters and her decks all cleared for action The chase was called the +'Spitfire' by the Spaniards because she was much better armed than any +other vessel there. But, all the same, her armament was nothing for her +tonnage. The Spaniards trusted to their remoteness for protection; and +that was their undoing. + +To every Englishman's amazement the chase was seen to go about and +calmly come to hail the _Golden Hind_, which she mistook for a despatch +vessel sent after her with some message from the Viceroy! Drake, asking +nothing 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 the +stranger's deck to see it full of armed men from whom a roar of triumph +came. _English! strike sail!_ Then Drake's whistle blew sharply and +instant silence followed; on which he hailed Don Anton:--_Strike sail! +Senor Juan de Anton, or I must send you to the bottom!--Come aboard and +do it yourself!_ bravely answered Anton. Drake's whistle blew one shrill +long blast, which loosed a withering volley at less than point-blank +range. Anton tried to bear away and shake off his assailant. But in +vain. The English guns now opened on his masts and rigging. Down came +the mizzen, while a hail of English shot and arrows prevented every +attempt to clear away the wreckage. The dumbfounded Spanish crew ran +below, Don Anton looked overside to port; and there was the English +pinnace, from which forty English boarders were nimbly climbing up his +own ship's side. Resistance was hopeless; so Anton struck and was taken +aboard the _Golden Hind_. There he met Drake, who was already taking off +his armor. 'Accept with patience the usage of war,' said Drake, laying +his hand on Anton's shoulder. + +For all that night, next day, and the next night following Drake sailed +west with his fabulous prize so as to get well clear of the trade route +along the coast. What the whole treasure was has never been revealed. +But it certainly amounted to the equivalent of many millions at the +present day. Among the official items were: 13 chests of pieces of +eight, 80 lbs. of pure gold, jewels and plate, 26 ton weight of silver, +and sundries unspecified. As the Spanish pilot's son looked over the +rail at this astounding sight, the Englishmen called out to say that his +father was no longer the pilot of the old Spit-_fire_ but of the new +Spit-_silver_. + +The prisoners were no less gratified than surprised by Drake's kind +treatment. He entertained Don Anton at a banquet, took him all over the +_Golden Hind_, and entrusted him with a message to Don Martin, the +traitor of San Juan de Ulua. This was to say that if Don Martin hanged +any more Englishmen, as he had just hanged Oxenham, he should soon be +given a present of two thousand Spanish heads. Then Drake gave every +Spanish officer and man a personal gift proportioned to his rank, put +all his accumulated prisoners aboard the emptied treasure ship, wished +them a prosperous voyage and better luck next time, furnished the brave +Don Anton with a letter of protection in case he should fall in with an +English vessel, and, after many expressions of goodwill on both sides, +sailed north, the voyage 'made'; while the poor 'spit-silver' treasure +ship turned sadly east and steered for Panama. + +Lima, Panama, and Nombre de Dios were in wild commotion at the news; and +every sailor and soldier that the Spaniards had was going to and fro, +uncertain whether to attack or to defend, and still more distracted as +to the most elusive English whereabouts. One good Spanish captain, Don +Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, was all for going north, his instinct telling +him that Drake would not come back among the angry bees after stealing +all the honey. But, by the time the Captain-General of New Spain had +made up his mind to take one of the many wrong directions he had been +thinking 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 more +than ever before, while the capture of the treasure ship had done +nothing to loosen the bonds of discipline. Don Francisco de Zarate wrote +a very intimate account of his experience as a prisoner on board the +_Golden Hind._ 'The English captain is one of the greatest mariners at +sea, alike from his skill and his powers of command. His ship is a very +fast sailer and her men are all skilled hands of warlike age and so well +trained that they might be old soldiers of the Italian tertias,' the +crack corps of the age in Spanish eyes. 'He is served with much plate +and has all possible kinds of delicacies and scents, many of which he +says the Queen of England gave him. None of the gentlemen sit or cover +in his presence without first being ordered to do so. They dine and sup +to the music of violins. His galleon carries about thirty guns and a +great deal of ammunition.' This was in marked contrast to the common +Spanish practice, even on the Atlantic side. The greedy exploiters of +New Spain grudged every ton of armament and every well-trained fighting +sailor, both on account of the expense and because this form of +protection took up room they wished to fill with merchandise. The result +was, of course, that they lost more by capture than they gained by +evading the regulation about the proper armament. 'His ship is not only +of the very latest type but sheathed.' Before copper sheathing was +invented some generations later, the Teredo worm used to honeycomb +unprotected hulls in the most dangerous way. John Hawkins invented the +sheathing used by Drake: a good thick tar-and-hair sheeting clamped on +with elm. + +Northwest to Coronado, then to Aguatulco, then fifteen hundred miles due +west, brought Drake about that distance west-by-south of the modern San +Francisco. Here he turned east-north-east and, giving the land a wide +berth, went on to perhaps the latitude of Vancouver Island, always +looking for the reverse way through America by the fabled Northwest +Passage. Either there was the most extraordinary June ever known in +California and Oregon, or else the narratives of those on board have all +been hopelessly confused, for freezing rain is said to have fallen on +the night of June the 3d in the latitude of 42 deg.. In 48 deg. 'there followed +most vile, thick, and stinking fogs' with still more numbing cold. The +meat 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, the +crews were unfit for going any farther. A tremendous nor'wester settled +the question, anyway; and Drake ran south to 38 deg. 30', where, in what is +now 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, had +Europeans been in northern California. The Indians took the Englishmen +for gods whom they knew not whether to love or fear. Drake with the +essential kindliness of most, and the magnetic power of all, great born +commanders, soon won the natives' confidence. But their admiration 'as +men ravished in their minds' was rather overpowering; for, after 'a kind +of most lamentable weeping and crying out,' they came forward with +various offerings for the new-found gods, prostrating themselves in +humble adoration and tearing their breasts and faces in a wild desire to +show the spirit of self-sacrifice. Drake and his men, all Protestants, +were horrified at being made what they considered idols. So kneeling +down, they prayed aloud, raising hands and eyes to Heaven, hoping +thereby to show the heathen where the true God lived. Drake then read +the Bible and all the Englishmen sang Psalms, the Indians, 'observing +the end of every pause, with one voice still cried _Oh!_ greatly +rejoicing in our exercises.' As this impromptu service ended the Indians +gave back all the presents Drake had given them and retired in attitudes +of adoration. + +In three days more they returned, headed by a Medicine-man, whom the +English called the 'mace-bearer.' With the slow and stately measure of a +mystic dance this great high priest of heathen rites advanced chanting a +sort of litany. Both litany and dance were gradually taken up by tens, +by hundreds, and finally by all the thousands of the devotees, who +addressed Drake with shouts of _Hyoh!_ and invested him with a headdress +of rare plumage and a necklace of quaint beads. It was, in fact, a +native coronation without a soul to doubt the divine right of their new +king. Drake's Protestant scruples were quieted by thinking 'to what good +end God had brought this to pass, and what honour and profit it might +bring to our country in time to come. So, in the name and to the use of +her most excellent Majesty, he took the sceptre, crown, and dignity' and +proclaimed an English protectorate over the land he called New Albion. +He then set up a brass plate commemorating this proclamation, and put an +English coin in the middle so that the Indians might see Elizabeth's +portrait 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 the +times in which the sovereign was expected to cure the King's Evil by a +touch. They also expected to be cured by inhaling the divine breath of +any one among the English gods. The chief narrator adds that the gods +who pleased the Indians most, braves and squaws included, 'were commonly +the youngest of us,' which shows that the human was not quite forgotten +in the all-divine. When the time for sailing came, the devotees were +inconsolable. 'They not only in a sudden did lose all mirth, joy, glad +countenance, pleasant speeches, agility of body, and all pleasure, but, +with sighs and sorrowings, they poured out woefull complayntes and moans +with bitter tears, and wringing of their hands, and tormenting of +themselves.' The last the English saw of them was the whole devoted +tribe assembled on the hill around a sacrificial fire, whence they +implored their gods to bring their heaven back to earth. + +From California Drake sailed to the Philippines; and then to the +Moluccas, 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 the +Sultan, who was then his guest, chopped up the body, and thrown it into +the sea. Baber, the Sultan's son, had driven out the Portuguese from the +island of Ternate and was preparing to do likewise from the island of +Tidore, when Drake arrived. Baber then offered Drake, for Queen +Elizabeth, the complete monopoly of the trade in spices if only Drake +would use the _Golden Hind_ as the flagship against the Portuguese. +Drake's reception was full of Oriental state; and Sultan Baber was so +entranced by Drake's musicians that he sat all afternoon among them in a +boat towed by the _Golden Hind_. But it was too great a risk to take a +hand in this new war with only fifty-six men left. So Drake traded for +all the spices he could stow away and concluded a sort of understanding +which formed the sheet anchor of English diplomacy in Eastern seas for +another century to come. Elizabeth was so delighted with this result +that she gave Drake a cup (still at the family seat of Nutwell Court in +Devonshire) engraved with a picture of his reception by the Sultan Baber +of Ternate. + +Leaving Ternate, the _Golden Hind_ beat to and fro among the tortuous +and 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 set +and, so far as Drake could tell, a good clear course for home. But +suddenly, 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 out +her life upon a reef. Drake and his men at once took in half the +straining sails; then knelt in prayer; then rose to see what could be +done by earthly means. To their dismay there was no holding ground on +which to get an anchor fast and warp the vessel off. The lead could find +no bottom anywhere aft. All night long the _Golden Hind_ remained fast +caught in this insidious death-trap. At dawn Parson Fletcher preached a +sermon and administered the Blessed Sacrament. Then Drake ordered ten +tons overboard--cannon, cloves, and provisions. The tide was now low and +she sewed seven feet, her draught being thirteen and the depth of water +only six. Still she kept an even keel as the reef was to leeward and she +had just sail enough to hold her up. But at high tide in the afternoon +there was a lull and she began to heel over towards the unfathomable +depths. Just then, however, a quiver ran through her from stem to stern; +an extra sail that Drake had ordered up caught what little wind there +was; and, with the last throb of the rising tide, she shook herself free +and took the water as quietly as if her hull was being launched. There +were perils enough to follow: dangers of navigation, the arrival of a +Portuguese fleet that was only just eluded, and all the ordinary risks +of travel in times when what might be called the official guide to +voyagers opened with the ominous advice, _First make thy Will_. But the +greatest had now been safely passed. + +Meanwhile all sorts of rumors were rife in Spain, New Spain, and +England. Drake had been hanged. That rumor came from the hanging of John +Oxenham at Lima. The _Golden Hind_ had foundered. That tale was what +Winter, captain of the _Elizabeth_, was not altogether unwilling should +be 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, the +Spaniards and Portuguese rejoiced, while Burleigh, with all who found +Drake an inconvenience in their diplomatic way, began to hope that +perhaps the sea had smoothed things over. In August the London merchants +were thrown into consternation by the report of Drake's incredible +captures; for their own merchant fleet was just then off for Spain. They +waited on the Council, who soothed them with the assurance that Drake's +voyage 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 army +marched on Lisbon immediately, and all the Portuguese possessions were +added to the already overgrown empire of Spain. Worse still, this +annexation gave Philip what he wanted in the way of ships; for Portugal +had more than Spain. The Great Armada was now expected to be formed +against England, unless Elizabeth's miraculous diplomacy could once more +get her clear of the fast-entangling coils. To add to the general +confusion, this was also the year in which the Pope sent his picked +Jesuits to England, and in which Elizabeth was carrying on her last +great 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 and +cargo of gold. 'Is Her Majesty alive and well?' said Drake to the first +sail outside of Plymouth Sound. 'Ay, ay, she is, my Master,' answered +the skipper of a fishing smack, 'but there's a deal o' sickness here in +Plymouth'; on which Drake, ready for any excuse to stay afloat, came to +anchor in the harbor. His wife, pretty Mary Newman from the banks of +Tavy, took boat to see him, as did the Mayor, whose business was to warn +him to keep quiet till his course was clear. So Drake wrote off to the +Queen and all the Councillors who were on his side. The answer from the +Councillors was not encouraging; so he warped out quietly and anchored +again behind Drake's Island in the Sound. But presently the Queen's own +message came, commanding him to an audience at which, she said, she +would be pleased to view some of the curiosities he had brought from +foreign 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 of +Drake's supporters and ordered all the treasure to be impounded in the +Tower. But Leicester, Walsingham, and Hatton, all members of Drake's +syndicate, refused to sign; while Elizabeth herself, the managing +director, suspended the order till her further pleasure should be known. +The Spanish ambassador 'did burn with passion against Drake.' The +Council was distractingly divided. The London merchants trembled for +their fleet. But Elizabeth was determined that the blow to Philip should +hurt him as much as it could without producing an immediate war; while +down among Drake's own West-Countrymen 'the case was clear in sea +divinitie,' as similar cases had often been before. Tremayne, a +Devonshire magistrate and friend of the syndicate, could hardly find +words to express his contentment with Drake, whom he called 'a man of +great government, and that by the rules of God and His Book.' + +Elizabeth decided to stand by Drake. She claimed, what was true, that he +had injured no actual place or person of the King of Spain's, nothing +but property afloat, appropriate for reprisals. All England knew the +story of Ulua and approved of reprisals in accordance with the spirit of +the age. And the Queen had a special grievance about Ireland, where the +Spaniards were entrenched in Smerwick, thus adding to the confusion of a +rebellion that never quite died down at any time. Philip explained that +the Smerwick Spaniards were there as private volunteers. Elizabeth +answered 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 long +adventures and rich prizes. His name and fame became admirable in all +places, the people swarming daily in the streets to behold him, vowing +hatred to all that misliked him.' + +The _Golden Hind_ had been brought round to London, where she was the +greatest attraction of the day. Finally, on the 4th of April, 1581, +Elizabeth went on board in state, to a banquet 'finer than has ever been +seen in England since King Henry VIII,' said the furious Spanish +ambassador in his report to Philip. But this was not her chief offence +in Spanish eyes. For here, surrounded by her court, and in the presence +of an enormous multitude of her enthusiastic subjects, she openly defied +the King of Spain. 'He hath demanded Drake's head of me,' she laughed +aloud, 'and here I have a gilded sword to strike it off.' With that she +bade Drake kneel. Then, handing the sword to Marchaumont, the special +envoy of her French suitor, Francis of Anjou, she ordered him to give +the 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 he +was the hero of every class of Englishmen but two: the extreme Roman +Catholics, who wanted Mary Queen of Scots, and the merchants who were +doing business with Portugal and Spain. The Marian opposition to the +general policy of England persisted for a few years longer. But the +merchants who were the inheritors of centuries of commercial intercourse +with England's new enemies were soon to receive a shock that completely +changed their minds. They were themselves one of the strongest factors +that made for war in the knotty problem now to be solved at the cannon's +mouth because English trade was seeking new outlets in every direction +and was beating hard against every door that foreigners shut in its +face. These merchants would not, however, support the war party till +they were forced to, as they still hoped to gain by other means what +only war could win. + +The year that Drake came home (1580) Philip at last got hold of a +sea-going fleet, the eleven big Portuguese galleons taken when Lisbon +fell. With the Portuguese ships, sailors, and oversea possessions, with +more galleons under construction at Santander in Spain, and with the +galleons of the Indian Guard built by the great Menendez to protect New +Spain: with all this performed or promised, Philip began to feel as if +the hour was at hand when he could do to England what she had done to +him. + +In 1583 Santa Cruz, the best Spanish admiral since the death of +Menendez, proposed to form the nucleus of the Great Armada out of the +fleet with which he had just broken down the last vestige of Portuguese +resistance in the Azores. From that day on, the idea was never dropped. +At the same time Elizabeth discovered the Paris Plot between Mary and +Philip and the Catholics of France, all of whom were bent on her +destruction. England stood to arms. But false ideas of naval defence +were uppermost in the Queen's Council. No attempt was made to strike a +concentrated blow at the heart of the enemy's fleet in his own waters. +Instead of this the English ships were carefully divided among the three +squadrons meant to defend the approaches to England, Ireland, and +Scotland, because, as the Queen-in-Council sagely remarked, who could be +expected to know what the enemy's point of attack would be? The fact is +that when wielding the forces of the fleet and army the Queen and most +of her non-combatant councillors never quite reached that supreme point +of view from which the greatest statesmen see exactly where civil +control ends and civilian interference begins. Luckily for England, +their mistakes were once more covered up by a turn of the international +kaleidoscope. + +No sooner had the immediate danger of a great combined attack on England +passed away than Elizabeth returned to Drake's plan for a regular raid +against New Spain, though it had to be one that was not designed to +bring on war in Europe. Drake, who was a member of the Navy Board +charged with the reorganization of the fleet, was to have command. The +ships and men were ready. But the time had not yet come. + +Next year (1584) Amadas and Barlow, Sir Walter Raleigh's two prospectors +for the 'plantation' of Virginia, were being delighted with the summer +lands and waters of what is now North Carolina. We shall soon hear more +of Raleigh and his vision of the West. But at this time a good many +important events were happening in Europe; and it is these that we must +follow first. + +William of Orange, the Washington of Holland, was assassinated at +Philip's instigation, while plots to kill Elizabeth and place Mary on +the throne began to multiply. The agents were executed, while a 'Bond of +Association' was signed by all Elizabeth's chief supporters, binding +them to hunt down and kill all who tried to kill her--a plain hint for +Mary Queen of Scots to stop plotting or stand the consequences. + +But the merchants trading with Spain and Portugal were more than ever +for keeping on good terms with Philip because the failure of the Spanish +harvest had induced him to offer them special protection and +encouragement if they would supply his country's needs at once. Every +available ton of shipping was accordingly taken up for Spain. The +English merchant fleet went out, and big profits seemed assured. But +presently the _Primrose_, 'a tall ship of London,' came flying home to +say that Philip had suddenly seized the merchandise, imprisoned the +men, and taken the ships and guns for use with the Great Armada. That +was the last straw. The peaceful traders now saw that they were wrong +and that the fighting ones were right; and for the first time both could +rejoice over the clever trick by which John Hawkins had got his own +again from Philip. In 1571, three years after Don Martin's treachery at +San Juan de Ulna, Hawkins, while commanding the Scilly Island squadron, +led the Spanish ambassador to believe that he would go over to the +Spanish cause in Ireland if his claims for damages were only paid in +full and all his surviving men in Mexico were sent home. The cold and +crafty Philip swallowed this tempting bait; sent the men home with +Spanish dollars in their pockets, and paid Hawkins forty thousand +pounds, the worth of about two million dollars now. Then Hawkins used +the information he had picked up behind the Spanish scenes to unravel +the 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, bar +the Marians, were eager for the great 'Indies Voyage' of 1585. Londoners +crowded down to Woolwich 'with great jolitie' to see off their own +contingent on its way to join Drake's flag at Plymouth. Very probably +Shakespeare 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 had +never yet been seen: twenty-one ships, eight smart pinnaces, and +twenty-three hundred men of every rank and rating. The Queen was +principal shareholder and managing director. But, as usual in colonial +attacks intended for disavowal if necessity arose, no prospectus or +other document was published, nor were the shareholders of this +joint-stock company known in any quite official way. It was the size of +the fleet and the reputation of the officers that made it a +national affair. Drake, now forty, was 'Admiral'; Frobisher, of +North-West-Passage fame, was 'Vice'; Knollys, the Queen's own cousin, +'Rear.' Carleill, a famous general, commanded the troops and sailed in +Shakespeare's _Tiger_. Drake's old crew from the _Golden Hind_ came +forward to a man, among them Wright, 'that excellent mathematician and +ingineer,' and big Tom Moone, the lion of all boarding-parties, each in +command of a ship. + +But Elizabeth was just then weaving the threads of an unusually +intricate diplomatic pattern; so doubts and delays, orders and +counter-orders vexed Drake to the last. Sir Philip Sidney, too, came +down as a volunteer; which was another sore vexation, since his European +fame 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 to +go back; whereupon Drake, fearing further interruptions from the court, +ordered everything to be tumbled into the nearest ships and hurried off +to 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 wanted +to know what Philip intended doing about embargoes now. If the governor +wanted peace, he must listen to Drake's arguments; if war--well, Drake +was ready to begin at once. A three-days' storm interrupted the +proceedings; after which the English intercepted the fugitive townsfolk +whose flight showed that the governor meant to make a stand, though he +had said the embargo had been lifted and that all the English prisoners +were at liberty to go. Some English sailors, however, were still being +held; so Drake sent in an armed party and brought them off, with a good +pile of reprisal booty too. Then he put to sea and made for the Spanish +Main 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 the +highest kind. The items, showing how long each part should take and what +loot each place should yield, are exact and interesting. But it is in +the relation of every part to every other part and to the whole that the +original genius of the born commander shines forth in all its glory. +After taking San Domingo he was to sack Margarita, La Hacha, and Santa +Marta, razing their fortifications as he left. Cartagena and Nombre de +Dios came next. Then Carleill was to raid Panama, with the help of the +Maroons, while Drake himself was to raid the coast of Honduras. Finally, +with reunited forces, he would take Havana and, if possible, hold it by +leaving a sufficient garrison behind. Thus he would paralyze New Spain +by destroying all the points of junction along its lines of +communication just when Philip stood most in need of its help for +completing the Great Armada. + +But, like a mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his stride +during the preliminary canter before the great race. The wind being foul +for the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde archipelago and captured +Santiago, which had been abandoned in terror on the approach of the +English 'Dragon,' that sinister hero of Lope de Vega's epic onslaught +_La Dragontea_. As good luck would have it, Carleill marched in on the +anniversary of the Queen's accession, the 17th of November. So there was +a royal salute fired in Her Majesty's honor by land and sea. No treasure +was found, French privateers had sacked the place three years before and +had killed off everyone they caught; the Portuguese, therefore, were not +going to wait to meet the English 'Dragon' too. The force that marched +inland failed to unearth the governor. So San Domingo, Santiago, and +Porto Pravda were all burnt to the ground before the fleet bore away for +the West Indies. + +San Domingo in Hispaniola (Hayti) was made in due course, but only after +a virulent epidemic had seriously thinned the ranks. San Domingo was the +oldest town in New Spain and was strongly garrisoned and fortified. But +Carleill's soldiers carried all before them. Drake battered down the +seaward walls. The Spaniards abandoned the citadel at night, and the +English took the whole place as a New Year's gift for 1586. But again +there was no treasure. The Spaniards had killed off the Caribs in war or +in the mines, so that nothing was now dug out. Moreover the citizens +were quite on their guard against adventurers and ready to hide what +they had in the most inaccessible places. Drake then put the town up to +ransom and sent out his own Maroon boy servant to bring in the message +from the Spanish officer proposing terms. This Spaniard, hating all +Maroons, ran his lance through the boy and cantered away. The boy came +back 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 murderer +was not hanged by his own compatriots. As no one came he began with two +friars. Then the Spaniards brought in the offender and hanged him in the +presence of both armies. + +That episode cleared the air; and an interchange of courtesies and +hospitalities immediately followed. But no business was done. Drake +therefore began to burn the town bit by bit till twenty-five thousand +ducats were paid. It was very little for the capital. But the men picked +up a good deal of loot in the process and vented their ultra-Protestant +zeal on all the 'graven images' that were not worth keeping for sale. +On the whole the English were well satisfied. They had taken all the +Spanish ships and armament they wanted, destroyed the rest, liberated +over a hundred brawny galley-slaves--some Turks among them--all anxious +for revenge, and had struck a blow at Spanish prestige which echoed back +to Europe. Spain never hid her light under a bushel; and here, in the +Governor's Palace, was a huge escutcheon with a horse standing on the +earth and pawing at the sky. The motto blazoned on it was to the effect +that the earth itself was not enough for Spain--_Non sufficit orbis._ +Drake's humor was greatly tickled, and he and his officers kept asking +the Spaniards to translate the motto again and again. + +Delays and tempestuous head winds induced Drake to let intermediate +points alone and make straight for Cartagena on the South American +mainland. Cartagena had been warned and was on the alert. It was strong +by both nature and art. The garrison was good of its kind, though the +Spaniards' custom of fighting in quilted jackets instead of armor put +them at a disadvantage. This custom was due to the heat and to the fact +that the jackets were proof against the native arrows. + +There was an outer and an inner harbor, with such an intricate and +well-defended passage that no one thought Drake would dare go in. But he +did. Frobisher had failed to catch a pilot. But Drake did the trick +without one, to the utter dismay of the Spaniards. After some more very +clever manoeuvres, to distract the enemy's attention from the real point +of attack, Carleill and the soldiers landed under cover of the dark and +came upon the town where they were least expected, by wading waist-deep +through the water just out of sight of the Spanish gunners. The +entrenchments did not bar the way in this unexpected quarter. But wine +casks full of rammed earth had been hurriedly piled there in case the +mad English should make the attempt. Carleill gave the signal. Goring's +musketeers sprang forward and fired into the Spaniards' faces. Then +Sampson's pikemen charged through and a desperate hand-to-hand fight +ensued. Finally the Spaniards broke after Carleill had killed their +standard-bearer and Goring had wounded and taken their commander. The +enemies ran pell-mell through the town together till the English +reformed in the Plaza. Next day Drake moved in to attack the harbor +fort; whereupon it was abandoned and the whole place fell. + +But again there was a dearth of booty. The Spaniards were getting shy of +keeping too many valuables where they could be taken. So negotiations, +emphasized by piecemeal destruction, went on till sickness and the +lateness of the season put the English in a sorry fix. The sack of the +city had yielded much less than that of San Domingo; and the men, who +were all volunteers, to be paid out of plunder, began to grumble at +their ill-success. Many had been wounded, several killed--big, faithful +Tom Moone among them. A hundred died. More were ill. Two councils of war +were held, one naval, the other military. The military officers agreed +to give up all their own shares to the men. But the naval officers, who +were poorer and who were also responsible for the expenses of their +vessels, could not concur. Finally 110,000 ducats (equivalent in +purchasing 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 the +season. A further disappointment was experienced when Drake just missed +the treasure fleet by only half a day, though through no fault of his +own. Then, with constantly diminishing numbers of effective men, the +course was shaped for the Spanish 'plantation' of St. Augustine in +Florida. This place was utterly destroyed and some guns and money were +taken from it. Then the fleet stood north again till, on the 9th of +June, it found Raleigh's colony of Roanoke. + +Ralph Lane, the governor, was in his fort on the island ready to brave +it out. Drake offered a free passage home to all the colonists. But Lane +preferred staying and going on with his surveys and 'plantation.' Drake +then filled up a store ship to leave behind with Lane. But a terrific +three-day storm wrecked the store ship and damped the colonists' +enthusiasm so much that they persuaded Lane to change his mind. The +colonists embarked and the fleet then bore away for home. Though balked +of much it had expected in the way of booty, reduced in strength by +losses, and therefore unable to garrison any strategic point which would +threaten the life of New Spain, its purely naval work was a true and +glorious success. When he arrived at Plymouth, Drake wrote immediately +to 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 to +be matched by the still greater gap Drake was to make on the European +side by destroying the Spanish Armada and thus securing that mightiest +of ocean highways through which the hosts of emigration afterwards +poured into a land endowed with the goodly heritage of English liberty +and the English tongue. + + +The year of Drake's return (1586) was no less troublous than its +immediate predecessors. The discovery of the Babington Plot to +assassinate Elizabeth and to place Mary on the throne, supported by +Scotland, France, and Spain, proved Mary's complicity, produced an +actual threat of war from France, and made the Pope and Philip gnash +their teeth with rage. The Roman Catholic allied powers had no +sufficient navy, and Philip's credit was at its lowest ebb after Drake's +devastating raid. The English were exultant, east and west; for the +_True Report of a Worthie Fight performed in the voiage from Turkie by +Five Shippes of London against 11 gallies and two frigats of the King of +Spain at Pantalarea, within the Straits_ [of Gibraltar] _Anno 1586_ was +going the rounds and running a close second to Drake's West India +achievement. The ignorant and thoughtless, both then and since, mistook +this fight, and another like it in 1590, to mean that English +merchantmen could beat off Spanish men-of-war. Nothing of the kind: the +English Levanters were heavily armed and admirably manned by +well-trained fighting crews; and what these actions really proved, if +proof was necessary, was that galleys were no match for broadsides from +the proper kind of sailing ships. + +Turkey came into the problems of 1586 in more than name, for there was a +vast diplomatic scheme on foot to unite the Turks with such Portuguese +as would support Antonio, the pretender to the throne of Portugal, and +the rebellious Dutch against Spain, Catholic France, and Mary Stuart's +Scotland. Leicester was in the Netherlands with an English army, +fighting indecisively, losing Sir Philip Sidney and angering Elizabeth +by accepting the governor-generalship without her leave and against her +diplomacy, which, now as ever, was opposed to any definite avowal that +could possibly be helped. + +Meanwhile the Great Armada was working up its strength, and Drake was +commissioned to weaken it as much as possible. But, on the 8th of +February, 1587, before he could sail, Mary was at last beheaded, and +Elizabeth was once more entering on a tricky course of tortuous +diplomacy too long by half to follow here. As the great crisis +approached, it had become clearer and clearer that it was a case of kill +or be killed between Elizabeth and Mary, and that England could not +afford to leave Marian enemies in the rear when there might be a vast +Catholic alliance in the front. But, as a sovereign, Elizabeth disliked +the execution of any crowned head; as a wily woman she wanted to make +the most of both sides; and as a diplomatist she would not have open war +and direct operations going down to the root of the evil if devious ways +would do. + +So the peace party of the Council prevailed again, and Drake's orders +were changed. He had been going as a lion. The peace party now tried to +send him as a fox. But he stretched his instructions to their utmost +limits and even defied the custom of the service by holding no council +of war when deciding to swoop on Cadiz. + +As they entered the harbor, the English saw sixty ships engaged in +preparations for the Great Armada. Many had no sails--to keep the crews +from deserting. Others were waiting for their guns to come from Italy. +Ten galleys rowed out to protect them. The weather and surroundings were +perfect for these galleys. But as they came end-on in line-abreast Drake +crossed their T in line-ahead with the shattering broadsides of four +Queen's ships which soon sent them flying. Each galley was the upright +of the T, each English sailing ship the corresponding crosspiece. Then +Drake attacked the shipping and wrecked it right and left. Next morning +he led the pinnaces and boats into the inner harbor, where they cut out +the big galleon belonging to Santa Cruz himself, the Spanish +commander-in-chief. Then the galleys got their chance again--an +absolutely perfect chance, because Drake's fleet was becalmed at the +very worst possible place for sailing ships and the very best possible +place for the well-oared galleys. But even under these extraordinary +circumstances the ships smashed the galleys up with broadside fire and +sent them back to cover. Then the Spaniards towed some fire-ships out. +But the English rowed for them, threw grappling irons into them, and +gave them a turn that took them clear. Then, for the last time, the +galleys came on, as bravely but as uselessly as ever. When Drake sailed +away he left the shipping of Cadiz completely out of action for months +to 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 of +naval history because it is the great strategic salient thrust out into +the Atlantic from the southwest corner of Europe, and thus commands the +flank approaches to and from the Mediterranean, to and from the coast of +Africa, and, in those days, the route to and from New Spain by way of +the 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 the +past--a sort of English Don. Borough objected to Drake's taking decisive +action without the vote of a council of war. Remembering the terrors of +Italian textbooks, he had continued to regard the galleys with much +respect in the harbor of Cadiz even after Drake had broken them with +ease. Finally, still clinging to the old ways of mere raids and +reprisals, he stood aghast at the idea of seizing Cape St. Vincent and +making it a base of operations. Drake promptly put him under arrest. + +Sagres Castle, commanding the roadstead of Cape St. Vincent, was +extraordinarily strong. The cliffs, on which it occupied about a +hundred acres, rose sheer two hundred feet all round except at a narrow +and well defended neck only two hundred yards across. Drake led the +stormers himself. While half his eight hundred men kept up a continuous +fire against every Spaniard on the wall the other half rushed piles of +faggots in against the oak and iron gate. Drake was foremost in this +work, carrying faggots himself and applying the first match. For two +hours the fight went on; when suddenly the Spaniards sounded a parley. +Their commanding officer had been killed and the woodwork of the gate +had taken fire. In those days a garrison that would not surrender was +put 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 own +surprise, the castle fell without another blow. The minor forts near by +at once surrendered and were destroyed, while the guns of Sagres were +thrown over the cliffs and picked up by the men below. The whole +neighboring coast was then swept clear of the fishing fleet which was +the main source of supply used for the Great Armada. + +The next objective was Lisbon, the headquarters of the Great Armada, one +of 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 larger +fleet accompanied by an overwhelming army. But Drake reconnoitred to +good effect, learnt wrinkles that saved him from disaster two years +later, and retired after assuring himself that an Armada which could not +fight him then could never get to England during the same season. + +Ship fevers and all the other epidemics that dogged the old sailing +fleets and scourged them like the plague never waited long. Drake was +soon short-handed. To add to his troubles, Borough sailed away for home; +whereupon Drake tried him and his officers by court-martial and +condemned them all to death. This penalty was never carried out, for +reasons we shall soon understand. Since no reinforcements came from +home, Cape St. Vincent could not be held any longer. There was, however, +one more stroke to make. The great East-India Spanish treasure ship was +coming home; and Drake made up his mind to have her. + +Off the Azores he met her coming towards him and dipping her colors +again and again to ask him who he was. 'But we would put out no flag +till we were within shot of her, when we hanged out flags, streamers, +and pendants. Which done, we hailed her with cannon-shot; and having +shot her through divers times, she shot at us. Then we began to ply her +hotly, our fly boat [lightly armed supply vessel of comparatively small +size] and one of our pinnaces lying athwart her hawse [across her bows] +at whom she shot and threw fire-works [incendiary missiles] but did them +no hurt, in that her ordnance lay so high over them. Then she, seeing us +ready to lay her aboard [range up alongside], all of our ships plying +her so hotly, and resolutely determined to make short work of her, they +yielded to us.' The Spaniards fought bravely, as they generally did. But +they were only naval amateurs compared with the trained professional +sea-dogs. + +The voyage was now 'made' in the old sense of that term; for this prize +was 'the greatest ship in all Portugal, richly laden, to our Happy Joy.' +The relative values, then and now, are impossible to fix, because not +only 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 now +produce on international affairs. Suffice it to say that the ship was +worth nearly five million dollars of actual cash, and ten, twenty, +thirty, or many more millions if present sums of money are to be +considered relatively to the national incomes of those poorer days. + +But better than spices, jewels, and gold were the secret documents which +revealed the dazzling profits of the new East-India trade by sea. From +that time on for the next twelve years the London merchants and their +friends at court worked steadily for official sanction in this most +promising direction. At last, on the 31st of December, 1600, the +documents captured by Drake produced their result, and the East-India +Company, by far the greatest corporation of its kind the world has ever +seen, was granted a royal charter for exclusive trade. Drake may +therefore be said not only to have set the course for the United States +but to have actually discovered the route leading to the Empire of +India, now peopled by three hundred million subjects of the British +Crown. + +So ended the famous campaign of 1587, popularly known as the singeing of +King Philip's beard. Beyond a doubt it was the most consummate work of +naval 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 ambitious +Philip, unskilled in arms, but persistent in his plans--sat in his +palace at Madrid like a spider forever spinning webs that enemies tore +down. Drake and the English had thrown the whole scheme of the Armada's +mobilization completely out of gear. Philip's well-intentioned orders +and counter-orders had made confusion worse confounded; and though the +Spanish empire held half the riches of the world it felt the lack of +ready money because English sea power had made it all parts and no whole +for several months together. Then, when mobilization was resumed, Philip +found 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 English +Channel as far as the Netherlands, where Parma would be ready with a +magnificent Spanish army waiting aboard troopships for safe conduct into +England. The Spanish regulars could then hold London up to ransom or +burn it to the ground. So far, so good. But Philip, to whom amphibious +warfare remained an unsolved mystery, thought that the Armada and the +Spanish army could conquer England without actually destroying the +English fleet. He could not see where raids must end and conquest must +begin. Most Spaniards agreed with him. Parma and Santa Cruz did not. +Parma, as a very able general, wanted to know how his oversea +communications could be made quite safe. Santa Cruz, as a very able +admiral, knew that no such sea road could possibly be safe while the +ubiquitous English navy was undefeated and at large. Some time or other +a naval battle must be won, or Parma's troops, cut off from their base +of 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 expert +warriors, Santa Cruz and Parma. Get into hated England with the least +possible fighting, risk, or loss, said the mere politician, Philip, and +then crush Drake if he annoys you. + +Early and late persistent Philip slaved away upon this 'Enterprize of +England.' With incredible toil he spun his web anew. The ships were +collected into squadrons; the squadrons at last began to wear the +semblance of a fleet. But semblance only. There were far too many +soldiers and not nearly enough sailors. Instead of sending the fighting +fleet to try to clear the way for the troopships coming later on, Philip +mixed 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 only +light ordnance, badly distributed so as to fire at rigging and +superstructures only, not at the hulls as the English did. Yet this was +not the worst. The worst was that the fighting fleet was cumbered with +troopships which might have been useful in boarding, but which were +perfectly useless in fighting of any other kind--and the English +men-of-war were much too handy to be laid aboard by the lubberly Spanish +troopships. Santa Cruz worked himself to death. In one of his last +dispatches he begged for more and better guns. All Philip could do was +to authorize the purchase of whatever guns the foreign merchantmen in +Lisbon harbor could be induced to sell. Sixty second-rate pieces were +obtained in this way. + +Then, worn out by work and worry, Santa Cruz died, and Philip forced the +command on a most reluctant landlubber, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a +very great grandee of Spain, but wholly unfitted to lead a fleet. The +death of Santa Cruz, in whom the fleet and army had great confidence, +nearly upset the whole 'Enterprize of England.' The captains were as +unwilling to serve under bandylegged, sea-sick Sidonia as he was +unwilling to command them. Volunteering ceased. Compulsion failed to +bring in the skilled ratings urgently required. The sailors were now not +only fewer than ever--sickness and desertion had been thinning their +ranks--but many of these few were unfit for the higher kinds of +seamanship, while only the merest handful of them were qualified as +seamen gunners. Philip, however, was determined; and so the doomed +Armada struggled on, fitting its imperfect parts together into a still +more imperfect whole until, in June, it was as ready as it ever could be +made. + +Meanwhile the English had their troubles too. These were also political. +But the English navy was of such overwhelming strength that it could +stand them with impunity. The Queen, after thirty years of wonderful, if +tortuous, diplomacy, was still disinclined to drop the art in which she +was supreme for that in which she counted for so much less and by which +she was obliged to spend so very much more. There was still a little +peace party also bent on diplomacy instead of war. Negotiations were +opened with Parma at Flushing and diplomatic 'feelers' went out towards +Philip, 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 or +even divert into minor channels. + +Lord Howard of Effingham, as Lord High Admiral of England, was charged +with the defence at sea. It was impossible in those days to have any +great force without some great nobleman in charge of it, because the +people still looked on such men as their natural viceroys and +commanders. But just as Sir John Norreys, the most expert professional +soldier in England, was made Chief of the Staff to the Earl of Leicester +ashore, so Drake was made Chief of the Staff to Howard afloat, which +meant that he was the brain of the fleet. + +A directing brain was sadly needed--not that brains were lacking, but +that some one man of original and creative genius was required to bring +the modern naval system into triumphant being. Like all political heads, +Elizabeth was sensitive to public opinion; and public opinion was +ignorant enough to clamor for protection by something that a man could +see; besides which there were all those weaklings who have been +described as the old women of both sexes and all ages, and who have +always been the nuisance they are still. Adding together the old views +of warfare, which nearly everybody held, and the human weaknesses we +have always with us, there was a most dangerously strong public opinion +in favor of dividing up the navy so as to let enough different places +actually see that they had some visible means of divided defence. + +The 30th of March, 1588, is the day of days to be remembered in the +history of sea power because it was then that Drake, writing from +Plymouth to the Queen-in-Council, first formulated the true doctrine of +modern naval warfare, especially the cardinal principle that the best of +all defence is to attack your enemy's main fleet as it issues from its +ports. This marked the birth of the system perfected by Nelson and +thence passed on, with many new developments, to the British Grand +Fleet 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 revolutionary +views. 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 on +the score of expense, partly not to let Drake snap her apron-strings +completely, had kept the supply of food and even of ammunition very +short; so much so that Drake knew he would have to starve or else +replenish from the Spanish fleet itself. As he drew near Corunna on the +8th, the Spaniards were again reorganizing. Hundreds of perfectly +useless landlubbers, shipped at Lisbon to complete the absurdly +undermanned ships, were being dismissed at Corunna. On the 9th, when +Sidonia assembled a council of war to decide whether to put to sea or +not, the English van was almost in sight of the coast. But then the +north wind flawed, failed, and at last chopped round. A roaring +sou'wester came on; and the great strategic move was over. + +On the 12th the fleet was back in Plymouth replenishing as hard as it +could. Howard behaved to perfection. Drake worked the strategy and +tactics. But Howard had to set the tone, afloat and ashore, to all who +came within his sphere of influence; and right well he set it. His +dispatches at this juncture are models of what such documents should be; +and their undaunted confidence is in marked contrast to what the doomed +Spanish officers were writing at the selfsame time. + +The southwest wind that turned Drake back brought the Armada out and +gave it an advantage which would have been fatal to England had the +fleets been really equal, or the Spaniards in superior strength, for a +week was a very short time in which to replenish the stores that +Elizabeth had purposely kept so low. Drake and Howard, so the story +goes, were playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe on Friday afternoon +the 19th of July when Captain Fleming of the _Golden Hind_ rushed up to +say the Spanish fleet was off the Lizard, only sixty miles away! All +eyes turned to Drake. Divining the right way to calm the people, he +whispered an order and then said out loud: 'There's time to end our game +and beat the Spaniards too.' The shortness of food and ammunition that +had compelled him to come back instead of waiting to blockade now +threatened to get him nicely caught in the very trap he had wished to +catch the Great Armada in himself; for the Spaniards, coming up with the +wind, might catch him struggling out against the wind and crush his long +emerging column, bit by bit, precisely as he had intended crushing their +own column as it issued from the Tagus or Corunna. + +But it was only the van that Fleming had sighted. Many a Spanish +straggler was still hull-down astern; and Sidonia had to wait for all to +close and form up properly. + +Meanwhile Drake and Howard were straining every nerve to get out of +Plymouth. It was not their fault, but the Queen's-in-Council, that +Sidonia had unwittingly stolen this march on them. It was their glory +that they won the lost advantage back again. All afternoon and evening, +all through that summer night, the sea-dog crews were warping out of +harbor. Torches, flares, and cressets threw their fitful light on +toiling lines of men hauling on ropes that moved the ships apparently +like snails. But once in Plymouth Sound the whinnying sheaves and long +_yo-hoes_! told that all the sail the ships could carry was being made +for a life-or-death effort to win the weather gage. Thus beat the heart +of naval England that momentous night in Plymouth Sound, while beacons +blazed from height to height ashore, horsemen spurred off post-haste +with orders and dispatches, and every able-bodied landsman stood to +arms. + +Next morning Drake was in the Channel, near the Eddystone, with +fifty-four sail, when he sighted a dim blur to windward through the +thickening mist and drizzling rain. This was the Great Armada. Rain came +on and killed the wind. All sail was taken in aboard the English fleet, +which lay under bare poles, invisible to the Spaniards, who still +announced their presence with some show of canvas. + +In actual size and numbers the Spaniards were superior at first. But as +the week-long running fight progressed the English evened up with +reinforcements. Spanish vessels looked bigger than their tonnage, being +high built; and Spanish official reports likewise exaggerated the size +because their system of measurement made their three tons equal to an +English four. In armament and seamen-gunners the English were perhaps +five times as strong as the Armada--and seamen-gunners won the day. The +English seamen greatly outnumbered the Spanish seamen, utterly surpassed +them in seamanship, and enjoyed the further advantage of having far +handier vessels to work. The Spanish grand total, for all ranks and +ratings was thirty thousand men; the English, only fifteen. But the +Spaniards were six thousand short on arrival; and their actual seamen, +many of whom were only half-trained, then numbered a bare seven +thousand. The seventeen thousand soldiers only made the ships so many +death-traps; for they were of no use afloat except as boarding +parties--and no boarding whatever took place. The English fifteen +thousand, on the other hand, were three-quarters seamen and one-quarter +soldiers who were mostly trained as marines, and this total was actually +present. On the whole, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the +Armada was mostly composed of armed transports while all the English +vessels that counted in the fighting were real men-of-war. + +In every one of the Armada's hundred and twenty-eight vessels, says an +officer of the Spanish flagship, 'our people kneeled down and offered a +prayer, beseeching our Lord to give us victory against the enemies of +His holy faith.' The crews of the hundred and ninety-seven English +vessels which, at one time or another, were present in some capacity on +the scene of action also prayed for victory to the Lord of Hosts, but +took the proper naval means to win it. 'Trust in the Lord--and keep your +powder dry,' said Oliver Cromwell when about to ford a river in the +presence of the enemy. And so, in other words, said Drake. + +All day long, on that fateful 20th of July, the visible Armada with its +swinging 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 watching +Parma, the other the Armada. The trained soldiers and sailors were for +the sound plan of attacking Plymouth first. Some admirals even proposed +the only perfect plan of crushing Drake in detail as he issued from the +Sound. All were in blissful ignorance of the astounding feat of English +seamanship which had already robbed them of the only chance they ever +had. But Philip, also landsman-like, had done his best to thwart his own +Armada; for Sidonia produced the royal orders forbidding any attack on +England till he and Parma had joined hands. Drake, however, might be +crushed piecemeal in the offing when still with his aftermost ships in +the Sound. So, with this true idea, unworkable because based on false +information, the generals and admirals dispersed to their vessels and +waited. But then, just as night was closing in, the weather lifted +enough to reveal Drake's astonishing position. Immediately pinnaces went +scurrying to Sidonia for orders. But he had none to give. At one in the +morning he learnt some more dumbfounding news: that the English had +nearly 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 was +getting his fleet into the 'eagle formation,' so suitable for galleys +whose only fighting men were soldiers, the English fleet was stealing +the weather gage, his one remaining natural advantage. An English +squadron of eight sail manoeuvred coast-wise on the Armada's inner +flank, while, unperceived by the Spanish lookout, Drake stole away to +sea, beat round its outer flank, and then, making the most of a westerly +slant in the shifting breeze, edged in to starboard. The Spaniards saw +nothing till it was too late, Drake having given them a berth just wide +enough to keep them quiet. But when the sun rose, there, only a few +miles off to windward, was the whole main body of the English fleet, +coming on in faultless line-ahead, heeling nicely over on the port tack +before the freshening breeze, and, far from waiting for the Great +Armada, boldly bearing down to the attack. With this consummate move the +victory was won. + +The rest was slaughter, borne by the Spaniards with a resolution that +nothing could surpass. With dauntless tenacity they kept their 'eagle +formation,' so useful at Lepanto, through seven dire days of most +one-sided fighting. Whenever occasion seemed to offer, the Spaniards did +their best to close, to grapple, and to board, as had their heroes at +Lepanto. But the English merely laughed, ran in, just out of reach, +poured in a shattering broadside between wind and water, stood off to +reload, fired again, with equal advantage, at longer range, caught the +slow galleons end-on, raked them from stem to stern, passed to and fro +in one, long, deadly line-ahead, concentrating at will on any given +target; and did all this with well-nigh perfect safety to themselves. In +quite a different way close-to, but to the same effect at either +distance, long or short, the English 'had the range of them,' as sailors +say to-day. Close-to, the little Spanish guns fired much too high to +hull the English vessels, lying low and trim upon the water, with whose +changing humors their lines fell in so much more happily than those of +any lumbering Spaniards could. Far-off, the little Spanish guns did +correspondingly small damage, even when they managed to hit; while the +heavy metal of the English, handled by real seamen-gunners, inflicted +crushing 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 thoroughly +modern line-ahead. Any one who will take the letter T as an illustration +can easily understand the advantage of 'crossing his T.' The upright +represents an enemy caught when in column-ahead, as he would be, for +instance, when issuing from a narrow-necked port. In this formation he +can only use bow fire, and that only in succession, on a very narrow +front. But the fleet represented by the crosspiece, moving across the +point of the upright, is in the deadly line-ahead, with all its near +broadsides turned in one long converging line of fire against the +helplessly narrow-fronted enemy. If the enemy, sticking to medieval +tactics, had room to broaden his front by forming column-abreast, as +galleys always did, that is, with several uprights side by side, he +would still be at the same sort of disadvantage; for this would only +mean a series of T's with each nearest broadside crossing each opposing +upright as before. + +The herded soldiers and non-combatants aboard the Great Armada stood by +their useless duties to the last. Thousands fell killed or wounded. +Several times the Spanish scuppers actually ran a horrid red, as if the +very ships were bleeding. The priests behaved as bravely as the Jesuits +of New France--and who could be braver than those undaunted missionaries +were? Soldiers and sailors were alike. 'What shall we do now?' asked +Sidonia after the slaughter had gone on for a week. 'Order up more +powder,' said Oquendo, as dauntless as before. Even then the eagle +formation was still kept up. The van ships were the head. The biggest +galleons formed the body. Lighter vessels formed the wings. A reserve +formed the tail. + +As the unflinching Armada stood slowly up the Channel a sail or two +would drop out by the way, dead-beat. One night several strange sail +passed suddenly by Drake. What should he do? To go about and follow them +with all astern of him doing the same in succession was not to be +thought of, as his aftermost vessels were merchantmen, wholly untrained +to the exact combined manoeuvres required in a fighting fleet, though +first-rate individually. There was then no night signal equivalent to +the modern 'Disregard the flagship's movements.' So Drake dowsed his +stern light, went about, overhauled the strangers, and found they were +bewildered German merchantmen. He had just gone about once more to +resume his own station when suddenly a Spanish flagship loomed up beside +his own flagship the _Revenge_. Drake immediately had his pinnace +lowered away to demand instant surrender. But the Spanish admiral was +Don Pedro de Valdes, a very gallant commander and a very proud grandee, +who demanded terms; and, though his flagship (which had been in +collision with a run-amuck) seemed likely to sink, he was quite ready to +go down fighting. Yet the moment he heard that his summoner was Drake he +surrendered at discretion, feeling it a personal honor, according to the +ideas of the age, to yield his sword to the greatest seaman in the +world. With forty officers he saluted Drake, complimenting him on +'valour and felicity so great that Mars and Neptune seemed to attend +him, as also on his generosity towards the fallen foe, a quality often +experienced by the Spaniards; whereupon,' adds this eyewitness, 'Sir +Francis Drake, requiting his Spanish compliments with honest English +courtesies, placed him at his own table and lodged him in his own +cabin.' Drake's enemies at home accused him of having deserted his fleet +to capture a treasure ship--for there was a good deal of gold with +Valdes. But the charge was quite unfounded. + +A very different charge against Howard had more foundation. The Armada +had anchored at Calais to get its breath before running the gauntlet for +the last time and joining Parma in the Netherlands. But in the dead of +night, when the flood was making and a strong west wind was blowing in +the same direction as the swirling tidal stream, nine English fire-ships +suddenly burst into flame and made for the Spanish anchorage. There were +no boats ready to grapple the fire-ships and tow them clear. There was +no time to weigh; for every vessel had two anchors down. Sidonia, +enraged that the boats were not out on patrol, gave the order for the +whole fleet to cut their cables and make off for their lives. As the +great lumbering hulls, which had of course been riding head to wind, +swung round in the dark and confusion, several crashing collisions +occurred. Next morning the Armada was strung along the Flemish coast in +disorderly flight. Seeing the impossibility of bringing the leewardly +vessels back against the wind in time to form up, Sidonia ran down with +the windward ones and formed farther off. Howard then led in pursuit. +But seeing the _capitana_ of the renowned Italian galleasses in distress +near Calais, he became a medieval knight again, left his fleet, and took +the galleasse. For the moment that one feather in his cap seemed better +worth having than a general victory. + +Drake forged ahead and led the pursuit in turn. The Spaniards fought +with desperate courage, still suffering ghastly losses. But, do what +they could to bear up against the English and the wind, they were forced +to leeward of Dunkirk, and so out of touch with Parma. This was the +result of the Battle of Gravelines, fought on Monday the 29th of July, +1588, just ten days after Captain Fleming had rushed on to the bowling +green of Plymouth Hoe where Drake and Howard, their shore work done, +were playing a game before embarking. In those ten days the gallant +Armada had lost all chance of winning the overlordship of the sea and +shaking the sea-dog grip off both Americas. A rising gale now forced it +to choose between getting pounded to death on the shoals of Dunkirk or +running north, through that North Sea in which the British Grand Fleet +of the twentieth century fought against the fourth attempt in modern +times to win a world-dominion. + +North, and still north, round by the surf-lashed Orkneys, then down the +wild west coasts of the Hebrides and Ireland, went the forlorn Armada, +losing ships and men at every stage, until at last the remnant straggled +into 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 about +picking leaves and breaking branches before laying the axe to the root +of the tree. Though there were in the Narrow Seas defensive squadrons +strong enough to ward off any possible blow, yet the nervous landsmen +wanted Corunna and other ports attacked and their shipping destroyed, +for fear England should be invaded before Drake could strike his blow at +Lisbon. Then there were troubles about stores and ammunition. The +English fleet had been reduced to the last pound of powder twice during +the ten-days' battle with the Armada. Yet Elizabeth was again alarmed at +the expense of munitions. She never quite rose to the idea of one +supreme and finishing blow, no matter what the cost might be. + +This was a joint expedition, the first in which a really modern English +fleet and army had ever taken part, with Sir John Norreys in command of +the army. There was no trouble about recruits, for all men of spirit +flocked in to follow Drake and Norreys. The fleet was perfectly +organized into appropriate squadrons and flotillas, such as then +corresponded with the battleships, cruisers, and mosquito craft of +modern navies. The army was organized into battalions and brigades, with +a regular staff and all the proper branches of the service. + +The fleet made for Corunna, where Norreys won a brilliant victory. A +curious little incident of exact punctilio is worth recording. After the +battle, and when the fleet was waiting for a fair wind to get out of the +harbor, the ships were much annoyed by a battery on the heights. Norreys +undertook to storm the works and sent in the usual summons by a +_parlementaire_ accompanied by a drummer. An angry Spaniard fired from +the walls and the drummer fell dead. The English had hostages on whom to +take reprisals. But the Spaniards were too quick for them. Within ten +minutes the guilty man was tried inside the fort by drum-head +court-martial, condemned to death, and swung out neatly from the walls, +while a polite Spanish officer came over to assure the English troops +that such a breach of discipline should not occur again. + +Lisbon was a failure. The troops landed and marched over the ground +north of Lisbon where Wellington in a later day made works whose fame +has caused their memory to become an allusion in English literature for +any impregnable base--the Lines of Torres Vedras. The fleet and the army +now lost touch with each other; and that was the ruin of them all. +Norreys was persuaded by Don Antonio, pretender to the throne of +Portugal which Philip had seized, to march farther inland, where +Portuguese patriots were said to be ready to rise _en masse_. This +Antonio was a great talker and a first-rate fighter with his tongue. But +his Portuguese followers, also great talkers, wanted to see a victory +won by arms before they rose. + +Before leaving Lisbon Drake had one stroke of good luck. A Spanish +convoy brought in a Hanseatic Dutch and German fleet of merchantmen +loaded down with contraband of war destined for Philip's new Armada. +Drake swooped on it immediately and took sixty well-found ships. Then +he went west to the Azores, looking for what he called 'some comfortable +little dew of Heaven,' that is, of course, more prizes of a richer kind. +But sickness broke out. The men died off like flies. Storms completed +the discomfiture. And the expedition got home with a great deal less +than half its strength in men and not enough in value to pay for its +expenses. It was held to have failed; and Drake lost favor. + + * * * * * + +With the sun of Drake's glory in eclipse at court and with Spain and +England resting from warfare on the grander scale, there were no more +big battles the following year. But the year after that, 1591, is +rendered famous in the annals of the sea by Sir Richard Grenville's +fight in Drake's old flagship, the _Revenge_. This is the immortal +battle of 'the one and the fifty-three' from which Raleigh's prose and +Tennyson's verse have made a glory of the pen fit to match the glory of +the sword. + +Grenville had sat, with Drake and Sir Philip Sidney, on the +Parliamentary committee which recommended the royal charter granted to +Sir Walter Raleigh for the founding of the first English colony in what +is now the United States. Grenville's grandfather, Marshal of Calais to +Henry VIII, had the faculty of rhyme, and, in a set of verses very +popular in their own day, showed what the Grenville family ambitions +were. + + 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, but +an adventurer of the most daring kind by land or sea. He rather enjoyed +the consternation he caused by aping the airs of a pirate king. He had a +rough way with him at all times; and Ralph Lane was much set against his +being the commander of the 'Virginia Voyage' of which Lane himself was +the governor on land. But in action he always was, beyond a doubt, the +very _beau ideal_ of a 'first-class fighting man.' A striking instance +of his methods was afforded on his return from Virginia, when he found +an armed Spanish treasure ship ahead of him at sea. He had no boat to +board her with. But he knocked some sort of one together out of the +ship's chests and sprang up the Spaniard's side with his boarding party +just as this makeshift boat was sinking under them. + +The last fight of the _Revenge_ is almost incredible from the odds +engaged--fifty-three vessels to one. But it is true; and neither +Raleigh's glowing prose nor Tennyson's glowing verse exaggerates it. +Lord Thomas Howard, 'almost famished for want of prey,' had been +cruising in search of treasure ships when Captain Middleton, one of the +gentlemen-adventurers who followed the gallant Earl of Cumberland, came +in to warn him that Don Alonzo de Bazan was following with fifty-three +sail. The English crews were partly ashore at the Azores; and Howard had +barely time to bring them off, cut his cables, and work to windward of +the overwhelming Spaniards. + +Grenville's men were last. The _Revenge_ had only 'her hundred fighters +on deck and her ninety sick below' when the Spanish fleet closed round +him. Yet, just as he had sworn to cut down the first man who touched a +sail 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 down +close-hauled on the starboard tack, decks cleared for action and crew at +battle quarters, he steered right between two divisions of the Spanish +fleet till 'the mountain-like _San Felipe_, of fifteen hundred tons,' +ranging up on his weather side, blanketed his canvas and left him almost +becalmed. Immediately the vessels which the _Revenge_ had weathered +hauled their wind and came up on her from to-leeward. Then, at three +o'clock in the afternoon of the 1st of September, 1591, that immortal +fight began. + +The first broadside from the _Revenge_ took the _San Felipe_ on the +water-line and forced her to give way and stop her leaks. Then two +Spaniards ranged up in her place, while two more kept station on the +other side. And so the desperate fight went on all through that +afternoon and evening and far on into the night. Meanwhile Howard, still +keeping the weather gage, attacked the Spaniards from the rear and +thought of trying to cut through them. But his sailing master swore it +would be the end of all Her Majesty's ships engaged, as it probably +would; so he bore away, wisely or not as critics may judge for +themselves. One vessel, the little _George Noble_ of London, a +victualler, stood by the _Revenge_, offering help before the fight +began. But Grenville, thanking her gallant skipper, ordered him to save +his vessel by following Howard. + +With never less than one enemy on each side of her, the _Revenge_ fought +furiously on. _Boarders away!_ shouted the Spanish colonels as the +vessels closed. _Repel boarders!_ shouted Grenville in reply. And they +did repel them, time and again, till the English pikes dripped red with +Spanish blood. A few Spaniards gained the deck, only to be shot, +stabbed, or slashed to death. Towards midnight Grenville was hit in the +body by a musket-shot fired from the tops--the same sort of shot that +killed Nelson. The surgeon was killed while dressing the wound, and +Grenville was hit in the head. But still the fight went on. The +_Revenge_ had already sunk two Spaniards, a third sank afterwards, and a +fourth was beached to save her. But Grenville would not hear of +surrender. When day broke not ten unwounded Englishmen remained. The +pikes were broken. The powder was spent. The whole deck was a wild +entanglement of masts, spars, sails, and rigging. The undaunted +survivors stood dumb as their silent cannon. But every Spanish hull in +the whole encircling ring of death bore marks of the _Revenge's_ rage. +Four hundred Spaniards, by their own admission, had been killed, and +quite six hundred wounded. One hundred Englishmen had thus accounted for +a 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 that +all lives should be saved to avenge the dead, manned the only remaining +boat and made good terms with the Spanish admiral. Then Grenville was +taken very carefully aboard Don Bazan's flagship, where he was received +with every possible mark of admiration and respect. Don Bazan gave him +his own cabin. The staff surgeon dressed his many wounds. The Spanish +captains and military officers stood hat in hand, 'wondering at his +courage and stout heart, for that he showed not any signs of faintness +nor changing of his colour.' Grenville spoke Spanish very well and +handsomely acknowledged the compliments they paid him. Then, gathering +his ebbing strength for one last effort, he addressed them in words they +have religiously recorded: '"Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a +joyful and quiet mind; for that I have ended my life as a true soldier +ought to do, that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, and +honour. Wherefore my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body." ... +And when he had said these and other suchlike words he gave up the ghost +with a great and stout courage.' + +Grenville's latest wish was that the _Revenge_ and he should die +together; and, though he knew it not, he had this wish fulfilled. For, +two weeks later, when Don Bazan had collected nearly a hundred more sail +around him for the last stage home from the West Indies, a cyclone such +as no living man remembered burst full on the crowded fleet. Not even +the Great Armada lost more vessels than Don Bazan did in that +wreck-engulfing week. No less than seventy went down. And with them sank +the shattered _Revenge_, beside her own heroic dead. + + * * * * * + +Drake might be out of favor at court. The Queen might grumble at the sad +extravagance of fleets. Diplomats might talk of untying Gordian knots +that the sword was made to cut. Courtiers and politicians might wonder +with which side to curry favor when it was an issue between two +parties--peace or war. The great mass of ordinary landsmen might wonder +why the 'sea-affair' was a thing they could not understand. But all this +was only the mint and cummin of imperial things compared with the +exalting deeds that Drake had done. For, once the English sea-dogs had +shown 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 had +become the mother country of such an empire and republic as neither +record nor tradition can show the like of elsewhere. + +And England felt the triumph. She thrilled with pregnant joy. Poet and +proseman both gave voice to her delight. Hear this new note of +exultation 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, exclaim +with 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 of +All 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 Indies +and 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 the +order of those by whom America was opened up for English-speaking +people. No Elizabethan colonies took root. Therefore the age of +Elizabethan sea-dogs was one of conquerors and prospectors, not one of +pioneering colonists at all. + +Spain and Portugal alone founded sixteenth-century colonies that have +had a continuous life from those days to our own. Virginia and New +England, like New France, only began as permanent settlements after +Drake and Queen Elizabeth were dead: Virginia in 1607, New France in +1608, New England in 1620. + +It is true that Drake and his sea-dogs were prospectors in their way. So +were the soldiers, gentlemen-adventurers, and fighting traders in +theirs. On the other hand, some of the prospectors themselves belong to +the class of conquerors, while many would have gladly been the pioneers +of permanent colonies. Nevertheless the prospectors form a separate +class; and Sir Walter Raleigh, though an adventurer in every other way +as well, is undoubtedly their chief. His colonies failed. He never found +his El Dorado. He died a ruined and neglected man. But still he was the +chief of those whom we can only call prospectors, first, because they +tried their fortune ashore, one step beyond the conquering sea-dogs, +and, secondly, because their fortune failed them just one step short of +where 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 is +really much more appropriate to Sir Walter Raleigh. Courtier and +would-be colonizer, soldier and sailor, statesman and scholar, poet and +master of prose, Raleigh had one ruling passion greater than all the +rest combined. In a letter about America to Sir Robert Cecil, the son of +Queen Elizabeth's principal minister of state, Lord Burleigh, he +expressed this great determined purpose of his life: _I shall yet live +to see it an Inglishe nation_. He had other interests in abundance, +perhaps in superabundance; and he had much more than the usual +temptations to live the life of fashion with just enough of public duty +to satisfy both the queen and the very least that is implied by the +motto _Noblesse oblige_. He was splendidly handsome and tall, a perfect +blend of strength and grace, full of deep, romantic interest in great +things far and near: the very man whom women dote on. And yet, through +all 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 'an +Inglishe nation.' + +He left Oxford as an undergraduate to serve the Huguenots in France +under Admiral Coligny and the Protestants in Holland under William of +Orange. Like Hawkins and Drake, he hated Spain with all his heart and +paid off many a score against her by killing Spanish troops at Smerwick +during an Irish campaign marked by ruthless slaughter on both sides. On +his return to England he soon attracted the charmed attention of the +queen. His spreading his cloak for her to tread on, lest she might wet +her 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, Sir +Humphrey Gilbert, then a man of thirty-eight, a royal commission 'to +inhabit and possess all remote and Heathen lands not in the possession +of any Christian prince.' The draft of Gilbert's original prospectus, +dated at London, the 6th of November, 1577, and still kept there in the +Record Office, is an appeal to Elizabeth in which he proposed 'to +discover and inhabit some strange place.' Gilbert was a soldier and knew +what fighting meant; so he likewise proposed 'to set forth certain ships +of war to the New Land, which, with your good licence, I will undertake +without your Majesty's charge.... The New Land fish is a principal and +rich and everywhere vendible merchandise; and by the gain thereof +shipping, victual, munition, and the transporting of five or six +thousand 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 Gilbert +set sail with six vessels, intending to occupy Newfoundland as the base +from which to colonize southwards until an armed New England should meet +and beat New Spain. How vast his scheme! How pitiful its execution! And +yet how immeasurably beyond his wildest dreams the actual development +to-day! Gilbert was not a sea-dog but a soldier with an uncanny +reputation for being a regular Jonah who 'had no good hap at sea.' He +was also passionately self-willed, and Elizabeth had doubts about the +propriety of backing him. But she sent him a gilt anchor by way of good +luck and off he went in June, financed chiefly by Raleigh, whose name +was given to the flagship. + +Gilbert's adventure never got beyond its base in Newfoundland. His ship +the _Delight_ was wrecked. The crew of the _Raleigh_ mutinied and ran +her home to England. The other four vessels held on. But the men, for +the most part, were neither good soldiers, good sailors, nor yet good +colonists, but ne'er-do-wells and desperadoes. By September the +expedition was returning broken down. Gilbert, furious at the sailors' +hints that he was just a little sea-shy, would persist in sticking to +the Lilliputian ten-ton _Squirrel_, which was woefully top-hampered with +guns and stores. Before leaving Newfoundland he was implored to abandon +her and bring her crew aboard a bigger craft. But no. 'Do not fear,' he +answered; 'we are as near to Heaven by sea as land.' One wild night off +the 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 enthusiastic +thoroughness and zeal. Barlow, a skipper who was handy with his pen, +described the scent of that fragrant summer land in terms which +attracted the attention of Bacon at the time and of Dryden a century +later. The royal charter authorizing Raleigh to take what he could find +in this strange land had a clause granting his prospective colonists +'all the privileges of free denizens and persons native of England in +such ample manner as if they were born and personally resident in our +said realm of England.' + +Next year Sir Richard Grenville, who was Raleigh's cousin, convoyed out +to Roanoke the little colony which Ralph Lane governed and which, as we +have 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 if +he had tarried a few days longer. For no sooner had the colony departed +in Drake's vessels than a ship sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh, +'freighted with all maner of things in most plentiful maner,' arrived at +Roanoke; and 'after some time spent in seeking our Colony up in the +countrey, and not finding them, returned with all the aforesayd +provision into England.' About a fortnight later Sir Richard Grenville +himself arrived with three ships. Not wishing to lose possession of the +country where he had planted a colony the year before, he 'landed +fifteene men in the Isle of Roanoak, furnished plentifully with all +maner of provision for two yeeres, and so departed for England.' +Grenville unfortunately had burnt an Indian town and all its standing +corn because the Indians had stolen a silver cup. Lane, too, had been +severe in dealing with the natives and they had turned from friends to +foes. These and other facts were carefully recorded on the spot by the +official chronicler, Thomas Harriot, better known as a mathematician. + +Among the captains who had come out under Grenville in 1585 was Thomas +Cavendish, a young and daring gentleman-adventurer, greatly +distinguished as such even in that adventurous age, and the second +English leader to circumnavigate the globe. When Drake was taking Lane's +men home in June, 1586, Cavendish was making the final preparations for +a 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 object +was to make the voyage pay a handsome dividend. But he did notable +service in clipping the wings of Spain. He raided the shipping off Chile +and Peru, took the Spanish flagship, the famous _Santa Anna_, off the +coast of California, and on his return home in 1588 had the satisfaction +of reporting: 'I burned and sank nineteen sail of ships, both small and +great; and all the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burned and +spoiled.' + +While Cavendish was preying on Spanish treasure in America, and Drake +was 'singeing the King of Spain's beard' in Europe, Raleigh still +pursued his colonizing plans. In 1587 John White and twelve associates +received incorporation as the 'Governor and Assistants of the City of +Ralegh in Virginia.' The fortunes of this ambitious city were not unlike +those of many another 'boomed' and 'busted' city of much more recent +date. No time was lost in beginning. Three ships arrived at Roanoke on +the 22nd of July, 1587. Every effort was made to find the fifteen men +left behind the year before by Grenville to hold possession for the +Queen. Mounds of earth, which may even now be traced, so piously have +their last remains been cared for, marked the site of the fort. From +natives of Croatoan Island the newcomers learned that Grenville's men +had been murdered by hostile Indians. + +One native friend was found in Manteo, a chief whom Barlow had taken to +England and Grenville had brought back. Manteo was now living with his +own tribe of sea-coast Indians on Croatoan Island. But the mischief +between red and white had been begun; and though Manteo had been +baptized and was recognized as 'The Lord of Roanoke' the races were +becoming 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 the +following year, the momentous year of 1588, Raleigh managed to spare two +pinnaces, with fifteen colonists aboard, well provided with all that was +most needed. A Spanish squadron, however, forced both pinnaces to run +back for their lives. After this frustrated attempt two more years +passed before White could again sail for Virginia. In August, 1590, his +trumpeter sounded all the old familiar English calls as he approached +the little fort. No answer came. The colony was lost for ever. White had +arranged that if the colonists should be obliged to move away they +should carve the name of the new settlement on the fort or surrounding +trees, and that if there was either danger or distress they should cut a +cross above. The one word CROATOAN was all White ever found. There was +no cross. White's beloved colony, White's favorite daughter and her +little girl, were perhaps in hiding. But supplies were running short. +White was a mere passenger on board the ship that brought him; and the +crew were getting impatient, so impatient for refreshment' and a Spanish +prize that they sailed past Croatoan, refusing to stop a single hour. + +Perhaps White learnt more than is recorded and was satisfied that all +the colonists were dead. Perhaps not. Nobody knows. Only a wandering +tradition comes out of that impenetrable mystery and circles round the +not impossible romance of young Virginia Dare. Her father was one of +White's twelve 'Assistants.' Her mother, Eleanor, was White's daughter. +Virginia herself, the first of all true 'native-born' Americans, was +born on the 18th of August, 1587. Perhaps Manteo, 'Lord of Roanoke,' +saved the whole family whose name has been commemorated by that of the +North Carolina county of Dare. Perhaps Virginia Dare alone survived to +be an 'Indian Queen' about the time the first permanent Anglo-American +colony was founded in 1607, twenty years after her birth. Who knows? + + * * * * * + +These twenty sundering years, from the end of this abortive colony in +1587 to the beginning of the first permanent colony in 1607, constitute +a period that saw the close of one age and the opening of another in +every relation of Anglo-American affairs. + +Nor was it only in Anglo-American affairs that change was rife. 'The +Honourable East India Company' entered upon its wonderful career. +Shakespeare began to write his immortal plays. The chosen translators +began their work on the Authorized Version of the English Bible. The +Puritans were becoming a force within the body politic as well as in +religion. Ulster was 'planted' with Englishmen and Lowland Scots. In the +midst 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 of +Scots, ascended the throne as the first of the sinister Stuarts, and, +truckling to vindictive Spain, threw Raleigh into prison under suspended +sentence of death. + +There was a break of no less than fifteen years in English efforts to +colonize America. Nothing was tried between the last attempt at Roanoke +in 1587 and the first attempt in Massachusetts in 1602, when thirty-two +people sailed from England with Bartholomew Gosnold, formerly a skipper +in Raleigh's employ. Gosnold made straight for the coast of Maine, which +he sighted in May. He then coasted south to Cape Cod. Continuing south +he entered Buzzard's Bay, where he landed on Cuttyhunk Island. Here, on +a little island in a lake--an island within an island--he built a fort +round which the colony was expected to grow. But supplies began to run +out. There was bad blood over the proper division of what remained. The +would-be colonists could not agree with those who had no intention of +staying behind. The result was that the entire project had to be given +up. Gosnold sailed home with the whole disgusted crew and a cargo of +sassafras and cedar. Such was the first prospecting ever done for what +is now New England. + +The following year, 1603, just after the death of Queen Elizabeth, some +merchant-venturers of Bristol sent out two vessels under Martin Pring. +Like Gosnold, Pring first made the coast of Maine and then felt his way +south. Unlike Gosnold, however, he 'bore into the great Gulfe' of +Massachusetts Bay, where he took in a cargo of sassafras at Plymouth +Harbor. But that was all the prospecting done this time. There was no +attempt at colonizing. + +Two years later another prospector was sent out by a more important +company. The Earl of Southampton and Sir Ferdinando Gorges were the +chief promoters of this enterprise. Gorges, as 'Lord Proprietary of the +Province of Maine,' is a well-known character in the subsequent history +of New England. Lord Southampton, as Shakespeare's only patron and +greatest personal friend, is forever famous through the world. The chief +prospector chosen by the company was George Weymouth, who landed on the +coast of Maine, explored a little of the surrounding country, kidnapped +five Indians, and returned to England with a glowing account of what he +had seen. + +The cumulative effect of the three expeditions of Gosnold, Pring, and +Weymouth was a revival of interest in colonization. Prominent men soon +got together and formed two companies which were formally chartered by +King 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 members +lived there, was authorized to make its 'first plantation at any place +upon the coast of Virginia or America between the four-and-thirty and +one-and-forty degrees of latitude.' The northern or 'second colony,' +afterwards called the Plymouth Company, was authorized to settle any +place between 38 deg. and 45 deg. north, thus overlapping both the first company +to the south and the French to the north. + +In the summer of the same year, 1606, Henry Challons took two ships of +the Plymouth Company round by the West Indies, where he was caught in a +fog by the Spaniards. Later in the season Pring went out and explored +'North Virginia.' In May, 1607, a hundred and twenty men, under George +Popham, started to colonize this 'North Virginia.' In August they landed +in Maine at the mouth of the Kennebec, where they built a fort, some +houses, 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 Raleigh +Gilbert succeeded him as governor. When spring came all the survivors of +the colony sailed home in the pinnace they had built and the enterprise +was abandoned. The reports of the colonists, after their winter in +Maine, were to the effect that the second or northern colony was 'not +habitable for Englishmen.' + +In the meantime the permanent foundation of the first or southern +colony, the real Virginia, was well under way. The same number of +intending emigrants went out, a hundred and twenty. On the 26th of +April, 1607, 'about four a-clocke in the morning, wee descried the Land +of Virginia: the same day wee entered into the Bay of Chesupioc' +[Chesapeake]. Thus begins the tale of Captain John Smith, of the +founding of Jamestown, and of a permanent Virginia, the first of the +future United States. + +Now that we have seen one spot in vast America really become the promise +of the 'Inglishe nation' which Raleigh had longed for, we must return +once more to Raleigh himself as, mocked by his tantalizing vision, he +looked out on a changing world from his secular Mount Pisgah in the +prison Tower of London. + +By this time he had felt both extremes of fortune to the full. During +the travesty of justice at his trial the attorney-general, having no +sound argument, covered him with slanderous abuse. These are three of +the false accusations on which he was condemned to death: 'Viperous +traitor,' 'damnable atheist,' and 'spider of hell.' Hawkins, Drake, +Frobisher, and Grenville, all were dead. So Raleigh, last of the great +Elizabethan lions, was caged and baited for the sport of Spain. + +Six of his twelve years of imprisonment were lightened by the +companionship of his wife, Elizabeth Throgmorton, most beautiful of all +the late Queen's maids of honor. Another solace was the _History of the +World_, the writing of which set his mind free to wander forth at will +although his body stayed behind the bars. But the contrast was too +poignant not to wring this cry of anguish from his preface: 'Yet when we +once 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 weighed +again, the navigation of this life takes end: Then it is, I say, that +our own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beaten +from us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to the +uttermost for all the pleasing passages of our life past.' + +At length, in the spring of 1616, Raleigh was released, though still +unpardoned. He and his devoted wife immediately put all that remained of +their fortune into a new venture. Twenty years before this he thought he +could make 'Discovery of the mighty, rich, and beautiful Empire of +Guiana, and of that great and golden city, which the Spaniards call El +Dorado, and the natives call Manoa.' Now he would go back to find the El +Dorado of his dreams, somewhere inland, that mysterious Manoa among +those southern Mountains of Bright Stones which lay behind the Spanish +Main. The king's cupidity was roused; and so, in 1617, Raleigh was +commissioned as the admiral of fourteen sail. In November he arrived off +the coast that guarded all the fabled wealth still lying undiscovered in +the far recesses of the Orinocan wilds. _Guiana, Manoa, El Dorado_--the +inland voices called him on. + +But Spaniards barred the way; and Raleigh, defying the instructions of +the King, attacked them. The English force was far too weak and disaster +followed. Raleigh's son and heir was killed and his lieutenant committed +suicide. His men began to mutiny. Spanish troops and ships came closing +in; and the forlorn remnant of the expedition on which such hopes were +built went straggling home to England. There Raleigh was arrested and +sent to the block on the 29th of October, 1618. He had played the great +game of life-and-death and lost it. When he mounted the scaffold, he +asked to see the axe. Feeling the edge, he smiled and said: 'Tis a sharp +medicine, but a cure for all diseases.' Then he bared his neck and died +like 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 can +explain. It can, however, be quite easily explained, though never +explained away. He had simply failed to make the Lisbon Expedition +pay--a heinous offence in days when the navy was as much a revenue +department as the customs or excise. He had also failed to take Lisbon +itself. The reasons why mattered nothing either to the disappointed +government or to the general public. + +But, six years later, in 1595, when Drake was fifty and Hawkins +sixty-three, England called on them both to strike another blow at +Spain. Elizabeth was helping Henry IV of France against the League of +French and Spanish Catholics. Henry, astute as he was gallant, had found +Paris 'worth a mass' and, to Elizabeth's dismay, had gone straight over +to the Church of Rome with terms of toleration for the Huguenots. The +war against the Holy League, however, had not yet ended. The effect of +Henry's conversion was to make a more united France against the +encroaching power of Spain. And every eye in England was soon turned on +Drake and Hawkins for a stroke at Spanish power beyond the sea. + +Drake and Hawkins formed a most unhappy combination, made worse by the +fact that Hawkins, now old beyond his years, soured by misfortune, and +staled for the sea by long spells of office work, was put in as a check +on Drake, in whom Elizabeth had lost her former confidence. Sir Thomas +Baskerville was to command the troops. Here, at least, no better choice +could have possibly been made. Baskerville had fought with rare +distinction 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 certain +moods belonged to it; and an incident which took place about this time +seemed to give weight to the arguments of the defensivists. A small +Spanish force, obliged to find water and provisions in a hurry, put +into Mousehole in Cornwall and, finding no opposition, burnt several +villages down to the ground. The moment these Spaniards heard that Drake +and Hawkins were at Plymouth they decamped. But this ridiculous raid +threw the country into doubt or consternation. Elizabeth was as brave as +a 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) and +many supply vessels for the West India voyage, were ordered to cruise +about Ireland and Spain looking for enemies. The admirals at once +pointed out that this was the work of the Channel Fleet, not that of a +joint expedition bound for America. Then, just as the Queen was penning +an angry reply, she received a letter from Drake, saying that the chief +Spanish treasure ship from Mexico had been seen in Porto Rico little +better than a wreck, and that there was time to take her if they could +only sail at once. The expedition was on the usual joint-stock lines and +Elizabeth 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 in +twenty-seven vessels sailed out, bound for New Spain. Surprise was +essential; for New Spain, taught by repeated experience, was well armed; +and twenty-five hundred men were less formidable now than five hundred +twenty years before. Arrived at the Canaries, Las Palmas was found too +strong to carry by immediate assault; and Drake had no time to attack it +in form. He was two months late already; so he determined to push on to +the West Indies. + +When Drake reached Porto Rico, he found the Spanish in a measure +forewarned and forearmed. Though he astonished the garrison by standing +boldly into the harbor and dropping anchor close to a masked battery, +the real surprise was now against him. The Spanish gunners got the range +to an inch, brought down the flagship's mizzen, knocked Drake's chair +from under him, killed two senior officers beside him, and wounded many +more. In the meantime Hawkins, worn out by his exertions, had died. This +reception, added to the previous failures and the astonishing strength +of Porto Rico, produced a most depressing effect. Drake weighed anchor +and went out. He was soon back in a new place, cleverly shielded from +the Spanish guns by a couple of islands. After some more manoeuvres he +attacked the Spanish fleet with fire-balls and by boarding. When a +burning frigate lit up the whole wild scene, the Spanish gunners and +musketeers poured into the English ships such a concentrated fire that +Drake was compelled to retreat. He next tried the daring plan of running +straight into the harbor, where there might still be a chance. But the +Spaniards sank four of their own valuable vessels in the harbor +mouth--guns, stores, and all--just in the nick of time, and thus +completely 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 of +treasure; then he seized Santa Marta and Nombre de Dios, both of which +were found nearly empty. The whole of New Spain was taking the +alarm--_The Dragon's back again!_ Meanwhile a fleet of more than twice +Drake'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 at +Nombre de Dios and started overland, were in full retreat along the road +from Panama, having found an impregnable Spanish position on the way. It +was a sad beginning for 1596, the centennial year of England's first +connection with America. + +'Since our return from Panama he never carried mirth nor joy in his +face,' wrote one of Baskerville's officers who was constantly near +Drake. 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 the +Nicaragua coast. A head wind forced Drake to anchor under the island of +Veragua, a hundred and twenty-five miles west of Nombre de Dios Bay and +right in the deadliest part of that fever-stricken coast. The men began +to sicken and die off. Drake complained at table that the place had +changed for the worse. His earlier memories of New Spain were of a land +like a 'pleasant and delicious arbour' very different from the 'vast and +desert wilderness' he felt all round him now. The wind held foul. More +and more men lay dead or dying. At last Drake himself, the man of iron +constitution and steel nerves, fell ill and had to keep his cabin. Then +reports were handed in to say the stores were running low and that there +would soon be too few hands to man the ships. On this he gave the order +to weigh and 'take the wind as God had sent it.' + +So they stood out from that pestilential Mosquito Gulf and came to +anchor in the fine harbor of Puerto Bello, which the Spaniards had +chosen to replace the one at Nombre de Dios, twenty miles east. Here, in +the night of the 27th of January, Drake suddenly sprang out of his +berth, dressed himself, and raved of battles, fleets, Armadas, Plymouth +Hoe, and plots against his own command. The frenzy passed away. He fell +exhausted, and was lifted back to bed again. Then 'like a Christian, he +yielded up his spirit quietly.' + +His funeral rites befitted his renown. The great new Spanish fort of +Puerto Bello was given to the flames, as were nearly all the Spanish +prizes, and even two of his own English ships; for there were now no +sailors left to man them. Thus, amid the thunder of the guns whose voice +he knew so well, and surrounded by consuming pyres afloat and on the +shore, his body was committed to the deep, while muffled drums rolled +out their last salute and trumpets wailed his requiem. + + + + +APPENDIX + +NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING + + +In the sixteenth century there was no hard-and-fast distinction between +naval and all other craft. The sovereign had his own fighting vessels; +and in the course of the seventeenth century these gradually evolved +into a Royal Navy maintained entirely by the country as a whole and +devoted solely to the national defence. But in earlier days this modern +system was difficult everywhere and impossible in England. The English +monarch, for all his power, had no means of keeping up a great army and +navy without the help of Parliament and the general consent of the +people. The Crown had great estates and revenues; but nothing like +enough to make war on a national scale. Consequently king and people +went into partnership, sometimes in peace as well as war. When fighting +stopped, and no danger seemed to threaten, the king would use his +men-of-war in trade himself, or even hire them out to merchants. The +merchants, for their part, furnished vessels to the king in time of war. +Except as supply ships, however, these auxiliaries were never a great +success. The privateers built expressly for fighting were the only ships +that could approach the men-of-war. + +Yet, strangely enough, King Henry's first modern men-of-war grew out of +a merchant-ship model, and a foreign one at that. Throughout ancient and +medieval 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 sails +only occasionally, and then not in action, while the round ship was +built to carry cargo and to go under sail. The Italian naval architects, +then the most scientific in the world, were trying to evolve two types +of vessel: one that could act as light cavalry on the wings of a galley +fleet, the other that could carry big cargoes safely through the +pirate-haunted seas. In both types sail power and fighting power were +essential. Finally a compromise resulted and the galleasse appeared. The +galleasse was a hybrid between the galley and the sailing vessel, +between the 'long ship' that was several times as long as it was broad +and the 'round ship' that was only two or three times as long as its +beam. Then, as the oceanic routes gained on those of the inland seas, +and as oceanic sea power gained in the same proportion, the galleon +appeared. 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 people +still alive can well remember. + +At the time the Cabots and Columbus were discovering America the +Venetians had evolved the merchant-galleasse for their trade with +London: they called it, indeed, the _galleazza di Londra_. Then, by +the time Henry VIII was building his new modern navy, the real +galleon had been evolved (out of the Italian new war- and older +merchant-galleasses) by England, France, and Scotland; but by England +best of all. In original ideas of naval architecture England was +generally 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 frigates +of 1812 were incomparably better than the corresponding classes in the +British service were; and so on in many other instances. But, in spite +of being rather slow, conservative, and rule-of-thumb, the English were +already beginning to develop a national sea-sense far beyond that of any +other people. They could not, indeed, do otherwise and live. Henry's +policy, England's position, the dawn of oceanic strategy, and the +discovery of America, all combined to make her navy by far the most +important single factor in England's problems with the world at large. +As with the British Empire now, so with England then: the choice lay +between her being either first or nowhere. + +Henry's reasoning and his people's instinct having led to the same +resolve, everyone with any sea-sense, especially shipwrights like +Fletcher of Rye, began working towards the best types then obtainable. +There were mistakes in plenty. The theory of naval architecture in +England was never both sound and strong enough to get its own way +against all opposition. But with the issue of life and death always +dependent on sea power, and with so many men of every class following +the sea, there was at all events the biggest rough-and-tumble school of +practical seamanship that any leading country ever had. The two +essential steps were quickly taken: first, from oared galleys with very +little sail power to the hybrid galleasse with much more sail and much +less in the way of oars; secondly, from this to the purely sailing +galleon. + +With the galleon we enter the age of sailing tactics which decided the +fate of the oversea world. This momentous age began with Drake and the +English galleon. It ended with Nelson and the first-rate, three-decker, +ship-of-the-line. But it was one throughout; for its beginning differed +from its end no more than a father differs from his son. + +One famous Tudor vessel deserves some special notice, not because of her +excellence but because of her defects. The _Henry Grace a Dieu,_ or +_Great Harry_ as she was generally called, launched in 1514, was Henry's +own flagship on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. She +had a gala suit of sails and pennants, all made of damasked cloth of +gold. Her quarters, sides, and tops were emblazoned with heraldic +targets. Court artists painted her to show His Majesty on board wearing +cloth of gold, edged with the royal ermine; as well as bright crimson +jacket, sleeves, and breeches, with a long white feather in his cap. +Doubtless, too, His Majesty of France paid her all the proper +compliments; while every man who was then what reporters are to-day +talked her up to the top of his bent. No single vessel ever had greater +publicity till the famous first _Dreadnought_ of our own day appeared in +the British navy nearly four hundred years later. + +But the much advertised _Great Harry_ was not a mighty prototype of a +world-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 all +the landsmen in her own age, as she has been the delight of picturesque +historians ever since. But she marked no advance in naval architecture, +rather the reverse. She was the last great English ship of medieval +times. Twenty-five years after the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Henry was +commanding another English fleet, the first of modern times, and +therefore one in which the out-of-date _Great Harry_ had no proper place +at all. She was absurdly top-hampered and over-gunned. And, for all her +thousand tons, she must have bucketed about in the chops of the Channel +with the same sort of hobby-horse, see-sawing pitch that bothered +Captain Concas in 1893 when sailing an exact reproduction of Columbus's +flagship, the _Santa Maria_, across the North Atlantic to the great +World'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 fight +turned. But just as our modern fleets require three principal kinds of +vessels--battleships, cruisers, and 'mosquito' craft--so did the fleets +of Henry and Elizabeth. The galleon did the same work as the old +three-decker of Nelson's time or the battleship of to-day. The 'pinnace' +(quite different from more modern pinnaces) was the frigate or the +cruiser. And, in Henry VIII's fleet of 1545, the 'row-barge' was the +principal 'mosquito' craft, like the modern torpedo-boat, destroyer, or +even submarine. Of course the correspondence is far from being complete +in any class. + +The English galleon gradually developed more sail and gun power as well +as handiness in action. Broadside fire began. When used against the +Armada, 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 at +Trafalgar 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. In +the English navy the portholes had been cut so as to let the guns be +pointed with considerable freedom, up or down, right or left. The huge +top-hampering 'castles' and other soldier-engineering works on deck were +modified or got rid of, while more canvas was used and to much better +purpose. + +The pinnace showed the same sort of improvement during the same +period--from Drake's birth under Henry VIII in 1545 to the zenith of his +career as a sea-dog in 1588. This progenitor of the frigate and the +cruiser was itself descended from the long-boat of the Norsemen and +still used oars as occasion served. But the sea-dogs made it primarily a +sailing vessel of anything up to a hundred tons and generally averaging +over fifty. A smart pinnace, with its long, low, clean-run hull, if well +handled under its Elizabethan fighting canvas of foresail and main +topsail, could play round a Spanish galleasse or absurdly castled +galleon like a lancer on a well-trained charger round a musketeer +astraddle on a cart horse.[4] Henry's pinnaces still had lateen sails +copied from Italian models. Elizabeth's had square sails prophetic of +the frigate's. Henry's had one or a very few small guns. Elizabeth's had +as many as sixteen, some of medium size, in a hundred-tonner. + +[4: Fuller in his _Worthies_ (1662) writes: 'Many were the wit-combats +betwixt him [Shakespeare] and Ben Jonson, which two I beheld like a +Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war: Master Jonson (like the +former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his +performances. Shakespeare, like the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, +but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take +advantage of all winds by the quickness of his wit and invention.'] + +The 'mosquito' fleet of Henry's time was represented by 'row-barges' of +his own invention. Now that the pinnace was growing in size and sail +power, while shedding half its oars, some new small rowing craft was +wanted, during that period of groping transition, to act as a tender or +to do 'mosquito' work in action. The mere fact that Henry VIII placed no +dependence on oars except for this smallest type shows how far he had +got on the road towards the broadside-sailing-ship fleet. On the 16th of +July, 1541, the Spanish Naval Attache (as we should call him now) +reported to Charles V that Henry had begun 'to have new oared vessels +built after his own design.' Four years later these same +'row-barges'--long, light, and very handy--hung round the sterns of the +retreating 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 see +them slip away in perfect order and with complete immunity. + +By the time of the Armada the mosquito fleet had outgrown these little +rowing craft and had become more oceanic. But names, types, and the +evolution of one type from another, with the application of the same +name to changed and changing types, all tend to confusion unless the +subject is followed in such detail as is impossible here. + +The fleets of Henry VIII and of Elizabeth did far more to improve both +the theory and practice of naval gunnery than all the fleets in the +world did from the death of Drake to the adoption of rifled ordnance +within the memory of living men. Henry's textbook of artillery, +republished in 1588, the year of the Armada, contains very practical +diagrams for finding the range at sea by means of the gunner's half +circle--yet we now think range-finding a very modern thing indeed. There +are also full directions for making common and even something like +shrapnel shells, 'star shells' to light up the enemy at night, +armor-piercing arrows shot out of muskets, 'wild-fire' grenades, and +many 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 duties +it still discharges by supervising all aids to navigation round the +British Isles. The use of quadrants, telescopes, and maps on Mercator's +projection all began in the reign of Elizabeth, as did many other +inventions, adaptations, handy wrinkles, and vital changes in strategy +and tactics. Taken together, these improvements may well make us of the +twentieth century wonder whether we are so very much superior to the +comrades of Henry, Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Bacon, Raleigh, and Drake. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + +A complete bibliography concerned with the first century of +Anglo-American affairs (1496-1596) would more than fill the present +volume. But really informatory books about the sea-dogs proper are very +few indeed, while good books of any kind are none too common. + +Taking this first century as a whole, the general reader cannot do +better than look up the third volume of Justin Winsor's _Narrative and +Critical History of America_ (1884) and the first volume of Avery's +_History of the United States and its People_ (1904). Both give +elaborate references to documents and books, but neither professes to be +at all expert in naval or nautical matters, and a good deal has been +written 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 recent +works. Nicholls' _Remarkable Life of Sebastian Cabot_ (1869) shows more +zeal than discretion. Harrisse's _John Cabot and his son Sebastian_ +(1896) arranges the documents in scholarly order but draws conclusions +betraying a wonderful ignorance of the coast. On the whole, Dr. S.E. +Dawson's very careful monographs in the _Transactions of the Royal +Society of Canada_ (1894, 1896, 1897) are the happiest blend of +scholarship and local knowledge. Neither the Cabots nor their crews +appear to have written a word about their adventures and discoveries. +Consequently the shifting threads of hearsay evidence soon became +inextricably tangled. Biggar's _Precursors of Cartier_ is an able and +accurate work. + +ELIZABETH. Turning to the patriot queen who had to steer England through +so many storms and tortuous channels, we could find no better short +guide to her political career than Beesley's volume about her in 'Twelve +English Statesmen.' But the best all-round biography is _Queen +Elizabeth_ 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 University +Press, is quite encyclopaedic in its range. + +LIFE AFLOAT. The general evolution of wooden sailing craft may be traced +out in Part I of Sir George Holmes's convenient little treatise on +_Ancient and Modern Ships_. There is no nautical dictionary devoted to +Elizabethan times. But a good deal can be picked up from the two handy +modern glossaries of Dana and Admiral Smyth, the first being an American +author, the second a British one. Smyth's _Sailor's Word Book_ has no +alternative title. But Dana's _Seaman's Friend_ is known in England +under the name of _The Seaman's Manual_. Technicalities change so much +more slowly afloat than ashore that even the ultra-modern editions of +Paasch's magnificent polyglot dictionary, _From Keel to Truck_, still +contain many nautical terms which will help the reader out of some of +his difficulties. + +The life of the sea-dogs, gentlemen-adventurers, and +merchant-adventurers should be studied in Hakluyt's collection of +_Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques, and Discoveries_; though +many of his original authors were landsmen while a few were civilians as +well. This Elizabethan Odyssey, the great prose epic of the English +race, was first published in a single solemn folio the year after the +Armada--1589. In the nineteenth century the Hakluyt Society reprinted +and edited these _Navigations_ and many similar works, though not +without employing some editors who had no knowledge of the Navy or the +sea. In 1893 E.J. Payne brought out a much handier edition of the +_Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America_ which gives the very +parts of Hakluyt we want for our present purpose, and gives them with a +running accompaniment of pithy introductions and apposite footnotes. +Nearly all historians are both landsmen and civilians whose sins of +omission and commission are generally at their worst in naval and +nautical affairs. But James Anthony Froude, whatever his other faults +may be, did know something of life afloat, and his _English Seamen in +the Sixteenth Century_, despite its ultra-Protestant tone, is well worth +reading. + +HAWKINS. _The Hawkins Voyages_, published by the Hakluyt Society, give +the best collection of original accounts. They deal with three +generations of this famous family and are prefaced by a good +introduction. _A Sea-Dog of Devon_, by R.A.J. Walling (1907) is the best +recent biography of Sir John Hawkins. + +DRAKE. Politics, policy, trade, and colonization were all dependent on +sea power; and just as the English Navy was by far the most important +factor in solving the momentous New-World problems of that awakening +age, so Drake was by far the most important factor in the English Navy. +_The Worlde Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake_ and _Sir Francis Drake his +Voyage_, 1595, are two of the volumes edited by the Hakluyt Society. +But these contemporary accounts of his famous fights and voyages do not +bring out the supreme significance of his influence as an admiral, more +especially in connection with the Spanish Armada. It must always be a +matter of keen, though unavailing, regret that Admiral Mahan, the great +American expositor of sea power, began with the seventeenth, not the +sixteenth, century. But what Mahan left undone was afterwards done to +admiration by Julian Corbett, Lecturer in History to the (British) Naval +War College, whose _Drake and the Tudor Navy_ (1912) is absolutely +indispensable to any one who wishes to understand how England won her +footing in America despite all that Spain could do to stop her. +Corbett's _Drake_ (1890) in the 'English Men of Action' series is an +excellent epitome. But the larger book is very much the better. Many +illuminative documents on _The Defeat of the Spanish Armada_ were edited +in 1894 by Corbett's predecessor, Sir John Laughton. The only other work +that need be consulted is the first volume of _The Royal Navy: a +History_, edited by Sir William Laird Clowes (1897). This is not so good +an authority as Corbett; but it contains many details which help to +round the story out, besides a wealth of illustration. + +RALEIGH. Gilbert, Cavendish, Raleigh, and the other +gentlemen-adventurers, were soldiers, not sailors; and if they had gone +afloat two centuries later they would have fought at the head of +marines, not of blue-jackets; so their lives belong to a different kind +of biography from that concerned with Hawkins, Frobisher. and Drake. +Edwards's _Life of Sir Walter Raleigh_ (1868) contains all the most +interesting letters and is a competent work of its own kind. Oldys' +edition of Raleigh's _Works_ still holds the field though its eight +volumes were published so long ago as 1829. Raleigh's _Discovery of +Guiana_ is the favorite for reprinting. The Hakluyt Society has produced +an elaborate edition (1847) while a very cheap and handy one has been +published in Cassell's National Library. W.G. Gosling's _Life of Sir +Humphry Gilbert_ (1911) is the best recent work of its kind. + +The likeliest of all the Hakluyt Society's volumes, so far as its title +is concerned, is one which has hardly any direct bearing on the subject +of our book. Yet the reader who is disappointed by the text of _Divers +Voyages to America_ because it is not devoted to Elizabethan sea-dogs +will be richly rewarded by the notes on pages 116-141. These quaint bits +of information and advice were intended for quite another purpose, But +their transcriber's faith in their wider applicability is fully +justified. Here is the exact original heading under which they first +appeared: _Notes in Writing besides More Privie by Mouth that were given +by a Gentleman, Anno 1580, to M. Arthure Pette and to M. Charles +Jackman, sent by the Marchants of the Muscovie Companie for the +discouerie of the northeast strayte, not all together vnfit for some +other 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, Senor 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; + Cabottaggio, 2; + reaches Cape Breton (1497), 7; + returns to Bristol, 7; + receives a present of L10 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 a 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 + + Laudonniere, Rene 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 + + Tetu, 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 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Elizabethan Sea Dogs, by William Wood + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN SEA DOGS *** + +***** This file should be named 12855.txt or 12855.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/8/5/12855/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Graeme Mackreth and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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