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diff --git a/old/12855-0.txt b/old/12855-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9a6971 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12855-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5970 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elizabethan Sea-Dogs, by William Wood + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Elizabethan Sea-Dogs + A Chronicle of Drake and His Companions + +Author: William Wood + +Release Date: July 8, 2004 [eBook #12855] +[Most recently updated: February 5, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Graeme Mackreth and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS + +A Chronicle of Drake and His Companions + +By William Wood + +1918 + + + + +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 + + PREFATORY NOTE + ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS + CHAPTER I — ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK + CHAPTER II — HENRY VIII, KING OF THE ENGLISH SEA + CHAPTER III — LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES + CHAPTER IV — ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND + CHAPTER V — HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS + CHAPTER VI — DRAKE'S BEGINNING + CHAPTER VII — DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE' + CHAPTER VIII — DRAKE CLIPS THE WINGS OF SPAIN + CHAPTER IX — DRAKE AND THE SPANISH ARMADA + CHAPTER X — 'THE ONE AND THE FIFTY-THREE' + CHAPTER XI — RALEIGH AND THE VISION OF THE WEST + CHAPTER XII — DRAKE'S END + APPENDIX — NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + +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. _Cabottággio_ 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 fête-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—£10.' 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° 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 beddës head: +A man he were as good be dead + As smell thereof the stynke! + + +_Howe—hissa!_ is still used aboard deepwater-men as _Ho—hissa!_ instead +of _Ho—hoist away!_ _What ho, mate!_ is also known afloat, though dying +out. _Y-howe! taylia!_ is _Yo—ho! tally!_ or _Tally 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. René de Laudonnière 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 Laudonnière 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 +Laudonnière, 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 Laudonnière 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 +£200,000 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 £1,800,000, +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 +Têtu, a Huguenot just out from France, with seventy men. Têtu 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 Têtu'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 Têtu. 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 +Têtu 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 Têtu to the +coast. One Frenchman was found. But Têtu 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 è 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° 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 Señora 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! Señor 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°. In 48° '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° +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 idéal_ 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° and 45° 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 à 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 Attaché (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, Señor Juan de, 133 + +Antonio, Don, pretender to the throne of Portugal, 164; and the English +at Lisbon, 194 + +Antwerp, 98, 99, 100 + +Armada, 145, 150, 153, 156, 164, 165, 172, 191, 214 + +Aviles, Don Pedro Menendez de, 86 + +Azores, 150, 169, 194 + +Baber, Sultan in the Moluccas, 141 + +Bacon, Francis, Lord, 62, 210 + +Balboa crosses Isthmus of Panama (1513), 19 + +Barlow, in America (1584), 151, 210 + +Baskerville, Sir Thomas, 224, 227 et seq. + +Bazan, Don Alonzo de, 197, 200 + +Bible, authorized version of, 49, 216 + +'Bond of Association,' 152 Brazil, voyage of Hawkins to, 33-4 + +Bristol, Cabot settles in, 3 + +Burleigh, Lord, 87, 119, 144, 156, 162, 167, 206 + +Cabot, John, transfers allegiance from Genoa to Venice (1476), 1; + —Cabottággio, 2; + —reaches Cape Breton (1497), 7; + —returns to Bristol, 7; + —receives a present of £10 from Henry VII, 8; + —disappears at sea (1498),8-9, 14; + —believes America the eastern limit of the Old World, 11; + —bibliography, 241 + +Cabot, Sebastian, second son of John, 9; + —takes command of expedition to America, 9; + —leaves men to explore Newfoundland, 9; + —coasts Greenland, 12; + —explores Atlantic Coast, 12; + —enters service of Ferdinand of Spain as Captain of the Sea,' 15; + —Charles V makes him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of Pilots,' 15; + —determines longitude of Moluccas, 15; + —voyage to South America, 15; + —makes a map of the world, 15; + —leaves Spain for England(1548), 16; + —receives pension from Edward VI, 16; + —feasts at Gravesend with the _Serchthrift_, 16-17; + —Governor of Muscovy Company, 16, 31; + —sailing of the _Serchthrift_, 32; + —bibliography, 241 + +Cadiz, 165 et seq. + +California, 137, 138, 212 + +Canaries, 157, 226 + +Cape Breton, Cabot reaches (1497), 7 + +Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama sails around, 18 + +Cape St. Vincent, Drake plans to capture, 167 + +Caribs, 80, 158 + +Carleill, 154, 156, 157, 160 + +Cartagena, 88, 108 et seq., 156, 159 + +Cartier, Jacques, second voyage (1535), 12; + —discovers St. Lawrence, 71 + +Cathay, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11; + —Sir Hugh Willoughby tries to find Northeast passage to, 30 + +Cavendish, Thomas, 212 + +Cecil, Sir Robert, 206 + +Charles V of Spain, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22-25; + —his dominions, 23; + —feud with France, 23-24; + —hostile to England, 29; + —Spanish dominion, 71; + —father of Don John of Austria, 117 + +Chesapeake Bay, 220 + +Cockeram, Martin, 34 + +Coligny, Admiral, 207 + +Columbus, Christopher, citizen of Genoa, 1-2; + —visit to Iceland, 3; + —fame eclipses that of the Cabots, 13; + —reasons for his significance, 13; + —400th anniversary of his discovery, 14; + —replica of the _Santa Maria_, 235 + +_Complaynt of Scotland_, The, 42 + +_Cordial Advice_, 40 + +Corunna, 178, 192 + +Cosa, Juan de la, makes first dated (1500) map of America, 14 + +Croatoan Island, 213 et seq. + +Crowndale, Drake's birthplace, 95 + +Cumberland, Earl of, 197 + +Cuttyhunk Island, 216 + +Dare, Virginia, 215 + +_Delight_, The, ship, 209 + +De Soto, 19, 81 + +Doughty, Thomas, 116, 120, 123 et seq., 127 + +_Dragon_, The, ship, 101 + +Drake, Sir Francis, born the same year as modern sea-power (1545), 28; + —on the _Minion_, 92; + —Son of Edmund Drake, 95; + —boyhood, 96 et seq.; + —as lieutenant, on escort to wool-fleet, 100; + —marries Mary Newman, 100; + —sails on Nombre de Dios expedition, 101 et seq.; + —Drake and Nombre de Dios, 104; + —sees the Pacific, 110; + —attacks a Spanish treasure train, 111 et seq.; + —returns to England (1573), 114; + —goes to Ireland, 115; + —recalled for consultation, 118; + —audience with the Queen, 119; + —plans to raid the Pacific, 119; + —sails ostensibly for Egypt, 120; + —his _Famous Voyage_ (1577), 121; + —has trouble with Doughty, 124; + —whom he puts to death, 125; + —winters in Patagonia, 125; + —overcomes disaffection of his men, 126; + —sails through Straits of Magellan, 128; + —enters Pacific, 128; + —takes the _Grand Captain of the South_, 129; + —scours the Pacific taking prizes, 130; + —at Lima, 130; + —pursues Spanish treasure ship, 131; + —captures Don Juan de Anton, 133; + —sails north, 137; + —considered a god by the Indians, 138 et seq.; + —arrives at Moluccas, 141; + —lays foundation of English diplomacy in Eastern seas, 142; + —_Golden Hind_ aground, 142; + —uncertainty at home as to his fate, 144; + —arrives at Plymouth, 145; + —knighted by Elizabeth, 148; + —plans a raid on New Spain, 151; + —prepares for Indies voyage of 1585, 153; + —calls at Vigo, 155; + —plans a + —raid on New Spain, 156; + —captures Santiago and San Domingo, 157; + —takes Cartagena, 159; + —calls at Roanoke, 162; + —arrives at Plymouth, (1580), 162; + —expedition to Cadiz, 165; + —arrests Borough, 167; + —conquers Sagres Castle, 167; + —takes Spanish treasure ship, 169; + —defeats the Armada, 172-191; + —undertakes Lisbon expedition (1589), 192; + —his achievement, 201; + —in disfavor, 223; + —in unhappy combination with Hawkins, 224; + —West Indies voyage, 225; + —seizes La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, 227; + —his last days, 228; + —his death, 229; + —bibliography, 243-4 + +Drake, Edmund, 95 + +Drake, Jack, 121, 132 + +Drake's Bay, 138 + +East India Company, 63, 171, 215 + +Edward VI, 29, 50 + +Elizabeth, the England of, 48 et seq.; + —early life, 50; + —and Mary, 51; + —and Anne of Cleves, 51; + —ascends the throne, 52; + —difficulty of her position, 53; + —and finance, 55; + —her court, 68; + —her love of luxury, 68-69; + —commandeers Spanish gold, 99; + —deposed by Pope, 100; + —tortuous Spanish policy, 117; + —consults Drake, 119; + —receives Drake on his return, 146; + —banquets on the _Golden Hind_, 148; + —knights Drake, 148; + —Babington Plot again, 163; + —beheads Mary Queen of Scots, 165; + —the Armada, 176 et seq.; + —the Lisbon expedition, 192; + —dies, 216; + —bibliography, 242 + +_Elizabeth_, The, ship, 121 + +Essex, Earl of, 116, 118 + +Field of the Cloth of Gold, 234 + +Fleming, Captain, 179, 190 + +Fletcher, Chaplain, 125, 128, 143 + +Fletcher of Rye, discovers the art of tacking, 26; + —as a shipwright, 233 + +Florida, 81, 82, 162 + +Francis I, of France, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22, 24, 71 + +Frobisher, Martin, 120, 154, 160, 220 + +Fuller, Thomas, author of _The Worthies of England_, 101, 237 + +Gamboa, Don Pedro Sarmiento de, 135 + +Genoa, the home of Cabot and Columbus, 2 + +_George Noble_, The, ship, 198 + +Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 208-210 + +Gilbert, Raleigh, 219 + +_God Save the King!_ 95 + +_Golden Hind_, The, ship, 121, 127, 129, 132 et seq., 136, 141, 142, +144, 145, 147, 154, 179 + +Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 217 + +Gosnold, Bartholomew, 216 + +_Grand Captain of the South_, The, ship, 129 + +Gravelines, battle at, 32, 190 + +_Great Harry_, The, ship, 234 + +Grenville, Sir Richard, 195 et seq., 220 + +Gresham, Sir Thomas, 60 + +_Hakluyt's Voyages_, 33 + +Hakluyt Society, 242 et seq. + +Harriot, Thomas, 212 + +Harrison's description of England, 69-70 + +Hatton, Sir Christopher, 127, 146 + +Hawkins, Sir John, son of William Hawkins, 34; + —enters slave trade with New Spain (1562), 74; + —takes 300 slaves at Sierra + —Leona, 75; + —second expedition (1564), 75; + —issues sailing orders, 76; + —John Sparke's account, 77; + —at Teneriffe, 77; + —meets Peter de Ponte, 78; + —Arbol Santo tree, 78; + —takes many Sapies, 79; + —at Sambula, 79; + —island of the Cannibals, 80; + —makes for Florida, 80; + —finds French settlement, 82 et seq.; + —sells the _Tiger_, 85; + —sails north to Newfoundland, 85; + —arrives at Padstow, Cornwall (1565), 85; + —a favorite at court, 85; + —watched by Spain, 86; + —sets out on third voyage (1567), 86; + —begins the sea-dog fighting with Spain, 86; + —Drake joins the expedition, 86; + —disasters, 87; + —crosses from Africa to West Indies, 88; + —clashes with Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha, 88; + —at Cartagena, 89; + —at St. John de Ulua, 89; + —fight with the Spaniards, 90 et seq.; + —parted from Drake in a storm, 93; + —leaves part of his men ashore, 93; + —voyage ends in disaster, 94; + —strikes another blow at Spain (1595), 223; + —unhappily combined with Drake, 224; + —sails for New Spain 226; + —dies, 226; + —bibliography, 243 + +Hawkins, Sir Richard, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 + +Hawkins, William, story of, in Hakluyt _Voyages_, 33 et seq.; + —father of Sir John Hawkins, 34; + —grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, 35, + —and of the second William Hawkins, 35 + +Hawkins, William, the Second, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 + +Henry IV of France, 223 + +Henry VII, Cabot enters service of, 3; + —refuses to patronize Columbus, 4; + —gives patent to the Cabots, 4-6 + +Henry VIII, the monarch of the sea, 20; + —establishes a modern fleet and the office of the Admiralty, 21; + —a patron of sailors, 22; + —menaced by Scotland, France, and Spain, 25; + —defies the Pope, 25; + —defies Francis I, 26; + —birth of modern sea-power (1545), 28; + —and the voyage of Hawkins, 33-34; + —as a patron of the Navy, 232 et seq. + +_Henry Grace à Dieu_, The, ship, 234 + +Honduras, 156, 228 + +Hore, his voyage to America, 33 et seq. + +Hortop, Job, 94 + +Howard of Effingham, Lord, 31, 176, 189, 197 + +Hudson Strait, Sebastian Cabot misses, 12 + +India, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11 + +Ingram, David, 94 + +Inquisition, Spanish, 29, 73 + +Ireland, 147, 191 + +Jackman, 122 + +James I of England, 216, 218 + +Jefferys, Thomas, 66 + +_Jesus_, The, ship, see _Jesus of Lubeck_ + +_Jesus of Lubeck_, The, ship, 75, 76, 86, 89, 91 et seq. + +_Judith_, The, ship, 86, 92 et seq., 98 + +Knollys, 154 + +_La Dragontea_, by Lope de Vega, 157 + +La Hacha, 156, 227 + +Lane, Ralph, 162, 196, 212 + +La Rochelle, 100 + +Laudonnière, René de, 82 et seq. + +Leicester, Earl, of, 146, 164, 176 + +Lepanto, 117, 185 + +Lima, 130, 135, 144 + +Lines of Torres Vedras, 194 + +Lisbon, 144, 168, 192, 223 et seq. + +Lloyd's, 59-61 + +London merchants, 144, 140, 171, 218 + +Lope de Vega, 157 + +Madrid, 86, 172 + +Magellan, Strait of, 120, 127, 128 + +Manoa, 221, 222 + +Map, Juan de la Cosa's earliest + —dated (1500) map of America, + —14; of world by Sebastian + —Cabot (1544), 15; of America + —by Thomas Jefferys, 66 + +Marigold, The, ship, 121, 126, 128, 129 + +Martin, Don, 134, 153 + +Mary, Queen of Scots, 31, 50 + —et seq., 117, 121, 149, 152, + —163, 164, 216 + +_Matthew_, The, ship, 7 + +Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 175 + +Mendoza, 119 + +Menendez, 115, 150 + +Middleton, Captain, 197 + +_Minion_, The, ship, 86, 91 et seq. + +Monopoly, 58, 66 + +Moone, Tom, 129, 154, 161 + +Mosquito, Lopez de, 141 + +Mountains of Bright Stones, 86, 221, 222 + +Muscovy Company, 16, 31 + +Navigation, encouraged by Henry + —VIII, 21, 25, 27; art of tacking + —discovered, 26; birth of modern + —sea-power, 28; sea-songs, 37 + —et seq.; nautical terms, 42 et seq.; + —Pette and Jackman's + —advice to traders, 122-123 + —ftn.; Francisco de Zarate's + —account of Drake's _Golden + —Hind_, 136-137; appendix; note + —on Tudor shipping, 231-239; + —bibliography, 242 + +New Albion, 136, 140 + +Newfoundland fisheries, Bacon on, 62 + +New France, 72, 205 + +Nombre de Dios, 101 et seq., 12O, 135, 156, 227 + +Norreys, Sir John, 176, 193 + +Northwest Passage, 120, 137 + +Oxenham, John, 105, 109, 116, 144 + +Pacific Ocean, taken possession + —of by Balboa (1513), 18; + —Drake enters, 128 et seq. + +Panama, 19, 103, 108, 120, 132, 135, 156, 227 + +Parma, 172 et seq., 189 + +_Pascha_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 114 + +Pedro de Valdes, Don, 188 + +_Pelican_, The, ship, 121, 127 + +Philip of Spain, marries Queen + —Mary, 31; protests against + —Drake's actions, 87; plans to + —seize Scilly Isles, 115; soldiers + —sack Antwerp, 116; seizes + —Portugal, 144; prepares a + —fleet, 150; Paris plot with + —Mary, 150; seizes English + —merchant fleet, 152; duped + —by Hawkins, 153; his credit + —low, 163; resumes mobilization, + —172; prepares the Armada, + —174 et seq. + +Philippines, Vasco da Gama reaches, 19; + —Drake sails to, 141 + +Pines, Isle of, 103 + +Plymouth, 96, 98, 114, 145, 162, 178-180, 217, 225 + +Plymouth Company, 218 + +Pole of _Plimmouth_, The, ship, 33 + +Ponte, Peter de, 78 + +Popham, George, 219 + +Porto Rico, 225, 226 + +Potosi, 28, 73, 95, 130 + +_Primrose_, The, ship, 152 + +Pring, Martin, 217 + +Puerto Bello. 229 + +Purchas, Samuel, 203 + +Ralegh, City of, in Virginia, 213 + +_Raleigh_, The, ship, 209 + +Raleigh, Sir Walter, 195, 205-222; + —bibliography, 244-245 + +Ranse, 103, 108 + +_Revenge_, The, ship, 188, 192-204 + +Ribaut, Jean, 82 + +Roanoke Island, 162, 210 et seq. + +Sagres Castle, 167 + +St. Augustine, 86, 162 + +San Domingo, 156, 157, 161 + +_San Felipe_, The, ship, 197 et seq. + +San Francisco, 137, 138 + +San Juan de Ulua, 89, 98, 99, 153 + +_Santa Anna_, The, ship, 212 + +Santa Cruz, 150, 172 et seq. + +Santa Marta, 156, 227 + +Scilly Isles, 114, 115, 153 + +_Serchthrift_, The, ship, 16-17, 32 + +Shipping, note on Tudor, 231-239 + +Sidney, Sir Philip, 155, 164, 195 + +Slave Trade, 74 et seq. + +_Solomon_, The, ship, 76 + +Somerset, 29-30, 53, 96 + +Southampton, Earl of, 217 + +Spain, rights of discovery, 6; + —Spanish Inquisition, 29, 73; + —breach with England, 72; + —Spanish gold in London, 73; + —Spaniards in Florida, 81-82; + —the 'Spanish Fury' of 1576, 116; + —Drake clips the wings of Spain, 149-171; + —Drake and the Spanish Armada, 172-191; + —Lisbon expedition, 192 et seq.; + —the last fight of the _Revenge_, 197 et seq. + +Sparke, John, his account of Sir John Hawkins's Voyage to Florida, 77 +et seq. + +_Spitfire_, The, ship, 132 + +_Squirrel_, The, ship, 210 + +_Swallow_, The, ship, 86 + +_Swan_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 121, 129 + +Teneriffe, 77-78 + +Ternate, Island of, 141, 142 + +Têtu, Capt., 112 et seq. + +Throgmorton, Elizabeth, 220 + +_Tiger_, The, ship, 60, 85, 154 + +Torres Vedras, Lines of, 194 + +Vasco da Gama finds sea route to India (1498), 18 + +Venice, importance in trade, 2; + —Cabot becomes a citizen of, 2 + +Venta Cruz, 111 + +Vera Cruz, 89 + +Verrazano, 71 + +Virginia, 62, 151. 196, 205, 210, 219 + +Walsingham, Sir Francis, 118, 146 + +West Indies, 84, 157, 201, 208, 219, 225 et seq. + +_Westward Ho!_ Kingsley's, 105 + +Weymouth, George, 218 + +White, John, 212 et seq. + +_William and John_, The, ship, 86 + +William of Orange, 152, 207. + +Willoughby, Sir Hugh, tries to find Northwest Passage, 30; + —dies in Lapland, 30 + +Woolwich, 153, 238 + +_Worthies of England_, The, by Thomas Fuller, 101, 237 + +Zarate, Don Francisco de, 136 + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Elizabethan Sea-Dogs<br /> +  A Chronicle of Drake and His Companions</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: William Wood</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 8, 2004 [eBook #12855]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 5, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Suzanne Shell, Graeme Mackreth and PG Distributed Proofreaders</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS</h1> + +<h3>A Chronicle of Drake and His Companions</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">By William Wood</h2> + +<h4>1918</h4> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"></a> +PREFATORY NOTE</h2> + +<p> +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, <i>Elizabethan +Sea-Dogs</i>, 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. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0001">PREFATORY NOTE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0002">ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER I — ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER II — HENRY VIII, KING OF THE ENGLISH SEA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER III — LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER IV — ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER V — HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER VI — DRAKE'S BEGINNING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER VII — DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE'</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER VIII — DRAKE CLIPS THE WINGS OF SPAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER IX — DRAKE AND THE SPANISH ARMADA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER X — 'THE ONE AND THE FIFTY-THREE'</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER XI — RALEIGH AND THE VISION OF THE WEST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER XII — DRAKE'S END</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_APPE">APPENDIX — NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0016">BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></a> +ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"></a> +CHAPTER I — ENGLAND'S FIRST LOOK</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Il Caboto</i> was as much as for an Arab of the +Desert to be known to his people as The Horseman. <i>Cabottággio</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>especially those of Bristol</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Anglo-American history begins on the 5th of March, 1496, when the Cabots, +father and three sons, received the following patent from the King: +</p> + +<p> +<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +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: <i>Witnesse our Selfe at Westminster, the Fifth day of +March, in the XI yeere of our reigne. HENRY R.</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +<i>To sayle to all Partes of the East, of the West, and of the North</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Matthew</i>, with a crew of only eighteen men, nearly all Englishmen +accustomed to the North Atlantic. The <i>Matthew</i> made Cape Breton, the +easternmost point of Nova Scotia, on the 24th of June, the anniversary of St. +John the Baptist, now the racial fête-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. +</p> + +<p> +Henry VII meanwhile sent a little present 'To Hym that founde the new +Isle—£10.' 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Sebastian said he coasted Greenland, through vast quantities of midsummer ice, +until he reached 67° 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[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.] +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Serchthrift</i> was on the point of sailing to Muscovy and the Directors +were giving it a great send-off. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 <i>Serchthrift</i>, 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"></a> +CHAPTER II — HENRY VIII, KING OF THE ENGLISH SEA</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[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.] +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +'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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>God save the +King</i>! The answering countersign was <i>Long to reign over us</i>! 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. <i>God save the +King</i>! sprang from the navy and the sea. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Serchthrift</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"></a> +CHAPTER III — LIFE AFLOAT IN TUDOR TIMES</h2> + +<p> +Two stories from Hakluyt's <i>Voyages</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +'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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Anon the master commandeth fast<br/> +To his ship-men in all the hast[e],<br/> +To dresse them [line up] soon about the mast<br/> +          Their takeling to make.<br/> +<br/> +With <i>Howe! Hissa!</i> then they cry,<br/> +'What howe! mate thou standest too nigh,<br/> +Thy fellow may not haul thee by:'<br/> +          Thus they begin to crake [shout].<br/> +<br/> +A boy or twain anon up-steyn [go aloft]<br/> +And overthwart the sayle-yerde leyn [lie]<br/> +<i>Y-how! taylia!</i> the remnant cryen [cry]<br/> +          And pull with all their might.<br/> +<br/> +Bestow the boat, boat-swain, anon,<br/> +That our pylgrymms may play thereon;<br/> +For some are like to cough and groan<br/> +          Ere it be full midnight.<br/> +<br/> +Haul the bowline! Now veer the sheet;<br/> +Cook, make ready anon our meat!<br/> +Our pylgrymms have no lust to eat:<br/> +          I pray God give them rest.<br/> +<br/> +Go to the helm! What ho! no neare[r]!<br/> +Steward, fellow! a pot of beer!<br/> +Ye shall have, Sir, with good cheer,<br/> +          Anon all of the best.<br/> +<br/> +<i>Y-howe! Trussa!</i> Haul in the brailes!<br/> +Thou haulest not! By God, thou failes[t]<br/> +O see how well our good ship sails!<br/> +          And thus they say among. +</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p class="poem"> +Thys meane'whyle the pylgrymms lie,<br/> +And have their bowls all fast them by,<br/> +And cry after hot malvesy—<br/> +          'Their health for to restore.' +</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p class="poem"> +Some lay their bookys on their knee,<br/> +And read so long they cannot see.<br/> +'Alas! mine head will split in three!'<br/> +          Thus sayeth one poor wight. +</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p class="poem"> +A sack of straw were there right good;<br/> +For some must lay them in their hood:<br/> +I had as lief be in the wood,<br/> +          Without or meat or drink!<br/> +<br/> +For when that we shall go to bed,<br/> +The pump is nigh our beddës head:<br/> +A man he were as good be dead<br/> +          As smell thereof the stynke! +</p> + +<p> +<i>Howe—hissa!</i> is still used aboard deepwater-men as +<i>Ho—hissa!</i> instead of <i>Ho—hoist away!</i> <i>What ho, +mate!</i> is also known afloat, though dying out. <i>Y-howe! taylia!</i> is +<i>Yo—ho! tally!</i> or <i>Tally and belay!</i> which means hauling aft +and making fast the sheet of a mainsail or foresail. <i>What ho! no nearer!</i> +is <i>What ho! no higher</i> now. But old salts remember <i>no nearer!</i> 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: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And cry after hot malvesy—<br/> +'Their health for to restore.' +</p> + +<p> +Here is another sea-song, one sung by the sea-dogs themselves. The doubt is +whether the <i>Martial-men</i> 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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +We be three poor Mariners, newly come from the Seas,<br/> +We spend our lives in jeopardy while others live at ease.<br/> +We care not for those Martial-men that do our states disdain,<br/> +But we care for those Merchant-men that do our states maintain. +</p> + +<p> +A third old sea-song gives voice to the universal complaint that landsmen cheat +sailors who come home flush of gold. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +For Sailors they be honest men,<br/> +    And they do take great pains,<br/> +But Land-men and ruffling lads<br/> +    Do rob them of their gains. +</p> + +<p> +Here, too, is some <i>Cordial Advice</i> against the wiles of the sea, +addressed <i>To all rash young Men, who think to Advance their decaying +Fortunes by Navigation</i>, as most of the sea-dogs (and gentlemen-adventurers +like Gilbert, Raleigh, and Cavendish) tried to do. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +You merchant men of Billingsgate,<br/> +    I wonder how you thrive.<br/> +You bargain with men for six months<br/> +    And pay them but for five. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +A cursed cat with thrice three tails<br/> +Doth much increase our woe +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +is a poetical way of putting another seaman's grievance. +</p> + +<p> +People who regret that there is such a discrepancy between genuine sea-songs +and shore-going imitations will be glad to know that the <i>Mermaid</i> 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: <i>With a comb and a glass in her hand, her hand, her +hand</i>, etc. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Solo</i>. On Friday morn as we set sail<br/> +          It was not far from land,<br/> +          Oh, there I spied a fair pretty maid<br/> +          With a comb and a glass in her hand.<br/> +<br/> +<i>Chorus</i>. The stormy winds did blow,<br/> +          And the raging seas did roar,<br/> +          While we poor Sailors went to the tops<br/> +          And the land lubbers laid below. +</p> + +<p> +The anonymous author of a curious composition entitled <i>The Complaynt of +Scotland</i>, 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. <i>Amir-al-bahr</i> 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: +<i>Keep full and by! Luff! Con her! Steady! Keep close!</i> Our modern sailor +in the navy, however, would be hopelessly lost in trying to follow directions +like the following: <i>Make ready your cannons, middle culverins, bastard +culverins, falcons, sakers, slings, headsticks, murderers, passevolants, +bazzils, dogges, crook arquebusses, calivers, and hail shot!</i> +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>The Seaman's Grammar</i>, which was compiled by +'Captaine John Smith, sometime Governour of Virginia and Admiral of New +England'—'Pocahontas Smith,' in fact. +</p> + +<p> +'A sail!' +</p> + +<p> +'How bears she? To-windward or lee-ward? Set him by the compass!' +</p> + +<p> +'Hee stands right a-head' (<i>or</i> On the weather-bow, <i>or</i> lee-bow). +</p> + +<p> +'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!' +</p> + +<p> +'Hee holds his owne—No, wee gather on him, Captaine!' +</p> + +<p> +<i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +'He makes ready his close-fights, fore and aft.' [Bulkheads set up to cover men +under fire] ... +</p> + +<p> +'Every man to his charge! Dowse your topsail to salute him for the sea! Hail +him with a noise of trumpets!' +</p> + +<p> +'Whence is your ship?' +</p> + +<p> +'Of Spain—whence is yours?' +</p> + +<p> +'Of England.' +</p> + +<p> +'Are you merchants or men of war?' +</p> + +<p> +'We are of the Sea!' +</p> + +<p> +<i>He waves us to leeward with his drawn sword,</i> <i>calls out 'Amain' for +the King of Spain, and springs his luff</i>[brings his vessel close by the +wind]. +</p> + +<p> +'Give him a chase-piece with your broadside, and run a good berth a-head of +him!' +</p> + +<p> +'Done, done!' +</p> + +<p> +'We have the wind of him, and now he tacks about!' +</p> + +<p> +'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!' +</p> + +<p> +'He pays us shot for shot!' +</p> + +<p> +'Well, we shall requite him!' ... +</p> + +<p> +'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!' ... +</p> + +<p> +'The wind veers, the sea goes too high to board her, and we are shot through +and through, and between wind and water.' +</p> + +<p> +'Try the pump! Bear up the helm! Sling a man overboard to stop the leaks, +<i>that is</i>, 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.' +</p> + +<p> +'What cheer, Mates, is all Well?' +</p> + +<p> +'All's well!' +</p> + +<p> +'Then make ready to bear up with him again!' +</p> + +<p> +'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]. +</p> + +<p> +'Captain, we are foul of each other and the ship is on fire!' +</p> + +<p> +'Cut anything to get clear and smother the fire with wet cloths!' +</p> + +<p> +<i>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....</i> +</p> + +<p> +'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!' ... +</p> + +<p> +'Boy, hallo! is the kettle boiled?' +</p> + +<p> +'Ay, ay, Sir!' +</p> + +<p> +'Boatswain, call up the men to prayer and breakfast!' ... +</p> + +<p> +<i>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 ...</i> +</p> + +<p> +'Sound drums and trumpets: SAINT GEORGE FOR MERRIE ENGLAND!' +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"></a> +CHAPTER IV — ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>Noblesse oblige</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +'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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Tiger</i> immortalized by Shakespeare would +serve as a model still. And what makes it all the more interesting is that the +Elizabethan underwriters calculated the <i>Tiger's</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Ben Jonson and other playwrights were quick to seize the salient absurdities of +such an advertisement. In <i>The Staple of News</i> 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 <i>The +Devil is an Ass</i> he is a little more outspoken. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +We'll take in citizens, commoners, and aldermen<br/> +To bear the charge, and blow them off again<br/> +Like so many dead flies.... +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<i>Pericles</i>: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'I marvel how the fishes live in the sea'—<br/> +'Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.' +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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: +<i>Hereabouts are supposed to be the Mountains of Bright Stones mentioned in +the Map of ye Indian Ochagach.</i> +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I am an English man and naked I stand here,<br/> +Musing in my mind what raiment I shall were;<br/> +For now I will were this, and now I will were that;<br/> +And now I will were I cannot tell what. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <i>nouveaux +riches</i>, 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"></a> +CHAPTER V — HAWKINS AND THE FIGHTING TRADERS</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Jesus of +Lubeck</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +'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 <i>Jesus</i>, and to speak twice a-day with +the <i>Jesus</i> at least.... If the weather be extreme, that the small ships +cannot keep company with the <i>Jesus</i>, then all to keep company with the +<i>Solomon</i>.... 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +'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 <i>almadie</i> nor canoa is, of course, an African word. One +is Arabic for a cradle (<i>el-mahd</i>); the other, from which we get +<i>canoe</i>, 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>lachrymoe crocodili</i>.' +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Floridians</i>, +because he would understand where the Frenchmen inhabited.' Finally he found +them 'in the river of <i>May</i> [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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. René de Laudonnière 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. <i>Stolida</i>, +or the land of fools, and <i>Sordida</i>, or the land of muck-worms, were some +of their <i>jeux d'esprit</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 Laudonnière +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 Laudonnière, 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? +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Tiger</i>, a barque of fifty tons, to Laudonnière 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Jesus</i>, the <i>Minion</i> (which then meant darling), the +<i>William and John</i>, the <i>Judith</i>, the <i>Angel</i>, and the +<i>Swallow</i>. 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 +<i>Judith</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Then came a real rebuff from the governor of Cartagena, followed by a terrific +storm 'which so beat the <i>Jesus</i> 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 £200,000 in +gold and silver, all which, being in my possession [i.e., at my mercy] with the +King's Island ... I set at liberty.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. '<i>Now</i>, said I, <i>I am in two dangers, and forced to receive +the one of them</i>.... 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 £1,800,000, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Jesus</i>. The <i>Jesus</i> and the <i>Minion</i> 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.' +</p> + +<p> +The masts of the <i>Jesus</i> 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 <i>Minion</i>. +But while this desperate manoeuvre was being executed down came two fire-ships. +Some of the <i>Minion's</i> crew then lost their heads and made sail so quickly +that Hawkins himself was nearly left behind. +</p> + +<p> +The only two English vessels that escaped were the <i>Minion</i> and the +<i>Judith</i>. When nothing else was left to do, Hawkins shouted to Drake to +lay the <i>Judith</i> aboard the <i>Minion</i>, 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 <i>Judith</i> 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 <i>Judith</i>, without mentioning Drake's name, as 'forsaking' the +<i>Minion</i>. But no other witness thought Drake to blame. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Minion</i> was of three hundred tons; and so +was insufferably overcrowded with three hundred men, two hundred English and +one hundred negroes. Drake's little <i>Judith</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +The ten Spanish hostages were found safe and sound aboard the <i>Jesus</i>; +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"></a> +CHAPTER VI — DRAKE'S BEGINNING</h2> + +<p> +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 <i>God save the +King!</i> and the answering countersign was <i>Long to reign over us!</i> +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +No dreams of any Golden West had Drake as yet. To the boy in his teens +<i>Westward Ho!</i> 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 <i>Judith</i> after the murderous Spanish treachery at +San Juan de Ulua. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Just as the winter night was closing in, on the 20th of January, 1569, the +<i>Judith</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>The Worthies of England</i>, 'the case was +clear in <i>sea divinitie</i>.' Religious zeal and commercial enterprise went +hand in hand. The case <i>was</i> clear; and the English navy, now mobilized +and ready for war, made it much clearer still. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Westward Ho!</i> in chief command, at the age of twenty-five, with the tiny +flotilla of the <i>Dragon</i> and the <i>Swan</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 <i>Pascha</i> and the <i>Swan</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>recuas</i>, that +is, by mule trains under escort. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Westward Ho!</i>—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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Pascha</i>, <i>Swan</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Swan</i> and burnt his prizes because he +had only men enough for the <i>Pascha</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>recuas</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>recuas</i> 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 +<i>recua</i> they were attacking was a decoy sent on to spring the trap and +that the gold and jewels had been stopped. +</p> + +<p> +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 Têtu, a Huguenot just out +from France, with seventy men. Têtu 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 Têtu'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. +</p> + +<p> +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 Têtu. And when the garrison of +Nombre de Dios arrived a few hours later the gold and jewels had all gone. +</p> + +<p> +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 Têtu 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 Têtu to the coast. One Frenchman was found. But Têtu and the other had +been caught by Spaniards. +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Pascha</i> 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. <i>Soli Deo Gloria.</i>' +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"></a> +CHAPTER VII — DRAKE'S 'ENCOMPASSMENT OF ALL THE WORLDE'</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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: +<i>Inglese italianato è diavolo incarnato—</i>'an Italianized Englishman +is the very Devil.' Doughty was patronized by the Earl of Essex, who had great +influence at court. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +'THE FAMOUS VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE <i>into the South Sea, and therehence +about the whole Globe of the Earth, begun in the year of our Lord 1577</i>' +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 <i>Pelican</i>, afterwards called the <i>Golden Hind</i>, though his +flagship, was of only a hundred tons. The <i>Elizabeth</i>, the <i>Swan</i>, +the <i>Marigold</i>, and the <i>Benedict</i> 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] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[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.'<br/> +    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.'<br/> +    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.'] +</p> + +<p> +Sou'sou'west went Drake's flotilla and made its landfall 'towards the Pole +Antartick' off the 'Land of Devils' in 31° 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +He nothing common did or mean<br/> +Upon that memorable scene. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +'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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Marigold</i>. '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. +</p> + +<p> +Next week Drake sailed for the much dreaded Straits, before entering which he +changed the <i>Pelican's</i> name to the <i>Golden Hind</i>, 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 <i>Marigold</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Grand Captain of the South</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Drake then found a place in Salado Bay where he could clean the <i>Golden +Hind</i> 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 +<i>Elizabeth</i> and the <i>Swan</i> having gone home after parting company in +the storm that sank the <i>Marigold</i>. After a prolonged search the <i>Golden +Hind</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Nuestra Señora de la +Concepcion</i>, 'the chiefest glory of the whole South Sea,' was on her way to +Panama. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Golden +Hind</i>; and most of them were so sea-sick from the heaving ground-swell that +they couldn't have boarded her in any case. +</p> + +<p> +Three more prizes were then taken by the swift <i>Golden Hind</i>. 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 <i>Sail-ho!</i> 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 +<i>Golden Hind</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +To every Englishman's amazement the chase was seen to go about and calmly come +to hail the <i>Golden Hind</i>, 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 <i>Who are you? A ship of +Chili!</i> answered Drake. Anton looked down on the stranger's deck to see it +full of armed men from whom a roar of triumph came. <i>English! strike +sail!</i> Then Drake's whistle blew sharply and instant silence followed; on +which he hailed Don Anton:—<i>Strike sail! Señor Juan de Anton, or I must +send you to the bottom!—Come aboard and do it yourself!</i> 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 +<i>Golden Hind</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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-<i>fire</i> but of the new Spit-<i>silver</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Golden +Hind</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Golden Hind.</i> '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. +</p> + +<p> +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°. In 48° +'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° 30', where, in what is now Drake's +Bay, he came to anchor just north of San Francisco. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Oh!</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Hyoh!</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 <i>Golden Hind</i> 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 <i>Golden Hind</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +Leaving Ternate, the <i>Golden Hind</i> 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 <i>Golden Hind</i> 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, <i>First make thy Will</i>. But the +greatest had now been safely passed. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 +<i>Golden Hind</i> had foundered. That tale was what Winter, captain of the +<i>Elizabeth</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Into this imbroglio sailed the <i>Golden Hind</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +The <i>Golden Hind</i> 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>I bid thee rise, Sir Francis Drake!</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"></a> +CHAPTER VIII — DRAKE CLIPS THE WINGS OF SPAIN</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Primrose</i>, '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! +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Tiger</i>, to which he twice +alludes—once in <i>Macbeth</i> and once in <i>Twelfth Night</i>—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 <i>Tiger</i>. Drake's old crew from the +<i>Golden Hind</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>La Dragontea</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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—<i>Non sufficit +orbis.</i> Drake's humor was greatly tickled, and he and his officers kept +asking the Spaniards to translate the motto again and again. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 <i>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</i> [of Gibraltar] <i>Anno 1586</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"></a> +CHAPTER IX — DRAKE AND THE SPANISH ARMADA</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Golden +Hind</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>yo-hoes</i>! 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Revenge</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>capitana</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"></a> +CHAPTER X — 'THE ONE AND THE FIFTY-THREE'</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>parlementaire</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>en masse</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 +<i>Revenge</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Who seeks the way to win renown,<br/> +Or flies with wings to high desire,<br/> +Who seeks to wear the laurel crown,<br/> +Or hath the mind that would aspire—<br/> +Let him his native soil eschew,<br/> +Let him go range and seek a new. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>beau idéal</i> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The last fight of the <i>Revenge</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Grenville's men were last. The <i>Revenge</i> 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 <i>San +Felipe</i>, of fifteen hundred tons,' ranging up on his weather side, blanketed +his canvas and left him almost becalmed. Immediately the vessels which the +<i>Revenge</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +The first broadside from the <i>Revenge</i> took the <i>San Felipe</i> 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 <i>George Noble</i> of London, a victualler, +stood by the <i>Revenge</i>, offering help before the fight began. But +Grenville, thanking her gallant skipper, ordered him to save his vessel by +following Howard. +</p> + +<p> +With never less than one enemy on each side of her, the <i>Revenge</i> fought +furiously on. <i>Boarders away!</i> shouted the Spanish colonels as the vessels +closed. <i>Repel boarders!</i> 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 <i>Revenge</i> 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 <i>Revenge's</i> 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! +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +Grenville's latest wish was that the <i>Revenge</i> 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 <i>Revenge</i>, beside her own heroic +dead. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Well might this pious Englishman, the Reverend Samuel Purchas, exclaim with +David: <i>Thy ways are in the Sea, and Thy paths in the great waters, and Thy +footsteps are not known</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The Stars of Heaven would thee proclaim<br/> +    If men here silent were.<br/> +The Sun himself could not forget<br/> +    His fellow traveller. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,<br/> +This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,<br/> +This other Eden, demi-paradise;<br/> +This fortress built by nature for herself<br/> +Against infection and the hand of war;<br/> +This happy breed of men, this little world;<br/> +This precious stone set in the silver sea,<br/> +Which serves it in the office of a wall,<br/> +Or as a moat defensive to a house,<br/> +Against the envy of less happy lands:<br/> +This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. +</p> + +<hr class="small" /> + +<p class="poem"> +This England never did, nor never shall,<br/> +Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,<br/> +But when it first did help to wound itself.<br/> +Now these her princes are come home again,<br/> +Come the three corners of the world in arms<br/> +And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,<br/> +If England to herself do rest but true. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"></a> +CHAPTER XI — RALEIGH AND THE VISION OF THE WEST</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +A man so various that he seemed to be<br/> +Not one but all mankind's epitome +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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>I shall yet live to see it an Inglishe nation</i>. 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 +<i>Noblesse oblige</i>. 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gilbert's adventure never got beyond its base in Newfoundland. His ship the +<i>Delight</i> was wrecked. The crew of the <i>Raleigh</i> 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 <i>Squirrel</i>, +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 <i>Squirrel</i> foundered with all +hands. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Santa +Anna</i>, 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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° and 45° north, thus overlapping both +the first company to the south and the French to the north. +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>History of the World</i>, 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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>Guiana, Manoa, El +Dorado</i>—the inland voices called him on. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"></a> +CHAPTER XII — DRAKE'S END</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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—<i>The Dragon's back +again!</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +'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.' +</p> + +<p> +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.' +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_APPE" id="link2H_APPE"></a> +APPENDIX — NOTE ON TUDOR SHIPPING</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>galleazza di Londra</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +One famous Tudor vessel deserves some special notice, not because of her +excellence but because of her defects. The <i>Henry Grace à Dieu,</i> or +<i>Great Harry</i> 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 <i>Dreadnought</i> of our own day appeared in +the British navy nearly four hundred years later. +</p> + +<p> +But the much advertised <i>Great Harry</i> was not a mighty prototype of a +world-wide-copied class of battleships like the modern <i>Dreadnought</i>. 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 <i>Great +Harry</i> 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 <i>Santa Maria</i>, across the North Atlantic to the +great World's Fair at Chicago. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[4: Fuller in his <i>Worthies</i> (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.'] +</p> + +<p> +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 +Attaché (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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2> BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</h2> + +<p> +<a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Taking this first century as a whole, the general reader cannot do better than +look up the third volume of Justin Winsor's <i>Narrative and Critical History +of America</i> (1884) and the first volume of Avery's <i>History of the United +States and its People</i> (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. +</p> + +<p> +THE CABOTS. Cabot literature is full of conjecture and controversy. G.P. +Winship's <i>Cabot Bibliography</i> (1900) is a good guide to all but recent +works. Nicholls' <i>Remarkable Life of Sebastian Cabot</i> (1869) shows more +zeal than discretion. Harrisse's <i>John Cabot and his son Sebastian</i> (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 <i>Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada</i> (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 <i>Precursors of Cartier</i> is an able +and accurate work. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Queen Elizabeth</i> by Mandell +Creighton, who also wrote an excellent epitome, called <i>The Age of +Elizabeth</i>, for the 'Epochs of Modern History.' <i>Shakespeare's +England</i>, published in 1916 by the Oxford University Press, is quite +encyclopaedic in its range. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Ancient and +Modern Ships</i>. 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 <i>Sailor's Word Book</i> has no alternative title. But Dana's +<i>Seaman's Friend</i> is known in England under the name of <i>The Seaman's +Manual</i>. Technicalities change so much more slowly afloat than ashore that +even the ultra-modern editions of Paasch's magnificent polyglot dictionary, +<i>From Keel to Truck</i>, still contain many nautical terms which will help +the reader out of some of his difficulties. +</p> + +<p> +The life of the sea-dogs, gentlemen-adventurers, and merchant-adventurers +should be studied in Hakluyt's collection of <i>Principal Navigations, Voiages, +Traffiques, and Discoveries</i>; 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 <i>Navigations</i> 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 +<i>Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America</i> 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 <i>English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century</i>, despite +its ultra-Protestant tone, is well worth reading. +</p> + +<p> +HAWKINS. <i>The Hawkins Voyages</i>, 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. <i>A Sea-Dog of +Devon</i>, by R.A.J. Walling (1907) is the best recent biography of Sir John +Hawkins. +</p> + +<p> +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. <i>The Worlde Encompassed by +Sir Francis Drake</i> and <i>Sir Francis Drake his Voyage</i>, 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 <i>Drake and the Tudor Navy</i> (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 <i>Drake</i> +(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 <i>The +Defeat of the Spanish Armada</i> were edited in 1894 by Corbett's predecessor, +Sir John Laughton. The only other work that need be consulted is the first +volume of <i>The Royal Navy: a History</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Life of Sir Walter Raleigh</i> (1868) +contains all the most interesting letters and is a competent work of its own +kind. Oldys' edition of Raleigh's <i>Works</i> still holds the field though its +eight volumes were published so long ago as 1829. Raleigh's <i>Discovery of +Guiana</i> 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 <i>Life of Sir Humphry Gilbert</i> +(1911) is the best recent work of its kind. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Divers Voyages to +America</i> 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: <i>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.</i> +</p> + +<p> +See also in <i>The Encyclopaedia Britannica</i>, 11th Ed. the articles on +<i>Henry VIII</i>, <i>Elizabeth</i>, <i>Drake</i>, <i>Raleigh</i>, etc. +</p> + +<h2>Index</h2> + +<p class="noindent"> +Alva, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, 98 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Amadas, in America (1584), 151, 210 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +America; an obstacle to the circumnavigation of the world, 11;<br/> +    —as a reputed source of gold and silver, 65 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Angel</i>, The, ship, 86 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Anton, Señor Juan de, 133 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Antonio, Don, pretender to the throne of Portugal, 164; and the English at +Lisbon, 194 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Antwerp, 98, 99, 100 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Armada, 145, 150, 153, 156, 164, 165, 172, 191, 214 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Aviles, Don Pedro Menendez de, 86 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Azores, 150, 169, 194 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Baber, Sultan in the Moluccas, 141 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Bacon, Francis, Lord, 62, 210 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Balboa crosses Isthmus of Panama (1513), 19 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Barlow, in America (1584), 151, 210 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Baskerville, Sir Thomas, 224, 227 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Bazan, Don Alonzo de, 197, 200 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Bible, authorized version of, 49, 216 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +'Bond of Association,' 152 Brazil, voyage of Hawkins to, 33-4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Bristol, Cabot settles in, 3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Burleigh, Lord, 87, 119, 144, 156, 162, 167, 206 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cabot, John, transfers allegiance from Genoa to Venice (1476), 1;<br/> +    —Cabottággio, 2;<br/> +    —reaches Cape Breton (1497), 7;<br/> +    —returns to Bristol, 7;<br/> +    —receives a present of £10 from Henry VII, 8;<br/> +    —disappears at sea (1498),8-9, 14;<br/> +    —believes America the eastern limit of the Old World, 11;<br/> +    —bibliography, 241 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cabot, Sebastian, second son of John, 9;<br/> +    —takes command of expedition to America, 9;<br/> +    —leaves men to explore Newfoundland, 9;<br/> +    —coasts Greenland, 12;<br/> +    —explores Atlantic Coast, 12;<br/> +    —enters service of Ferdinand of Spain as Captain of the Sea,' +15;<br/> +    —Charles V makes him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of Pilots,' 15;<br/> +    —determines longitude of Moluccas, 15;<br/> +    —voyage to South America, 15;<br/> +    —makes a map of the world, 15;<br/> +    —leaves Spain for England(1548), 16;<br/> +    —receives pension from Edward VI, 16;<br/> +    —feasts at Gravesend with the <i>Serchthrift</i>, 16-17;<br/> +    —Governor of Muscovy Company, 16, 31;<br/> +    —sailing of the <i>Serchthrift</i>, 32;<br/> +    —bibliography, 241 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cadiz, 165 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +California, 137, 138, 212 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Canaries, 157, 226 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cape Breton, Cabot reaches (1497), 7 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama sails around, 18 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cape St. Vincent, Drake plans to capture, 167 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Caribs, 80, 158 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Carleill, 154, 156, 157, 160 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cartagena, 88, 108 et seq., 156, 159 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cartier, Jacques, second voyage (1535), 12;<br/> +    —discovers St. Lawrence, 71 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cathay, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11;<br/> +    —Sir Hugh Willoughby tries to find Northeast passage to, 30 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cavendish, Thomas, 212 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cecil, Sir Robert, 206 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Charles V of Spain, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22-25;<br/> +    —his dominions, 23;<br/> +    —feud with France, 23-24;<br/> +    —hostile to England, 29;<br/> +    —Spanish dominion, 71;<br/> +    —father of Don John of Austria, 117 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Chesapeake Bay, 220 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cockeram, Martin, 34 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Coligny, Admiral, 207 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Columbus, Christopher, citizen of Genoa, 1-2;<br/> +    —visit to Iceland, 3;<br/> +    —fame eclipses that of the Cabots, 13;<br/> +    —reasons for his significance, 13;<br/> +    —400th anniversary of his discovery, 14;<br/> +    —replica of the <i>Santa Maria</i>, 235 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Complaynt of Scotland</i>, The, 42 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Cordial Advice</i>, 40 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Corunna, 178, 192 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cosa, Juan de la, makes first dated (1500) map of America, 14 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Croatoan Island, 213 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Crowndale, Drake's birthplace, 95 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cumberland, Earl of, 197 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Cuttyhunk Island, 216 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Dare, Virginia, 215 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Delight</i>, The, ship, 209 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +De Soto, 19, 81 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Doughty, Thomas, 116, 120, 123 et seq., 127 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Dragon</i>, The, ship, 101 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Drake, Sir Francis, born the same year as modern sea-power (1545), 28;<br/> +    —on the <i>Minion</i>, 92;<br/> +    —Son of Edmund Drake, 95;<br/> +    —boyhood, 96 et seq.;<br/> +    —as lieutenant, on escort to wool-fleet, 100;<br/> +    —marries Mary Newman, 100;<br/> +    —sails on Nombre de Dios expedition, 101 et seq.;<br/> +    —Drake and Nombre de Dios, 104;<br/> +    —sees the Pacific, 110;<br/> +    —attacks a Spanish treasure train, 111 et seq.;<br/> +    —returns to England (1573), 114;<br/> +    —goes to Ireland, 115;<br/> +    —recalled for consultation, 118;<br/> +    —audience with the Queen, 119;<br/> +    —plans to raid the Pacific, 119;<br/> +    —sails ostensibly for Egypt, 120;<br/> +    —his <i>Famous Voyage</i> (1577), 121;<br/> +    —has trouble with Doughty, 124;<br/> +    —whom he puts to death, 125;<br/> +    —winters in Patagonia, 125;<br/> +    —overcomes disaffection of his men, 126;<br/> +    —sails through Straits of Magellan, 128;<br/> +    —enters Pacific, 128;<br/> +    —takes the <i>Grand Captain of the South</i>, 129;<br/> +    —scours the Pacific taking prizes, 130;<br/> +    —at Lima, 130;<br/> +    —pursues Spanish treasure ship, 131;<br/> +    —captures Don Juan de Anton, 133;<br/> +    —sails north, 137;<br/> +    —considered a god by the Indians, 138 et seq.;<br/> +    —arrives at Moluccas, 141;<br/> +    —lays foundation of English diplomacy in Eastern seas, 142;<br/> +    —<i>Golden Hind</i> aground, 142;<br/> +    —uncertainty at home as to his fate, 144;<br/> +    —arrives at Plymouth, 145;<br/> +    —knighted by Elizabeth, 148;<br/> +    —plans a raid on New Spain, 151;<br/> +    —prepares for Indies voyage of 1585, 153;<br/> +    —calls at Vigo, 155;<br/> +    —plans a<br/> +    —raid on New Spain, 156;<br/> +    —captures Santiago and San Domingo, 157;<br/> +    —takes Cartagena, 159;<br/> +    —calls at Roanoke, 162;<br/> +    —arrives at Plymouth, (1580), 162;<br/> +    —expedition to Cadiz, 165;<br/> +    —arrests Borough, 167;<br/> +    —conquers Sagres Castle, 167;<br/> +    —takes Spanish treasure ship, 169;<br/> +    —defeats the Armada, 172-191;<br/> +    —undertakes Lisbon expedition (1589), 192;<br/> +    —his achievement, 201;<br/> +    —in disfavor, 223;<br/> +    —in unhappy combination with Hawkins, 224;<br/> +    —West Indies voyage, 225;<br/> +    —seizes La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, 227;<br/> +    —his last days, 228;<br/> +    —his death, 229;<br/> +    —bibliography, 243-4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Drake, Edmund, 95 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Drake, Jack, 121, 132 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Drake's Bay, 138 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +East India Company, 63, 171, 215 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Edward VI, 29, 50 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Elizabeth, the England of, 48 et seq.;<br/> +    —early life, 50;<br/> +    —and Mary, 51;<br/> +    —and Anne of Cleves, 51;<br/> +    —ascends the throne, 52;<br/> +    —difficulty of her position, 53;<br/> +    —and finance, 55;<br/> +    —her court, 68;<br/> +    —her love of luxury, 68-69;<br/> +    —commandeers Spanish gold, 99;<br/> +    —deposed by Pope, 100;<br/> +    —tortuous Spanish policy, 117;<br/> +    —consults Drake, 119;<br/> +    —receives Drake on his return, 146;<br/> +    —banquets on the <i>Golden Hind</i>, 148;<br/> +    —knights Drake, 148;<br/> +    —Babington Plot again, 163;<br/> +    —beheads Mary Queen of Scots, 165;<br/> +    —the Armada, 176 et seq.;<br/> +    —the Lisbon expedition, 192;<br/> +    —dies, 216;<br/> +    —bibliography, 242 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Elizabeth</i>, The, ship, 121 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Essex, Earl of, 116, 118 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Field of the Cloth of Gold, 234 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fleming, Captain, 179, 190 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fletcher, Chaplain, 125, 128, 143 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fletcher of Rye, discovers the art of tacking, 26;<br/> +    —as a shipwright, 233 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Florida, 81, 82, 162 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Francis I, of France, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22, 24, 71 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Frobisher, Martin, 120, 154, 160, 220 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fuller, Thomas, author of <i>The Worthies of England</i>, 101, 237 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gamboa, Don Pedro Sarmiento de, 135 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Genoa, the home of Cabot and Columbus, 2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>George Noble</i>, The, ship, 198 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 208-210 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gilbert, Raleigh, 219 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>God Save the King!</i> 95 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Golden Hind</i>, The, ship, 121, 127, 129, 132 et seq., 136, 141, 142, 144, +145, 147, 154, 179 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 217 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gosnold, Bartholomew, 216 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Grand Captain of the South</i>, The, ship, 129 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gravelines, battle at, 32, 190 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Great Harry</i>, The, ship, 234 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Grenville, Sir Richard, 195 et seq., 220 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gresham, Sir Thomas, 60 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Hakluyt's Voyages</i>, 33 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hakluyt Society, 242 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Harriot, Thomas, 212 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Harrison's description of England, 69-70 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hatton, Sir Christopher, 127, 146 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hawkins, Sir John, son of William Hawkins, 34;<br/> +    —enters slave trade with New Spain (1562), 74;<br/> +    —takes 300 slaves at Sierra<br/> +    —Leona, 75;<br/> +    —second expedition (1564), 75;<br/> +    —issues sailing orders, 76;<br/> +    —John Sparke's account, 77;<br/> +    —at Teneriffe, 77;<br/> +    —meets Peter de Ponte, 78;<br/> +    —Arbol Santo tree, 78;<br/> +    —takes many Sapies, 79;<br/> +    —at Sambula, 79;<br/> +    —island of the Cannibals, 80;<br/> +    —makes for Florida, 80;<br/> +    —finds French settlement, 82 et seq.;<br/> +    —sells the <i>Tiger</i>, 85;<br/> +    —sails north to Newfoundland, 85;<br/> +    —arrives at Padstow, Cornwall (1565), 85;<br/> +    —a favorite at court, 85;<br/> +    —watched by Spain, 86;<br/> +    —sets out on third voyage (1567), 86;<br/> +    —begins the sea-dog fighting with Spain, 86;<br/> +    —Drake joins the expedition, 86;<br/> +    —disasters, 87;<br/> +    —crosses from Africa to West Indies, 88;<br/> +    —clashes with Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha, 88;<br/> +    —at Cartagena, 89;<br/> +    —at St. John de Ulua, 89;<br/> +    —fight with the Spaniards, 90 et seq.;<br/> +    —parted from Drake in a storm, 93;<br/> +    —leaves part of his men ashore, 93;<br/> +    —voyage ends in disaster, 94;<br/> +    —strikes another blow at Spain (1595), 223;<br/> +    —unhappily combined with Drake, 224;<br/> +    —sails for New Spain 226;<br/> +    —dies, 226;<br/> +    —bibliography, 243 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hawkins, Sir Richard, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hawkins, William, story of, in Hakluyt <i>Voyages</i>, 33 et seq.;<br/> +    —father of Sir John Hawkins, 34;<br/> +    —grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, 35,<br/> +    —and of the second William Hawkins, 35 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hawkins, William, the Second, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Henry IV of France, 223 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Henry VII, Cabot enters service of, 3;<br/> +    —refuses to patronize Columbus, 4;<br/> +    —gives patent to the Cabots, 4-6 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Henry VIII, the monarch of the sea, 20;<br/> +    —establishes a modern fleet and the office of the Admiralty, 21;<br/> +    —a patron of sailors, 22;<br/> +    —menaced by Scotland, France, and Spain, 25;<br/> +    —defies the Pope, 25;<br/> +    —defies Francis I, 26;<br/> +    —birth of modern sea-power (1545), 28;<br/> +    —and the voyage of Hawkins, 33-34;<br/> +    —as a patron of the Navy, 232 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Henry Grace à Dieu</i>, The, ship, 234 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Honduras, 156, 228 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hore, his voyage to America, 33 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hortop, Job, 94 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Howard of Effingham, Lord, 31, 176, 189, 197 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hudson Strait, Sebastian Cabot misses, 12 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +India, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ingram, David, 94 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Inquisition, Spanish, 29, 73 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ireland, 147, 191 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Jackman, 122 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +James I of England, 216, 218 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Jefferys, Thomas, 66 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Jesus</i>, The, ship, see <i>Jesus of Lubeck</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Jesus of Lubeck</i>, The, ship, 75, 76, 86, 89, 91 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Judith</i>, The, ship, 86, 92 et seq., 98 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Knollys, 154 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>La Dragontea</i>, by Lope de Vega, 157 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +La Hacha, 156, 227 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lane, Ralph, 162, 196, 212 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +La Rochelle, 100 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Laudonnière, René de, 82 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Leicester, Earl, of, 146, 164, 176 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lepanto, 117, 185 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lima, 130, 135, 144 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lines of Torres Vedras, 194 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lisbon, 144, 168, 192, 223 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lloyd's, 59-61 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +London merchants, 144, 140, 171, 218 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lope de Vega, 157 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Madrid, 86, 172 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Magellan, Strait of, 120, 127, 128 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Manoa, 221, 222 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Map, Juan de la Cosa's earliest<br/> +    —dated (1500) map of America,<br/> +    —14; of world by Sebastian<br/> +    —Cabot (1544), 15; of America<br/> +    —by Thomas Jefferys, 66 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Marigold, The, ship, 121, 126, 128, 129 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Martin, Don, 134, 153 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mary, Queen of Scots, 31, 50<br/> +    —et seq., 117, 121, 149, 152,<br/> +    —163, 164, 216 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Matthew</i>, The, ship, 7 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 175 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mendoza, 119 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Menendez, 115, 150 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Middleton, Captain, 197 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Minion</i>, The, ship, 86, 91 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Monopoly, 58, 66 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Moone, Tom, 129, 154, 161 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mosquito, Lopez de, 141 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mountains of Bright Stones, 86, 221, 222 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Muscovy Company, 16, 31 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Navigation, encouraged by Henry<br/> +    —VIII, 21, 25, 27; art of tacking<br/> +    —discovered, 26; birth of modern<br/> +    —sea-power, 28; sea-songs, 37<br/> +    —et seq.; nautical terms, 42 et seq.;<br/> +    —Pette and Jackman's<br/> +    —advice to traders, 122-123<br/> +    —ftn.; Francisco de Zarate's<br/> +    —account of Drake's <i>Golden<br/> +    —Hind</i>, 136-137; appendix; note<br/> +    —on Tudor shipping, 231-239;<br/> +    —bibliography, 242 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +New Albion, 136, 140 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Newfoundland fisheries, Bacon on, 62 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +New France, 72, 205 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Nombre de Dios, 101 et seq., 12O, 135, 156, 227 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Norreys, Sir John, 176, 193 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Northwest Passage, 120, 137 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oxenham, John, 105, 109, 116, 144 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Pacific Ocean, taken possession<br/> +    —of by Balboa (1513), 18;<br/> +    —Drake enters, 128 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Panama, 19, 103, 108, 120, 132, 135, 156, 227 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Parma, 172 et seq., 189 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Pascha</i>, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 114 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Pedro de Valdes, Don, 188 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Pelican</i>, The, ship, 121, 127 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Philip of Spain, marries Queen<br/> +    —Mary, 31; protests against<br/> +    —Drake's actions, 87; plans to<br/> +    —seize Scilly Isles, 115; soldiers<br/> +    —sack Antwerp, 116; seizes<br/> +    —Portugal, 144; prepares a<br/> +    —fleet, 150; Paris plot with<br/> +    —Mary, 150; seizes English<br/> +    —merchant fleet, 152; duped<br/> +    —by Hawkins, 153; his credit<br/> +    —low, 163; resumes mobilization,<br/> +    —172; prepares the Armada,<br/> +    —174 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Philippines, Vasco da Gama reaches, 19;<br/> +    —Drake sails to, 141 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Pines, Isle of, 103 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Plymouth, 96, 98, 114, 145, 162, 178-180, 217, 225 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Plymouth Company, 218 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Pole of <i>Plimmouth</i>, The, ship, 33 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ponte, Peter de, 78 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Popham, George, 219 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Porto Rico, 225, 226 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Potosi, 28, 73, 95, 130 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Primrose</i>, The, ship, 152 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Pring, Martin, 217 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Puerto Bello. 229 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Purchas, Samuel, 203 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ralegh, City of, in Virginia, 213 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Raleigh</i>, The, ship, 209 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Raleigh, Sir Walter, 195, 205-222;<br/> +    —bibliography, 244-245 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ranse, 103, 108 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Revenge</i>, The, ship, 188, 192-204 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ribaut, Jean, 82 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Roanoke Island, 162, 210 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sagres Castle, 167 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +St. Augustine, 86, 162 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +San Domingo, 156, 157, 161 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>San Felipe</i>, The, ship, 197 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +San Francisco, 137, 138 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +San Juan de Ulua, 89, 98, 99, 153 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Santa Anna</i>, The, ship, 212 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Santa Cruz, 150, 172 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Santa Marta, 156, 227 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Scilly Isles, 114, 115, 153 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Serchthrift</i>, The, ship, 16-17, 32 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Shipping, note on Tudor, 231-239 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sidney, Sir Philip, 155, 164, 195 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Slave Trade, 74 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Solomon</i>, The, ship, 76 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Somerset, 29-30, 53, 96 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Southampton, Earl of, 217 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Spain, rights of discovery, 6;<br/> +    —Spanish Inquisition, 29, 73;<br/> +    —breach with England, 72;<br/> +    —Spanish gold in London, 73;<br/> +    —Spaniards in Florida, 81-82;<br/> +    —the 'Spanish Fury' of 1576, 116;<br/> +    —Drake clips the wings of Spain, 149-171;<br/> +    —Drake and the Spanish Armada, 172-191;<br/> +    —Lisbon expedition, 192 et seq.;<br/> +    —the last fight of the <i>Revenge</i>, 197 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sparke, John, his account of Sir John Hawkins's Voyage to Florida, 77 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Spitfire</i>, The, ship, 132 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Squirrel</i>, The, ship, 210 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Swallow</i>, The, ship, 86 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Swan</i>, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 121, 129 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Teneriffe, 77-78 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ternate, Island of, 141, 142 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Têtu, Capt., 112 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Throgmorton, Elizabeth, 220 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Tiger</i>, The, ship, 60, 85, 154 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Torres Vedras, Lines of, 194 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Vasco da Gama finds sea route to India (1498), 18 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Venice, importance in trade, 2;<br/> +    —Cabot becomes a citizen of, 2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Venta Cruz, 111 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Vera Cruz, 89 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Verrazano, 71 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Virginia, 62, 151. 196, 205, 210, 219 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Walsingham, Sir Francis, 118, 146 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +West Indies, 84, 157, 201, 208, 219, 225 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Westward Ho!</i> Kingsley's, 105 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Weymouth, George, 218 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +White, John, 212 et seq. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>William and John</i>, The, ship, 86 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +William of Orange, 152, 207. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Willoughby, Sir Hugh, tries to find Northwest Passage, 30;<br/> +    —dies in Lapland, 30 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Woolwich, 153, 238 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +<i>Worthies of England</i>, The, by Thomas Fuller, 101, 237 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Zarate, Don Francisco de, 136 +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETHAN SEA-DOGS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy 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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] +Last Updated: October 10, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** 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. _Cabottággio_ 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 fête-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--£10.' 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° 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 beddës head: + A man he were as good be dead + As smell thereof the stynke! + +_Howe--hissa!_ is still used aboard deepwater-men as _Ho--hissa!_ +instead of _Ho--hoist away!_ _What ho, mate!_ is also known afloat, +though dying out. _Y-howe! taylia!_ is _Yo--ho! tally!_ or _Tally 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. René de Laudonnière 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 Laudonnière 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 Laudonnière, 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 Laudonnière 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 +£200,000 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 £1,800,000, 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 +Têtu, a Huguenot just out from France, with seventy men. Têtu 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 Têtu'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 Têtu. 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 +Têtu 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 Têtu to the coast. +One Frenchman was found. But Têtu 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 è 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° 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 Señora +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! +Señor 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°. In 48° '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° 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 idéal_ 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° and 45° 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 à 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 Attaché (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, Señor Juan de, 133 + + Antonio, Don, pretender to the throne of Portugal, 164; and the English + at Lisbon, 194 + + Antwerp, 98, 99, 100 + + Armada, 145, 150, 153, 156, 164, 165, 172, 191, 214 + + Aviles, Don Pedro Menendez de, 86 + + Azores, 150, 169, 194 + + Baber, Sultan in the Moluccas, 141 + + Bacon, Francis, Lord, 62, 210 + + Balboa crosses Isthmus of Panama (1513), 19 + + Barlow, in America (1584), 151, 210 + + Baskerville, Sir Thomas, 224, 227 et seq. + + Bazan, Don Alonzo de, 197, 200 + + Bible, authorized version of, 49, 216 + + 'Bond of Association,' 152 Brazil, voyage of Hawkins to, 33-4 + + Bristol, Cabot settles in, 3 + + Burleigh, Lord, 87, 119, 144, 156, 162, 167, 206 + + Cabot, John, transfers allegiance from Genoa to Venice (1476), 1; + Cabottággio, 2; + reaches Cape Breton (1497), 7; + returns to Bristol, 7; + receives a present of £10 from Henry VII, 8; + disappears at sea (1498),8-9, 14; + believes America the eastern limit of the Old World, 11; + bibliography, 241 + + Cabot, Sebastian, second son of John, 9; + takes command of expedition to America, 9; + leaves men to explore Newfoundland, 9; + coasts Greenland, 12; + explores Atlantic Coast, 12; + enters service of Ferdinand of Spain as Captain of the Sea,' 15; + Charles V makes him 'Chief Pilot and Examiner of Pilots,' 15; + determines longitude of Moluccas, 15; + voyage to South America, 15; + makes a map of the world, 15; + leaves Spain for England(1548), 16; + receives pension from Edward VI, 16; + feasts at Gravesend with the _Serchthrift_, 16-17; + Governor of Muscovy Company, 16, 31; + sailing of the _Serchthrift_, 32; + bibliography, 241 + + Cadiz, 165 et seq. + + California, 137, 138, 212 + + Canaries, 157, 226 + + Cape Breton, Cabot reaches (1497), 7 + + Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama sails around, 18 + + Cape St. Vincent, Drake plans to capture, 167 + + Caribs, 80, 158 + + Carleill, 154, 156, 157, 160 + + Cartagena, 88, 108 et seq., 156, 159 + + Cartier, Jacques, second voyage (1535), 12; + discovers St. Lawrence, 71 + + Cathay, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11; + Sir Hugh Willoughby tries to find Northeast passage to, 30 + + Cavendish, Thomas, 212 + + Cecil, Sir Robert, 206 + + Charles V of Spain, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22-25; + his dominions, 23; + feud with France, 23-24; + hostile to England, 29; + Spanish dominion, 71; + father of Don John of Austria, 117 + + Chesapeake Bay, 220 + + Cockeram, Martin, 34 + + Coligny, Admiral, 207 + + Columbus, Christopher, citizen of Genoa, 1-2; + visit to Iceland, 3; + fame eclipses that of the Cabots, 13; + reasons for his significance, 13; + 400th anniversary of his discovery, 14; + replica of the _Santa Maria_, 235 + + _Complaynt of Scotland_, The, 42 + + _Cordial Advice_, 40 + + Corunna, 178, 192 + + Cosa, Juan de la, makes first dated (1500) map of America, 14 + + Croatoan Island, 213 et seq. + + Crowndale, Drake's birthplace, 95 + + Cumberland, Earl of, 197 + + Cuttyhunk Island, 216 + + Dare, Virginia, 215 + + _Delight_, The, ship, 209 + + De Soto, 19, 81 + + Doughty, Thomas, 116, 120, 123 et seq., 127 + + _Dragon_, The, ship, 101 + + Drake, Sir Francis, born the same year as modern sea-power (1545), 28; + on the _Minion_, 92; + Son of Edmund Drake, 95; + boyhood, 96 et seq.; + as lieutenant, on escort to wool-fleet, 100; + marries Mary Newman, 100; + sails on Nombre de Dios expedition, 101 et seq.; + Drake and Nombre de Dios, 104; + sees the Pacific, 110; + attacks a Spanish treasure train, 111 et seq.; + returns to England (1573), 114; + goes to Ireland, 115; + recalled for consultation, 118; + audience with the Queen, 119; + plans to raid the Pacific, 119; + sails ostensibly for Egypt, 120; + his _Famous Voyage_ (1577), 121; + has trouble with Doughty, 124; + whom he puts to death, 125; + winters in Patagonia, 125; + overcomes disaffection of his men, 126; + sails through Straits of Magellan, 128; + enters Pacific, 128; + takes the _Grand Captain of the South_, 129; + scours the Pacific taking prizes, 130; + at Lima, 130; + pursues Spanish treasure ship, 131; + captures Don Juan de Anton, 133; + sails north, 137; + considered a god by the Indians, 138 et seq.; + arrives at Moluccas, 141; + lays foundation of English diplomacy in Eastern seas, 142; + _Golden Hind_ aground, 142; + uncertainty at home as to his fate, 144; + arrives at Plymouth, 145; + knighted by Elizabeth, 148; + plans a raid on New Spain, 151; + prepares for Indies voyage of 1585, 153; + calls at Vigo, 155; + plans a + raid on New Spain, 156; + captures Santiago and San Domingo, 157; + takes Cartagena, 159; + calls at Roanoke, 162; + arrives at Plymouth, (1580), 162; + expedition to Cadiz, 165; + arrests Borough, 167; + conquers Sagres Castle, 167; + takes Spanish treasure ship, 169; + defeats the Armada, 172-191; + undertakes Lisbon expedition (1589), 192; + his achievement, 201; + in disfavor, 223; + in unhappy combination with Hawkins, 224; + West Indies voyage, 225; + seizes La Hacha, Santa Marta, and Nombre de Dios, 227; + his last days, 228; + his death, 229; + bibliography, 243-4 + + Drake, Edmund, 95 + + Drake, Jack, 121, 132 + + Drake's Bay, 138 + + East India Company, 63, 171, 215 + + Edward VI, 29, 50 + + Elizabeth, the England of, 48 et seq.; + early life, 50; + and Mary, 51; + and Anne of Cleves, 51; + ascends the throne, 52; + difficulty of her position, 53; + and finance, 55; + her court, 68; + her love of luxury, 68-69; + commandeers Spanish gold, 99; + deposed by Pope, 100; + tortuous Spanish policy, 117; + consults Drake, 119; + receives Drake on his return, 146; + banquets on the _Golden Hind_, 148; + knights Drake, 148; + Babington Plot again, 163; + beheads Mary Queen of Scots, 165; + the Armada, 176 et seq.; + the Lisbon expedition, 192; + dies, 216; + bibliography, 242 + + _Elizabeth_, The, ship, 121 + + Essex, Earl of, 116, 118 + + Field of the Cloth of Gold, 234 + + Fleming, Captain, 179, 190 + + Fletcher, Chaplain, 125, 128, 143 + + Fletcher of Rye, discovers the art of tacking, 26; + as a shipwright, 233 + + Florida, 81, 82, 162 + + Francis I, of France, maritime rival of Henry VIII, 22, 24, 71 + + Frobisher, Martin, 120, 154, 160, 220 + + Fuller, Thomas, author of _The Worthies of England_, 101, 237 + + Gamboa, Don Pedro Sarmiento de, 135 + + Genoa, the home of Cabot and Columbus, 2 + + _George Noble_, The, ship, 198 + + Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 208-210 + + Gilbert, Raleigh, 219 + + _God Save the King!_ 95 + + _Golden Hind_, The, ship, 121, 127, 129, 132 et seq., 136, 141, 142, + 144, 145, 147, 154, 179 + + Gorges, Sir Ferdinando, 217 + + Gosnold, Bartholomew, 216 + + _Grand Captain of the South_, The, ship, 129 + + Gravelines, battle at, 32, 190 + + _Great Harry_, The, ship, 234 + + Grenville, Sir Richard, 195 et seq., 220 + + Gresham, Sir Thomas, 60 + + _Hakluyt's Voyages_, 33 + + Hakluyt Society, 242 et seq. + + Harriot, Thomas, 212 + + Harrison's description of England, 69-70 + + Hatton, Sir Christopher, 127, 146 + + Hawkins, Sir John, son of William Hawkins, 34; + enters slave trade with New Spain (1562), 74; + takes 300 slaves at Sierra + Leona, 75; + second expedition (1564), 75; + issues sailing orders, 76; + John Sparke's account, 77; + at Teneriffe, 77; + meets Peter de Ponte, 78; + Arbol Santo tree, 78; + takes many Sapies, 79; + at Sambula, 79; + island of the Cannibals, 80; + makes for Florida, 80; + finds French settlement, 82 et seq.; + sells the _Tiger_, 85; + sails north to Newfoundland, 85; + arrives at Padstow, Cornwall (1565), 85; + a favorite at court, 85; + watched by Spain, 86; + sets out on third voyage (1567), 86; + begins the sea-dog fighting with Spain, 86; + Drake joins the expedition, 86; + disasters, 87; + crosses from Africa to West Indies, 88; + clashes with Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha, 88; + at Cartagena, 89; + at St. John de Ulua, 89; + fight with the Spaniards, 90 et seq.; + parted from Drake in a storm, 93; + leaves part of his men ashore, 93; + voyage ends in disaster, 94; + strikes another blow at Spain (1595), 223; + unhappily combined with Drake, 224; + sails for New Spain 226; + dies, 226; + bibliography, 243 + + Hawkins, Sir Richard, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 + + Hawkins, William, story of, in Hakluyt _Voyages_, 33 et seq.; + father of Sir John Hawkins, 34; + grandfather of Sir Richard Hawkins, 35, + and of the second William Hawkins, 35 + + Hawkins, William, the Second, grandson of William Hawkins, 35 + + Henry IV of France, 223 + + Henry VII, Cabot enters service of, 3; + refuses to patronize Columbus, 4; + gives patent to the Cabots, 4-6 + + Henry VIII, the monarch of the sea, 20; + establishes a modern fleet and the office of the Admiralty, 21; + a patron of sailors, 22; + menaced by Scotland, France, and Spain, 25; + defies the Pope, 25; + defies Francis I, 26; + birth of modern sea-power (1545), 28; + and the voyage of Hawkins, 33-34; + as a patron of the Navy, 232 et seq. + + _Henry Grace à Dieu_, The, ship, 234 + + Honduras, 156, 228 + + Hore, his voyage to America, 33 et seq. + + Hortop, Job, 94 + + Howard of Effingham, Lord, 31, 176, 189, 197 + + Hudson Strait, Sebastian Cabot misses, 12 + + India, Sebastian Cabot searches for passage to, 11 + + Ingram, David, 94 + + Inquisition, Spanish, 29, 73 + + Ireland, 147, 191 + + Jackman, 122 + + James I of England, 216, 218 + + Jefferys, Thomas, 66 + + _Jesus_, The, ship, see _Jesus of Lubeck_ + + _Jesus of Lubeck_, The, ship, 75, 76, 86, 89, 91 et seq. + + _Judith_, The, ship, 86, 92 et seq., 98 + + Knollys, 154 + + _La Dragontea_, by Lope de Vega, 157 + + La Hacha, 156, 227 + + Lane, Ralph, 162, 196, 212 + + La Rochelle, 100 + + Laudonnière, René de, 82 et seq. + + Leicester, Earl, of, 146, 164, 176 + + Lepanto, 117, 185 + + Lima, 130, 135, 144 + + Lines of Torres Vedras, 194 + + Lisbon, 144, 168, 192, 223 et seq. + + Lloyd's, 59-61 + + London merchants, 144, 140, 171, 218 + + Lope de Vega, 157 + + Madrid, 86, 172 + + Magellan, Strait of, 120, 127, 128 + + Manoa, 221, 222 + + Map, Juan de la Cosa's earliest + dated (1500) map of America, + 14; of world by Sebastian + Cabot (1544), 15; of America + by Thomas Jefferys, 66 + + Marigold, The, ship, 121, 126, 128, 129 + + Martin, Don, 134, 153 + + Mary, Queen of Scots, 31, 50 + et seq., 117, 121, 149, 152, + 163, 164, 216 + + _Matthew_, The, ship, 7 + + Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 175 + + Mendoza, 119 + + Menendez, 115, 150 + + Middleton, Captain, 197 + + _Minion_, The, ship, 86, 91 et seq. + + Monopoly, 58, 66 + + Moone, Tom, 129, 154, 161 + + Mosquito, Lopez de, 141 + + Mountains of Bright Stones, 86, 221, 222 + + Muscovy Company, 16, 31 + + Navigation, encouraged by Henry + VIII, 21, 25, 27; art of tacking + discovered, 26; birth of modern + sea-power, 28; sea-songs, 37 + et seq.; nautical terms, 42 et seq.; + Pette and Jackman's + advice to traders, 122-123 + ftn.; Francisco de Zarate's + account of Drake's _Golden + Hind_, 136-137; appendix; note + on Tudor shipping, 231-239; + bibliography, 242 + + New Albion, 136, 140 + + Newfoundland fisheries, Bacon on, 62 + + New France, 72, 205 + + Nombre de Dios, 101 et seq., 12O, 135, 156, 227 + + Norreys, Sir John, 176, 193 + + Northwest Passage, 120, 137 + + Oxenham, John, 105, 109, 116, 144 + + Pacific Ocean, taken possession + of by Balboa (1513), 18; + Drake enters, 128 et seq. + + Panama, 19, 103, 108, 120, 132, 135, 156, 227 + + Parma, 172 et seq., 189 + + _Pascha_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 114 + + Pedro de Valdes, Don, 188 + + _Pelican_, The, ship, 121, 127 + + Philip of Spain, marries Queen + Mary, 31; protests against + Drake's actions, 87; plans to + seize Scilly Isles, 115; soldiers + sack Antwerp, 116; seizes + Portugal, 144; prepares a + fleet, 150; Paris plot with + Mary, 150; seizes English + merchant fleet, 152; duped + by Hawkins, 153; his credit + low, 163; resumes mobilization, + 172; prepares the Armada, + 174 et seq. + + Philippines, Vasco da Gama + reaches, 19; Drake sails to, 141 + + Pines, Isle of, 103 + + Plymouth, 96, 98, 114, 145, + 162, 178-180, 217, 225 + + Plymouth Company, 218 + + Pole of _Plimmouth_, The, ship, 33 + + Ponte, Peter de, 78 + + Popham, George, 219 + + Porto Rico, 225, 226 + + Potosi, 28, 73, 95, 130 + + _Primrose_, The, ship, 152 + + Pring, Martin, 217 + + Puerto Bello. 229 + + Purchas, Samuel, 203 + + Ralegh, City of, in Virginia, 213 + + _Raleigh_, The, ship, 209 + + Raleigh, Sir Walter, 195, 205-222; + bibliography, 244-245 + + Ranse, 103, 108 + + _Revenge_, The, ship, 188, 192-204 + + Ribaut, Jean, 82 + + Roanoke Island, 162, 210 et seq. + + + Sagres Castle, 167 + + St. Augustine, 86, 162 + + San Domingo, 156, 157, 161 + + _San Felipe_, The, ship, 197 et seq. + + San Francisco, 137, 138 + + San Juan de Ulua, 89, 98, 99, 153 + + _Santa Anna_, The, ship, 212 + + Santa Cruz, 150, 172 et seq. + + Santa Marta, 156, 227 + + Scilly Isles, 114, 115, 153 + + _Serchthrift_, The, ship, 16-17, 32 + + Shipping, note on Tudor, 231-239 + + Sidney, Sir Philip, 155, 164, 195 + + Slave Trade, 74 et seq. + + _Solomon_, The, ship, 76 + + Somerset, 29-30, 53, 96 + + Southampton, Earl of, 217 + + Spain, rights of discovery, 6; + Spanish Inquisition, 29, 73; + breach with England, 72; + Spanish gold in London, 73; + Spaniards in Florida, 81-82; + the 'Spanish Fury' of 1576, 116; + Drake clips the wings of Spain, 149-171; + Drake and the Spanish Armada, 172-191; + Lisbon expedition, 192 et seq.; + the last fight of the _Revenge_, 197 et seq. + + Sparke, John, his account of Sir John Hawkins's Voyage + to Florida, 77 et seq. + + _Spitfire_, The, ship, 132 + + _Squirrel_, The, ship, 210 + + _Swallow_, The, ship, 86 + + _Swan_, The, ship, 101, 106, 109, 121, 129 + + Teneriffe, 77-78 + + Ternate, Island of, 141, 142 + + Têtu, Capt., 112 et seq. + + Throgmorton, Elizabeth, 220 + + _Tiger_, The, ship, 60, 85, 154 + + Torres Vedras, Lines of, 194 + + Vasco da Gama finds sea route to India (1498), 18 + + Venice, importance in trade, 2; + Cabot becomes a citizen of, 2 + + Venta Cruz, 111 + + Vera Cruz, 89 + + Verrazano, 71 + + Virginia, 62, 151. 196, 205, 210, 219 + + Walsingham, Sir Francis, 118, 146 + + West Indies, 84, 157, 201, 208, 219, 225 et seq. + + _Westward Ho!_ Kingsley's, 105 + + Weymouth, George, 218 + + White, John, 212 et seq. + + _William and John_, The, ship, 86 + + William of Orange, 152, 207. + + Willoughby, Sir Hugh, tries to find Northwest Passage, 30; + dies in Lapland, 30 + + Woolwich, 153, 238 + + _Worthies of England_, The, by Thomas Fuller, 101, 237 + + Zarate, Don Francisco de, 136 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +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 12855-8.txt or 12855-8.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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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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