Letitia MacColl Elton

“ The Spaniards had come out ready to fight in the old way, in which they had won so many brilliant victories. They had always fought their naval battles with great armies on great ships, much as they would fight on land. The soldiers despised big guns, and liked better the bravery of a close fight, “with hand-thrusts and push of pike.” The sailors were not prepared to fight at all, but with the help of slaves they sailed the big galleys and fighting ships, and the swarm of smaller troop-ships and store-ships that swelled the numbers of the fleet which carried an army. ”

“ But our Captain, seeing their ships, feared lest they had taken our pinnaces, and compelled our men by torture to confess where his ships and frigate were. In this great doubt and perplexity the company feared that all means of returning to their country were cut off, and that their treasure would then serve them to small purpose. But our Captain comforted and encouraged us all, saying: ‘We should venture no further than he did. It was no time now to fear, but rather to haste to prevent that which was feared. If the enemy have prevailed against our pinnaces (which God forbid!) ”

“ PHILIP OF SPAIN During the life of Francis Drake, Philip the Second of Spain was the most powerful king in Europe. Spain and the Netherlands belonged to him, parts of Italy, France, and Germany, and a great part of America. From Mexico, Peru, and the West Indian Islands Spanish ships sailed home with treasure of silver and gold, as they do in fairy tales, while Portuguese ships traded in Africa for slaves and gold and ivory, and had even ventured as far as the then little-known East Indies. ”

“ So they entered the town, and stayed there some hours for rest and refreshment, and the Maroons were allowed to carry away some plunder. At sunrise they marched away, for they had been gone from the ship nearly a fortnight, and had left the company weak and sickly. Drake marched cheerfully, and urged on his weary and disappointed men with brave promises, but in the hurried march they had often to go hungry. ”

“ HOME AGAIN Drake well knew that delay and idleness would soon spoil the spirits of his men, so he at once divided them into two companies, under himself and John Oxenham, to go roving in the two pinnaces in different directions and seek for food and plunder. Some of the Maroons were dismissed with gifts, and the rest remained with a few men on board ship. The Governor of Panama had warned the towns so well that it was useless to attempt them at present. Drake, in the Minion, took a frigate of gold and dismissed it, somewhat lighter, to go on its way. ”

“ The labour in the gold and silver mines had killed the native Indians, and the mines were no longer worked. There was plenty of food and wine to be had, woollen and linen cloth and silk. But there was little silver; the rich people used dishes of china and cups of glass, and their beautiful furniture was useless as plunder. The town had to pay a large sum of money for its ransom, and the English stayed a month, and fed at its expense, and took away with them guns and merchandise and food and numbers of galley-slaves, whom they set free. ”

“ The Navy ships were anchored off Chatham when not in use, and here, in an old unused warship, the elder Drake and his family made their floating home. Here most of the twelve boys were born, a troop of merry children, and many a fine game they must have had on the decks. [Pg 4] The sound of wind and waves must have been familiar to them as they went to sleep at nights, and they grew up strong and fearless, and, living as they did among sailors, must have early set their hearts on going to sea and having adventures. ”

“ Meanwhile the army was encamped outside the walls of Lisbon, but they never got inside. The Portuguese refused to join Don Antonio’s party, and the Spanish governor kept the gates shut in a grim and heroic defence. The English sailors were sick and hungry; they had had no exercise on board ship to keep them healthy, and were exhausted with the heat. The stores and guns were on the ships with Drake. So, reluctantly, they left the suburbs of Lisbon and marched to Cascaes, where they embarked, not without some loss, and sailed away. ”

“ They were not idle during these months, for the ship and fort were left in charge of John Drake, while Captain Drake and John Oxenham went roving in the pinnaces. They had many adventures, being in some peril in their small boats, and always at the mercy of the weather, while at one time they were almost starving. Some of the men got ill with the cold and died, for they had little shelter on board. When they got back to the ships they found all things in good order; but they received the heavy news of the death of John Drake, the Captain’s brother, a young man of great promise. ”

“ Nowadays we do not look upon our enemies as necessarily the enemies of God.
Howard’s letters show a very noble mind. He grudged no time or labour in the ordering of his fleet, down to the smallest matters. He is full of care for the mariners, and is anxious that they should be well paid and fed. He takes the advice of Drake and the other seamen of greater experience than himself. ”

“ Fortune had favoured England this time, but what if Philip built newer and lighter ships, and really succeeded in landing his army? They did not as yet know that Philip [Pg 101] had no money to build his ships with, and rumours of a second invasion were plentiful.
The Spaniards, it is true, had suffered great loss and a crushing defeat to their pride, but they had not, after all, lost anything that they already had, but only failed to get something they wanted very badly to have, and the second kind of loss matters far less than the first. ”

“ He says that “the English General is the same who took Nombre de Dios five years ago. He is a cousin of John Hawkins, and his name is Francis Drake. He is about thirty-five years of age, of small size, with a reddish beard, and is one of the greatest sailors that exist, both from his skill and his power of commanding. His ship is of near four hundred tons, sails well, and has a hundred men all in the prime of life, and as well trained for war as if they had been old soldiers of Italy. Each one is specially careful to keep his arms clean. ”

“ The Lisbon galleys came out and cut off four English ships.
The winds continued to prevent the fleet from going towards the Azores, and all this time hundreds of sick and wounded men were dying. After seventeen days at sea, they landed at the town of Vigo and burned it, and laid waste the country round. At length storms and sickness and ill-fortune drove them home, and the expedition, woefully shrunken, straggled miserably back. Don Antonio died, poor and forsaken, some years later. The English had done a considerable amount of damage, but at great cost to themselves ”

“ ROUND THE WORLD So we see that both of Drake’s ships, the Pascha and the Swan, were left behind in the West Indies, and he made a quick voyage home in the well-built Spanish frigate. We hear nothing of Drake for two years after his return to Plymouth. There is a legend that he kept on the seas near Ireland. Elizabeth was still unable and unwilling to go to war with the King of Spain, but she was willing to encourage the sort of warfare that Drake and the other rovers had so successfully carried on against him. ”

“ The world widened before men’s eyes as new lands and seas, new peoples, and even new stars, became known to them. The little country of Portugal was the first to begin those discoveries. Her ships explored the coasts of Africa and traded there. One of her mariners discovered the passage round the Cape of Good Hope to India, the Spice Islands, and China, and for long she had no rival in her trade.
About fifty years before Drake was born, America was discovered by Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor in the service of Spain. ”

“ There were twenty-five oars or more on each side of the ship. The rowers or galley-slaves were generally prisoners taken in war, and to “be sent to the galleys” was a terrible fate. They lived on the benches, ill-fed and ill-clothed, with only an awning to cover them when in port, though the low sides of the ships protected them a little from the weather and from the fire of the enemy. Drake seems always to have released the slaves he took on Spanish galleys. Once, we are told, they included “Turks, Greeks, Negroes, Frenchmen, and Spaniards.” ”

“ Such companies of adventurers as these that sailed under Drake and Hawkins did a large part of the work of the navy in the time of Elizabeth. The country was saved the expense which private persons were willing to pay to furnish the ships. [Pg 51] The Queen herself is known to have shared in the expenses and plunder of some such expeditions, and so she thriftily laid up treasure in England’s empty money-chests. But some of her older councillors disliked exceedingly this way of getting rich, and would rather it had been done openly in war, or not at all. ”

“ They were men of such different natures that what one desired the other commonly opposed. The journey had so glorious a name that crowds of volunteers came to them, and they had to discharge such few as they had pressed. Yet many times it was very doubtful if the voyage would be made, till at last the news came of a ship of the King of Spain, which was driven into Puerto Rico with two millions and a half of treasure. So her Majesty commanded them to haste their departure, which they did with twenty-seven ships. ”

“ In 1585 Philip seized a fleet of English corn-ships trading in his own ports. Then, at last, Drake’s long-talked-of expedition against the Spanish settlements was got ready and sent out. He had about thirty ships, commanded by some of the most famous captains of the time, men like Fenner, Frobisher, and Wynter, who afterwards [Pg 75] fought against the Armada. His general of the soldiers was Christopher Carleill, “a man of long experience in wars both by sea and land,” and who was afterwards said to direct the service “most like a wise commander.” Drake’s ship was the Elizabeth Bonaventure. ”

“ The Spaniards thought Drake had gone to stop the treasure fleet. But Drake wished to stop the Armada, which was a much greater affair. He knew now that Santa Cruz was making his headquarters at Lisbon. Ships were gathering in the north of Spain. Recalde, one of the best Spanish commanders, was waiting with a small fleet off Cape St. Vincent to protect the treasure fleet when it arrived. Fifteen big ships had escaped the attack in Cadiz harbour. The ships were to meet in Lisbon, where Santa Cruz was collecting stores and food. ”

“ Drake sent his Spanish prisoners on shore, and so ended his first attempt upon Cartagena.
He saw that the coasts were aware of his presence. Yet he did not want to go away till he had discovered the Maroons; for [Pg 26] his faithful negro, Diego, had told him that they were friendly to him as the enemy of Spain. This search might take time, and must be done in the smaller boats, which were swifter and could explore the rivers. He had not enough of men both to sail the boats and the pinnaces; so he now decided to burn one of the ships and make a storehouse of the other. ”

“ The American Indians, however, have never been easy to subdue, and have always had an undying affection for their own way of life. The Spaniards found them unfitted for hard work in the mines. The Portuguese had already captured negroes in their [Pg 9] West African settlements, and numbers of those were sent to America as slaves.
From the time of Henry the Eighth the English were building and buying fine ships, and learnt to sail them so well that they began less and less to use the old galley ship with its many oars. They traded mostly with Spain and the Low Countries ”

“ For three trains appeared, one of fifty mules and two of seventy each, and every mule carried 300 lbs. weight of silver, amounting to nearly 30 tons. The leaders of the mules were taken by the heads, and all the rest lay down, as they always do. The fifteen soldiers who guarded each [Pg 42] train were routed, but not before they had wounded the French captain sorely, and slain one of the Maroons. They took what silver and gold they could carry, and buried the rest in the burrows made in the earth by the great land crabs under old fallen trees, and in the sand and gravel of a shallow river. ”