Elizabethan Sea Dogs
by
William Wood
Part 3 out of 3
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
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