for cattle belonging to the farm-house hard by now stands
upon its site. By his own account, as repeated by Camden,
he was born of mean parentage, but his name was given him
in baptism by his godfather, Francis Russel, afterwards Earl
* Camden, 108.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 205
of Bedford ; and he is said to have been akin to Hawkins, at
whose cost and under whose care it is also said that he was
brought up, being the eldest of twelve sons. That cost, how-
ever, could have been little ; and the care, perhaps, little
more than such countenance as gave him consideration in
the eyes of his employers, if Camden's statement be correct,
which in the main it must needs be, having been derived from
Drake himself. His father being likely to be called in question*
for his religion as a Protestant, in the days of persecution fled
from Devonshire into Kent. When better days arrived, he
obtained an appointment " among the seamen in the king's
navy to read prayers to them " ; and soon afterwards was
ordained deacon, and made vicar of Upnor Church upon the
Medway ; the road, says Camden, where the fleet usually
anchoreth. Here, " by reason of his poverty, he put his son
to the master of a barque, his neighbour, who carried on a
coasting trade, and used sometimes to transport merchandise
to Zeeland and to France ". This master " held Drake hard
to his business " ; and " pains with patience in his youth,"
says Fuller, " knit the joints of his soul, and made them more
solid and compacted ". The master was so satisfied with his
conduct, and pleased with him, that, being unmarried, he be-
queathed him the barque at his death. With this he continued
his active and thriving way of life ; and had got together some
* Camden says he was called in question by the law of the six articles ;
but Campbell observes, that, if Drake was born some time before, Sir
Francis Russel could have been but a child, and, therefore, not likely to
be his godfather : moreover, he says this account makes him ten years
older than he was. But Drake was two and twenty when he obtained
the command of the Judith : this carries back his birth to 1544, at which
time the six articles were in force, and Francis Russel was seventeen
years of age. Fuller says, upon this occasion, that " the sting of Popery
still remained in England, though the teeth were knocked out," and
that Drake was born in Devonshire and brought up in Kent ; " God
dividing the honour betwixt two counties, that the one might have his
birth, and the other his education " (Holy State, 123).
206 ENGLISH SEAMEN
little money, when, hearing that Hawkins was fitting out an
expedition for the New World, he sold his vessel, and, re-
pairing to Plymouth with some other "stout seamen,"
embarked himself and his fortunes in the adventure.*
In this unfortunate voyage Drake lost all that he had
accumulated by his former industry ; but a divine,f belonging
to the fleet, comforted him with the assurance that, having
been thus treacherously used by the Spaniards, he might
lawfully recover in value of the King of Spain, and repair his
loses upon him wherever he could. " The case," says Fuller,
" was clear in sea divinity ; and few are such infidels as not
to believe doctrines which make for their own profit. Where-
upon Drake, though a poor private man, undertook to
* Camden, 248. Fuller's Holy State, 123. Prince's Worthies of
Devon. Campbell. It is certain that Hawkins was displeased with
Drake for "forsaking him in his great misery, and shifting for himself.
Herrera says that Drake escaped from the island by a ship's cable ; that
Hawkins ordered him into a French ship (which he had taken from some
Portuguese who had captured it off Cape Blanco, and in which was
most of the gold which they had obtained), and that Drake, instead of
obeying his further orders and waiting for him off the port, made all
speed for England, reported there that Hawkins was lost, and rose up
with the gold himself, saying he had distributed it among the men.
" This," says Herrera, " was his beginning ; and though the queen kept
him three months in prison, she pardoned him upon intercession, and
so the matter rested " (p. 720). Camden says that Drake hardly escaped
with the loss of what he had. The charge of peculation is no doubt a
calumny ; for his imprisonment, if it really took place, breach of orders,
and the desertion of his commander, would be sufficient cause. Drake,
according to Job Hortop. was made master and commander of a Portu-
guese caravel, captured on the way from the Canaries to Cape Blanco.
t These are Camden's words, from whence it may be surmised that
possibly -that divine was Drake's own father. Fuller and subsequent
writers who have followed Fuller say it was the minister of his ship.
" The doctrine, however rudely preached, was very taking in England ;
and, therefore, he no sooner published his design than he had numbers
of volunteers ready to accompany him, though they had no such pretence
even as he had to colour their proceedings" (Campbell, i. , 418).
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 207
revenge himself on so mighty a monarch, who, not contented
that the sun riseth and setteth in his dominions, may seem
to desire to make all his own where he shineth." * Two or
three voyages he made to gain intelligence, it is said, in the
West Indies ; and in these he got some store of money " by
playing the seaman and the pirate ".t Some reputation now
he had by this time acquired as a skilful and adventurous
mariner ; for now, it is said, he got a commission, and sailed
from Plymouth, in 1570, with two ships, the Dragon and the
Swan ; and the year after in the Swan alone. In these
voyages he acquired certain notice of the places to be aimed
at.J Thus prepared with all needful information, he sailed
from the Sound on Whitsun Eve, 1572, in the Pascha of Ply-
mouth, of seventy tons, and his brother, John Drake, in the Swan,
of twenty-five, with three handsome pinnaces, taken asunder
and stowed aboard, to be put together upon occasion. He was
well provided with a year's victuals, and with all necessary
ammunition ; but the force with which he commenced this
first hostile expedition against the Spanish Indies consisted of
no more than seventy-three men and boys. With these he
sailed for Nombre de Dios, which "was then the granary of
the West Indies, wherein the golden harvest brought from
Panama was hoarded up till it could be conveyed to Spain". ||
On the 2nd of July he came in sight of the high land of
America, and directed his course to Port Pheasant, so named
by him on a former voyage, because of the number of those
* " And now," he adds, " let us see how a dwarf, standing on the mount
of God's Providence, may prove an overmatch for a giant."
t Camden. \ Prince.
" With all speed and secrecy, as loth to put the town to too much
charge, which he knew they would willingly bestow, in providing before-
hand for his entertainment " (Fuller).
Fuller. Nombre de Dios " then served the Spaniards for the same
purposes, though not so conveniently, as those for which they afterwards
used Porto Bello " (Campbell, i., 418).
208 ENGLISH SEAMEN
birds which he had there seen. Landing here, they found
this warning newly inscribed on a plate of lead, and fastened
to a tree of such conspicuous magnitude that four men could
not enclasp its girth : " Captain Drake, if you fortune to
come into the port, make haste away, for the Spaniards which
you had with you here- last year have betrayed this place, and
taken away all that you left here. I departed hence this
present 7th of July, 1572. Your loving friend, John Garret."
This Captain Garret was of Plymouth ; and was probably,
like his friend, one of those persons who made war against the
King of Spain and his subjects upon their own account.
Drake, however, was not induced to alter his plans by this
unfavourable information, but employed seven days in putting
together his pinnaces in that convenient port. "As they
had completed this business, an English barque from the Isle
of Wight, James Rowse,* captain, with thirty-eight men aboard,
came into the port, and being made acquainted with his design,
joined company with him." Some of the men had been
there with him the year before.
Sailing from hence for Nombre de Dios, they kept close to
the shore, and lay quiet all night, intending to attempt the
town at break of day. But he was forced to alter his resolu-
tion, and assault it sooner ; for he heard his men muttering
among themselves about the strength and greatness of the
place : t wherefore he roused them from their rest before
* In Sir William Davenant's opera upon this part of Drake's history,
one of the sailors says, or sings,
" The lion Rowse is landed here,
I'll run to meet him at the pier ;
A ton of yellow gold
Conceal'd within our hold,
For half my share I scorn to take,
When he is joined with dragon Drake ".
" And when men's heads are once fly-blown with buzzes of suspicion,
the vermin multiply instantly, and one jealousy begets another " (Fuller).
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 209
they had hatched their fears, and persuaded them it was
dawn when the moon rose. The town was unwalled, and
they entered it without difficulty in two companies, with
trumpet sounding and drum beating, and with "fire-pikes
divided between both companies, which no less affrighted the
enemy than gave light to the English, who thereby discovered
every place as if it had been broad day ".* But the Spaniards
were not unprepared, and saluted them in the market-place
with a volley of shot. Drake returned the greeting with a
flight of arrows, " the best ancient English compliment," and
drove them from the ground ; but not without receiving a
severe wound in his leg. This he dissembled, " knowing that,
if the general's heart stoops the men's will fall; and that, if
so bright an opportunity once setteth, it seldom riseth again".
They made their way to the house where the bars of silver
were deposited, t Drake telling them " he had brought them
to the mouth of the treasury of the world, which if they did
not gain, none but themselves were to be blamed". He
bade them break it open ; but as he stepped forward to
encourage them by his example, his strength, sight, and
speech failed him, and he began to faint for loss of blood.
They bound up his wound with his scarf; and when he
would not be persuaded, they " added force to their entreaties,
and so carried him to his pinnace ".J It was time to retreat,
* Prince.
f'They discovered," says the relation, " a vast heap of wealth in the
lower room, consisting of bars of silver, piled up against the wall, seventy
foot in length, ten in breadth, and twelve in height, each bar between
thirty-five and forty pounds' weight" (Prince). They might have
looked into the room through the grating, but certainly had neither time
nor opportunity for measuring it.
I Fuller. " Thus victory sometimes slips through their fingers who
have caught it in their hands." Lopez Vaz, whose brief account of
this expedition fell into the hands of the English, and is published (in a
translation) by Hakluyt (vol. iii., p. 525), says, that Drake landed about
150 men, left seventy of them in a fort which was there, and, with the rest,
14
210 ENGLISH SEAMEN
for the Spaniards had discovered their weakness ; and the
adventurers, many of whom had got good booty before they
retired, found it necessary to re-embark, and put off to an
island some two leagues distant, where they remained two
days. Several men were wounded in this affair, but only one
slain. While they lay off the island, one of the garrison
came off to them, trusting, as it seems, to their honour ; and
declaring that he came for no other purpose than to see those
whose courage was such that, with such inconsiderable forces,
they had ventured upon so incredible an attempt. He asked,
however, whether their captain were the same Captain Drake
who had been on this coast the two preceding years ? and as
marched into the town, without doing any harm till he came to the
market-place. There he discharged his calivers, and sounded a trumpet ;
and " the people hereupon, not thinking of any such matter, were put in
great fear, and, waking out of their sleep, fled all into the mountains,
inquiring one of another what the matter should be, remaining as men
amazed ! But some fourteen or fifteen of them," he says, " went to the
market-place, and seeing the English to be but few, fired their harque-
busses at them with such fortune as to kill the trumpeter, and shoot one
of the principal men through the leg, upon which he retired towards the
fort. Meantime they in the fort, hearing the firing in the town, and
finding when they sounded their trumpet that it was not answered, con-
cluded that their comrades had all been cut off, and thereupon fled to their
pinnaces. And the captain and his people, finding the fort forsaken,
were in so great fear, that, leaving their furniture behind them, and
putting off their hose, they swam and waded to their pinnaces, and so
went with their ships out of the port."
Except as to the numbers, and the manner of the retreat, this relation
is in the main confirmed by the English account, Drake having been
thus wounded, and the only Englishman who was slain (though many
were hurt) being the trumpeter. Herrera makes no mention of this
expedition. A notice relating to it, but under the erroneous date of 1568,
occurs in the " Compendio Historial y Indice Chronologico Peruano y del
Nuevo Reyno de Granada," annexed to the very rare work of P. Manuel
Rodriguez, entitled El Mar anon y Amazonas. It is in these pithy words :
" Tubose noticia en las costas de Indias, que las infestaba el Draque,
Cosario, que fue muy prejudicial, como se dize despues ".
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 211
many of the Spaniards were wounded with arrows, he asked
also whether the arrows were poisoned, and how the wounds
might be cured ? The captain made answer he was the same
Drake concerning whom they inquired ; that it was never his
custom, nor that of his countrymen, to poison their arrows ;
that their wounds might be cured with the ordinary remedies ;
and that he only wanted some of that gold and silver which
they got out of the earth and sent into Spain to trouble all
the world.*
Having been disappointed here, Drake made toward
Carthagena, and took several vessels on his way laden with
provisions and goods. What was of more eventual importance,
he opened a communication with the Cimarrones, or Maroons,
negroes who had escaped from slavery, and established them-
selves in freedom in the interior of the Isthmus of Darien.
" They had towns of about sixty families, in which the people
lived cleanly and civilly," and their chief was able to raise
1700 fighting men. By these people he was informed that
the treasure was brought from Panama to Xombre de Dios
upon mules, a recua or party of which, consisting as might
happen of from thirty to seventy, he might probably intercept.
On this adventui'e, his leg having been healed, Drake set
forth. One of the chief Cimarrones, as they were on the
way, led him to a height, where from a great tree, it is said,
that both seas might be seen. The story says that steps
were cut in the trunk of this huge tree for ascending it, and
that almost in the top " a convenient arbour had been made,
wherein twelve men might sit". Into this Drake mounted ;
and, obtaining a full sight from thence of that ocean, con-
cerning which he had heard such golden reports, besought
God to grant him "life and leave once to sail an English
ship in those seas".f
* Prince.
f Prince. Camden's is a less circumstantial but more likely account :
" that, after having burnt the rich receptacle or storehouse of merchandise
212 ENGLISH SEAMEN
The rashness of one of his own men, "who had taken a
little too much aqua-vitae/' marred this enterprise : through
this man's folly the Spaniards were alarmed, and Drake had
upon the river Chirage, called the Cross, roving for a time up and down
in the parts adjoining, he descried from the mountains the South Sea.
Hereupon the man, being inflamed with ambition of glory and hopes of
wealth, was so vehemently transported with desire to navigate that sea,
that falling down there upon his knees, he implored the Divine assistance,
that he might at some time or other sail thither, and make a perfect
discovery of the same ; and hereunto he bound himself by a vow.
From that time forward his mind was pricked on continually, night and
day, to perform his vow" (p. 249).
Balboa expressed similar feelings in precisely the same situation.
When his Indian guides pointed out to him the height from whence " he
might see the other sea so long looked for, and never seen before of any
man coming out of our world, approaching to the top of the mountain,
he commanded his men to stay, and went himself alone to the summit,
as if it were to take the first possession thereof; where falling prostrate
upon the ground, and raising himself again upon his knees, as the manner
of the Christians is to pray, lifting up his eyes and hands toward heaven,
and directing his face toward the new-found South Sea, he poured forth
his humble and devout prayers before Almighty God, as a spiritual sacri-
fice with thanksgiving, that it pleased His Divine Majesty to reserve
unto that day the victory and praise of so great a thing unto him, being
a man but of small wit and knowledge, of little experience and base
parentage. When he had thus made his prayers after his warlike manner
he beckoned to his companions to come to him, showing them the great
main sea heretofore unknown to the inhabitants of Europe, Africa, and
Asia. Here again he fell to his prayers as before, desiring Almighty
God and the blessed Virgin to favour his beginnings, and to give him
good success to subdue those lands to the glory of His holy name, and
increase of His true religion. All his companions did likewise, and
praised God with loud voices for joy. Then Vasco, with no less manly
courage than Hannibal of Carthage showed his soldiers Italy from the
promontories of the Alps, exhorted his men to lift up their hearts, and
to behold the land even now under their feet, and the sea before their
eyes, which should be unto them a full and just reward of their great
labours and travails now overpast. When he had said these words he
commanded them to raise certain heaps of stones, in the stead of altars,
for a token of possession " (Peter Martyr. Eden's translation, 97).
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 213
at first to encounter not a party of muleteers, but of men
prepared for defence. He put them to flight, however, and
got possession of Venta de la Cruz, which seems to have been
a station between the two ports on each side of the isthmus.
Here the English account says, that both the Maroons and
his own people were strictly ordered not to hurt any woman
nor unarmed man, and that this order was faithfully obeyed.
In the Spanish relation it is said that six or seven merchants
were killed here, and no gold or silver found, but much
merchandise, to the value of 200,000 ducats, which he burnt,
together with the place. He had better fortune soon in
hearing " the sweet music of the mules coming with a great
noise of bells " ; and presently he got sight of two recuas or
companies, under no other care than that of the muleteers,
who mistrusted nothing. Taking from these as much treasure
as they could carry, they buried several tons of silver ; but
one of his men fell into the Spaniards' hands, and was com-
pelled by torture to discover the place, so that, when Drake's
people returned for a second lading, it was almost all gone.
Upon returning to the coast where his pinnaces had been
appointed to meet him, they were not to be seen, but in their
stead seven Spanish pinnaces which had been searching all
the shore thereabouts. Being now in great fear that his
ships also were lost, he constructed a raft of the trees which
the river brought down, mounted a biscuit sack for a sail, and
" with an oar shaped out of a young tree, for a rudder,"
he with three others, it is said, ventured out of the mouth of
the river. If this account be true, his motive must have been
to obtain a better view of the coast from the water, than he
could in a country covered with woods. Having sailed upon
this raft about six hours, always up to the waist in water, and
at every wave up to the arm-pits, they had sight of their
own pinnaces, which, not perceiving them, were making be-
hind a point for shelter from the wind and night. Drake
then ran his raft ashore, got round the point by land, and
214 ENGLISH SEAMEN
there joyfully found them. They went about to the Rio
Francisco, took in their comrades with the treasure that they
had secured, and rejoined the ships. Nothing now remained
but to dismiss their Maroon allies. Pedro, one of the chief
and most serviceable of them, had taken a fancy to Drake's
sword, and was so delighted when it was presented to him,
that he desired him to accept four wedges of gold as a grate-
ful return. Drake accepted them as courteously as they
were proffered, but threw them into the common stock, saying
it was just that they who bore part of the charge in setting
him to sea, should enjoy their full proportion of the advantage
at his return. He now sailed homeward with so prosperous a
gale that in twenty-three days he passed from Cape Florida
to the Scilly Isles ; and arriving at Plymouth on a Sunday,
the news was carried into the church during sermon time,
and "there remained few or no people with the preacher,"
all running out to welcome one who was already regarded as
the hero of that place and of that county.*
Though Drake had enriched himself in this expedition,
success served only to excite him to a greater enterprise.
But while he was " brooding privately over this new design,"
it was in part forestalled by one who had served under him
in the various capacities of soldier, sailor, and cook. This
person, whose name was John Oxenham, is said to have
obtained the good opinion both of his captain and comrades
in no ordinary degree. Drake, when he beheld from " that
goodly and great high tree " of the Maroons the sea of which
* Prince. " There want not those," says Fuller, " who love to beat
down the price of every honourable action, though they themselves
never mean to be chapmen. These cry up Drake's fortune herein, to
cry down his valour ; as if this his performance were nothing, wherein
a golden opportunity ran his head, with his long forelock, into Drake's
hands, beyond expectation. But certainly his resolution and uncon-
querable patience deserved much praise, to adventure on such a design,
which had in it just no more probability than what was enough to keep
it from being impossible" (Holy State, 126).
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 215
he had heard such golden reports, communicated especially
to Oxenham his purpose of one day sailing upon it, " if it would
please God to grant him that happiness " ; and Oxenham, in
reply, protested that unless Drake were to beat him from his
company, " he would follow him by God's grace ". On one
occasion, when a party was to be sent on shore, and the
people would not consent that Drake should venture his
person, John Oxenham and Thomas Sherwell were put in
trust for the service, "to the great content of the whole
company, who conceived greatest hope of them next to the
captain, whom, by no means, they would condescend to suffer
to adventure".* Oxenham " had gotten among the seamen
the name of captain for his valour, and had privily scraped
together good store of money " ; and, having now been some
time at home, and becoming impatient of idleness, he de-
termined no longer to wait for Drake,t but undertake, on his
own account, the adventure which that enterprising com-
mander had projected. Following, therefore, the course
which his late commander had so successfully pursued, he
sailed for the isthmus with one ship and seventy men, re-
visited his old acquaintance the Maroons, and learned from
them that the treasure which he had hoped to intercept 'on
its way from Panama was now protected by a convoy of sol-
diers. Disappointed in this hope, he determined upon a
bolder adventure. He drew his ship aground in a retired
and woody creek, covered it with boughs, buried his provisions
* Burney's Hist, of Discoveries in the South Sea, i., 294, 295. Sir
Francis Drake Revived, 54, 81.
t " Drake," says Prince, " being prevented from setting forth, partly
by secret envy at home, and partly by being employed in his prince and