churches only excepted, and the house of a lady, who wrote
to Drake, requesting him to spare it. Proceeding now along
the coast they came to Santa Martha, and found in the town
nothing " but the houses swept clean " ; but in the course of
the night the lieutenant-general of the Spaniards was taken,
and a little booty brought in from the Avoods. That town
also they burnt on the 21st, and on the 27th entered the
harbour of Nombre de Dios. The place was abandoned at
their approach ; but about 100 men kept the fort, played
upon the invaders with a few small pieces of ordnance,
waited till they could give also a volley of small shot, and
then, as the English were running to the assault, took to
flight, and struck into the woods. " The name of Nombre de
Dios was greater than its strength," this fort being its only
work of defence, " though they might have made it stronger
if they would ". So the invaders thought : they soon dis-
covered that the Spaniards relied, with sufficient wisdom,
upon the attachment of the natives, the strength of the
country, and its climate being " very unhealthy as any
place in the Indies," and its abundant fruits being " very
dangerous to be eaten for breeding of diseases ". The re-
moval of property had been complete : nothing of any value
had been left ; and " there was a show in their shops of
great store of merchandise that had been there ". Nothing
fell into the conquerors' hands except twenty tons of silver,
two bars of gold, some money, and other pillage which they
* Hakluyt, 585,
348 ENGLISH SEAMEN
found in a little watch-house, on the summit of a hill, in the
woods. *
Drake remained here with the fleet while Baskerville
with 750 men went for Panama, on the second day after
their arrival. Two days longer Drake waited, apparently, to
see whether the Spaniards would ransom the town : they had
either been strictly forbidden to do this, or they were too
high-minded, or, perhaps, did not think it worth ransoming ;
for, though large, the houses were all built of timber, and
the single church, " which was very fair and large, was of no
better materials ". On the last day of the year he burnt
half the town, and the other half on the morrow, together
with all the frigates, barques, and galliots, which were in the
harbour, or drawn up on the beach, where houses were built
over them to keep the pitch from melting. Baskerville,
meantime, found the march on which he had entered " so
sore as never Englishman marched before": the way was very
narrow, cut through the woods and rocks, and at that season
full of mire and water ; and the enemy, knowing the ground
well, played upon them from every point of most advantage.
When they had advanced some ten leagues, according to
their computation, which seems to have measured the distance
by the difficulty, they came suddenly upon a fort in a mar-
vellous strait way, by which they needs must pass, and
from which, before they were aware, a fire was opened upon
them, whereby more than twenty men, including four officers,
were killed. This check made Baskerville come to a stand ;
and understanding then that if he succeeded in taking this
fort t there were two other such on the way, and that
* Hakluyt, 586.
t Fuller says : " They had so much of this breakfast, they thought they
should surfeit of a dinner and supper of the same. No hope of conquest,
except with cloying the jaws of death, and thrusting men on the mouth
of the cannon. Wherefore, fearing to find the proverb true, that gold
may be bought too dear, they returned to their ships " (Holy State, 130).
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 349
Panama had been rendered very strong, "the Spaniards
knowing of their coming long before/' he thought it neces-
sary to return ; for which resolution, mortifying as it was,
there was this farther urgent motive, that his men had no
food left, nor any means of getting it. There had either
been great improvidence on his part in not being better pro-
vided, or Drake had relied upon his old friends the Maroons,
who on this occasion failed him. He returned, therefore,
with a weary, hungry, and dispirited army to Nombre de
Dios on the fourth day. *
Nor was this the last disaster that befell this unfortunate
expedition. There was an Indian settlement some half a
league inland, toward which a detachment of about 100 men
advanced, while Drake and Baskerville were with a watering
party in the river about a mile distant. The Indians broke
down a bridge to impede their passage, and from an ambush
killed an officer, and wounded several others ; then taking to
flight, fired their own houses, thereby manifesting the deep
hatred against the English with which the Spaniards had now
possessed them. On the 5th the fleet departed, having
tarried there too long, and on the 10th anchored off an
island called Escudo, some thirty leagues westward of
Nombre de Dios, and nine or ten from the main. There
was good anchorage there, on fair sand, in twelve fathoms,
and the island was covered with wood, and abounded with
excellent water. Here they washed their ships, and set up
the rest of their pinnaces. But this also was " a sickly
climate, and given to much rain : one of the captains died
here, and Drake began to keep his cabin, being extremely
sick of a flux ". Death was now busy in the fleet. Two
more captains and the chief surgeon died of the prevailing
sickness. On the night of the 27th, Drake's disease stopped
on him, but there was no symptom of amendment. His
mind seems to have wandered at three in the morning : " he
* Hakluyt, 586, 587.
350 ENGLISH SEAMEN
used some speeches a little before his death, rising and
apparelling himself ; but, being brought to his bed again, he
died within an hour ". Some have asserted that he was
poisoned ; * but of this there is neither proof nor probability :
the climate was poison enough, and a wounded spirit t may,
perhaps, have predisposed the body to imbibe it. J
* " Sir Francis Drake," says Monson, " who was wont to rule fortune,
now finding his error, and the difference between the present strength of
the Indies and what it was when he first knew it, grew melancholy upon
this disappointment, and suddenly (and I hope naturally) died at Puerto
Bello, not far from the place where he got his first reputation " (p. 167).'
And again (p. 368) : " Fortune did much for him ; but at his death she
was angry with him : first, in that there was a doubt whether it was
natural ; secondly (and the best his friends can say), that it was caused
by grief, for failing of his expectation in that voyage ".
Lope de Vega represents his own people as giving him poison, at the
instigation of one of the furies. " Drake," he says, " was aware of this
intention, and would taste no food till it had been tasted ; upon which
they administered the poison en una mcdicina, and by that means
reached his heart.
" Mirad la desventura la ruin a
De aquel hombre atrevido y indomable !
Mirad que triste genero de muerte
Del cuerpo el alma a los infiernos vierte."
Dragontea, p. 472.
t This was Fuller's opinion, who had heard the particulars from a
kinsman of Drake's present in the expedition. His account is, that Sir
Francis's discontent began " to feed upon him. He conceived that
expectation a merciless usurer computing each day since his departure,
exacted an interest and return of honour and profit proportionable to
his great preparations, and transcending his former achievements. He
saw that all the good which he had done in this voyage consisted in the
evil he had done to the Spaniards afar off ; whereof he could present
but small visible proofs in England. These apprehensions, accompany-
ing, if not causing, the disease of the flux, wrought his sudden death.
And sickness did not so much untie his clothes, as sorrow did rend at
once the robe of his mortality asunder " (p. 130).
I Hakluyt, 587, 588.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 351
The fleet anchored the same day at Puerto Bello ; and it
was in sight of that place " from whence he had borrowed so
large a reputation by his fortunate successes " that Drake
received a sailor's funeral, * his body in a leaden coffin being
committed to the deep, with the solemn service of the
English Church, rendered more impressive by volleys of
musketry, and firing of guns in all the ships of the fleet.
He had made his will, appointing Thomas his brother and
Captain Jonas Bodenham executors, and leaving all his lands
to that brother's son, except one manor, which he bequeathed
to Bodenham. t
The remaining history of the expedition may briefly be
told. Baskerville succeeded to the command of the admiral,
Bodenham to the Defiance. They found nothing to plunder
at Puerto Bello and little to destroy. A council was held,
and it was determined to " turn up again for Santa Martha,"
if by any means they could, otherwise to go directly for
England ; their whole number at this time, sick and sound,
amounting only to 2000. Baskerville put all his prisoners
* Instead of an epitaph, these verses were written on him :
" Where Drake first found, there last he lost his name,
And for a tomb left nothing but his fame.
His body's buried under some great wave ;
The sea, that was his glory, is his grave :
On whom an epitaph none can truly make,
For who can say, ' Here lies Sir Francis Drake ' ? "
" Nor shall I here pass over in silence," Prince adds, " what another in
those days added on the same occasion :
" ' The waves became his winding sheet, the waters were his tomb ;
But for his fame the ocean sea was not sufficient room '."
The notice of his death in the Indicc Chronologico Peruano is curious
for its double error, and as showing how important a personage he
appeared to the Spaniards : "El ano de 96 murio Francisco Draque el
Cosario que dio tanto cuidado en ambos mares. Su muete fue de en-
fermedad en Portobelo. Su madre le abia parido en un navio en el mar,
y fue harto muriesse en tierra."
t Hakluyt, 588.
352 ENGLISH SEAMEN
ashore ; an act of commendable humanity on his part, for two of
them had been liberated on condition of returning with the
ransom agreed on for some of the rest, and nothing had been
heard of them. It was an act of consideration also for those
of his own people who were in the Spaniards' hands. As he
was setting sail, there came one with a flag of truce, to say
that, if he would tarry eight or ten days, eighteen of his
men, who had been taken prisoners and well used, should be
brought to him from Panama. The Spaniards were probably
sincere in this ; but the English supposed their offer was
meant only as " a delay to keep them there till the king's
forces had come about by sea, as they daily expected " ; and,
perhaps, they were as desirous of hastening from that deadly
region as of escaping a conflict with a far superior force. So
they departed ; and not being able to hold their course for
Santa Martha, fell in off the Isle of Pinos with twenty sail,
which having been refreshed at the Havannah, were then
standing for Cape de los Corrientes. This was a third part
of the Carthagena fleet, which was sent out with instructions
to seek the English with its whole force wheresoever they
might be heard of. " As soon as they descried us," says the
writer, " they kept close upon a track, thinking to get the
wind of us, but we weathered them. And when our admiral
with all the rest of our fleet were right in the wind's eye of
them, Sir Thomas Baskerville putting out the queen's arms,
and all the rest of our fleet their bravery, bare room witli
them, and commanded the Defiance not to shoot, but to keep
close by to succour him. The vice-admiral of the Spaniards
being a greater ship than any of ours, and the best sailer in
all their fleet, luffed by and gave the Concord the two first
great shot, which she repaid presently again. Thus the fight
began : the Bonaventura bare full with her, ringing her such
a peal of ordnance and small shot withal, that he left her
with torn sides. The admiral, also, made no spare of powder
and shot. But the Defiance, in the midst of the Spanish fleet,
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 353
thundering off her ordnance and small shot, continued the
fight to the end ; so that the vice-admiral and three or four
of her consorts were forced to tack about to the eastward,
leaving their admiral and the rest of the fleet, who came
not so hotly into the fight as they did. The fight continued
two hours and better. At sunset all the fleet tacked about
to the eastward : we continued our course to the westward.
That night, some half hour after, their fleet keeping upon
their weather quarter, we saw a mighty smoke rise out of
one of their great ships which stayed behind, which happened
by means of powder, as we think ; and presently after she
was all on a light fire, and so was consumed, and all burnt,
as we might well perceive." *
The English were evidently so weak that they did not
seek a renewal of the action, and the Spaniards were glad to
shun it. Baskerville touched at Flores on his way home, and
there landed two Portuguese pilots whom they had taken
with them from England. They reached Plymouth early in
May ; and as the expedition had utterly disappointed the
expectation which had been encouraged of its success,
Baskerville seems to have obtained little credit t for the con-
cluding action in which he had deserved much. If Hawkins
and Drake had returned, their characters, and the signal
services which both had formerly performed, were such, that
* Hakluyt, 588, 589.
t Camden says : " Baskerville and Troughton, the latter in the vice-
admiral, the other in the admiral, did so entertain the Spaniards, that
with small loss received and greater given (if a man may believe them),
our fleet escaped " (502). Monson's account is not more favourable :
" Baskerville," he says, " met and fought with a fleet of Spain ; though
not long, by reason of the sickness and weakness of his men. This fleet
was sent to take the advantage of ours on its return ; thinking, as indeed
it happened, that they should find them both weak and in want : but
the swiftness of our ships, in which we had the advantage of the
Spaniards, preserved us " (167). Monson here ascribes to the ships what
was due to the courage of the sailors.
23
354 ENGLISH SEAMEN
they would have retained their place in the queen's judgment,
and soon have recovered it in the opinion of the people.
There were no two commanders in that age whose names
inspired their followers with more confidence, or struck so
much fear into their enemies. Drake, indeed, has attained
the highest degree of fame : no other military or naval name
is so universally known among his countrymen ; and it is the
only one of modern history which has acquired in local
tradition a sort of mythological celebrity. This probably
originated with the Spaniards, who may truly be said to have
honoured his memory in the bitterness of their enmity to-
wards him. Two days' holidays were kept at Panama for his
death and damnation ; and the most popular of the Spanish
poets composed an epic poem to revile him. It was likely,
according to a Spaniard's belief, that being a heretic Drake
should have dealings with the devil ; that notion prevented
them from feeling any mortification at his successes, which
they imputed to the devil's aid ; and it enhanced their
exultation over the failure of his last expedition, which they
considered as the triumph of their religion over heresy and
magic. The imputation of magic, when it reached his own
country, was readily received, not by the Hispaniolised
Romanists alone, with whose persuasions political and re-
ligious it accorded, but by the common people also, who
believed that there was a white as well as a black art magic ;
and that Drake, like Shakespeare's Prospero, and Friars
Bacon and Bungay, with whom they were better acquainted,
employed the spirits under his command only in good works.
The fables which have been grafted upon this belief are
fanciful enough for the legend of a British or Irish saint.
According to the popular traditions of the western counties,
it was not by his skill as an engineer, and the munificent ex-
penditure of wealth the which he had so daringly obtained, that
Drake supplied Plymouth with fresh water ; but by mounting
his horse, riding about Dartmoor till he came to a spring
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 355
sufficiently copious for his design, then wheeling round,
pronouncing some magical words, and galloping back into
the town, with the stream in full flow, and forming its own
channel at the horse's heels. Nor was it with the queen's
ships that he defied and baffled the Invincible Armada, but by
taking a piece of wood and cutting it in pieces over the side
of his own vessel, when every chip as it fell into the sea
became a man of war. There is another version of this
miracle, that he was playing at kales (or skittles) on the
Hoe at Plymouth, when tidings came that the Spanish fleet
was sailing into the harbour, and that he heard the news
without the slightest emotion, and played out his game.
But when that was ended he called for a block of wood and
an axe, bared his arms, chopped the block into smaller
pieces, and threw them into the sea, when every piece
became a fine ship, and presently formed a fleet by which
the enemy were attacked and destroyed.
To sail round the world was in the popular belief an ad-
venture of the most formidable kind, and not to be per-
formed by plain sailing, but by reaching the end of this
round flat earth, and there shooting the gulf, which is the
only passage from one side of the world to the other : Drake
shot the gulf, one day : when on the other side, he asked his
men if any of them knew where they were, a boy made
answer that he knew, and that they were then just under
London Bridge : upon which, stung by jealousy, Drake ex-
claimed, " Hast thou too a devil ? If I let thee live there
will then be one greater man than myself" ; and with that
he threw him overboard. When Sir Francis left home to
embark for this long voyage, upon taking leave of his wife,
he told her that if he did not return wuthin a certain number
of years she might conclude him to be dead, and consider
herself at liberty to take a second husband. One version
fixes the term at seven years, another at ten. During those
years, Madam Drake, though assailed by many suitors,
356 ENGLISH SEAMEN
remained true as Penelope to her absent lord ; but after the
term had expired, she accepted an offer. One of Drake's
ministering spirits, whose charge it was to convey to him any
intelligence in which he was nearly concerned, brought him
the tidings. Immediately he loaded one of his great guns,
and fired it right down through the globe on one side, and
up on the other, with so true an aim, that it made its way
into the church, between the two parties most concerned,
just as the marriage service was beginning. " It comes from
Drake ! " cried the w r ife to the now unbrided bridegroom ;
" he is alive ! and there must be neither troth nor ring
between thee and me." This is the Devonshire tradition of
the " old warrior," as they call him, and his lady. The story
in Somersetshire is, that as they were on the way to church
a huge round stone fell from the sky, close by the intended
bride, and alighted upon the train of her gown. She said,
" It came from my husband," and immediately turned back ;
and it was not long before he returned, and, imitating Guy,
Earl of Warwick, asked alms of her at his own door in
disguise : a smile betrayed that he was telling a feigned
tale, and the faithful wife recognised him, and fell upon his
neck. It is said that the stone still remains upon the estate
where it fell ; that it is there used as a weight upon the
harrow ; and is so well contented with this usage, uncere-
monious as for so extraordinary a relic it may be deemed,
that if it be removed from the estate, it always returns
thither, no person knows how.
This is the latest instance in which such fictions have been
invented unconnected with Romish fraud or sectarian fana-
ticism ; and it shows how strongly the romantic character of
Drake's exploits, and the extraordinary celebrity which he
obtained, impressed the imagination of his countrymen. He
left a widow, Elizabeth, daughter and sole heiress of Sir
George Sydenham, of Combe-Sydenham, in the county of
Devon : she afterwards married William Courtenay, Esq., of
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 357
Powderham Castle. He had no children, and of his eleven
brothers nine also died childless. The property which he
left was much diminished by a prosecution which the crown
instituted against his executor Thomas Drake, for what is
said to have been " a pretended debt " : it would have been
becoming in the government to have relinquished even a just
claim. Drake, however, though a bountiful man, possessed
the virtue of economy ; and the estate which remained
placed his nephew in such a station that he was created a
baronet by James I., and represented the county of Devon
in the beginning of the ensuing reign. Sir Francis himself
was twice returned to Parliament for Bossiney alias Tintagal
in Cornwall, afterwards for Plymouth. He was of low stature,
but well set ; his chest broad, his hair a fine brown, his beard
full and comely, his head remarkably round, his eyes large
and clear, his complexion fair, and the expression of his fresh
and cheerful countenance open and engaging. His temper
was quick, and he is said to have been " hard to be recon-
ciled " ; but the same strength of feeling made him constant
in friendship. The gift of eloquence he possessed in a re-
markable degree, and was fond of displaying it. One who
served under him says that he was ambitious to a fault ; and
the vanity which usually accompanies that sin laid him open
to flattery : but he encouraged and preferred merit wherever
he found it ; and his affable manners gave him a sure hold
upon the affections of his men, while they had the most
perfect confidence in his unrivalled skill as a seaman, and
his never-failing promptitude in all cases of emergency. At
all times he was a willing hearer of every man's opinion ; but
for the most part as a truly great man for the most part
must be a follower of his own.
Hawkins led the way to the West Indies, Drake to the
South Sea ; opening thereby a course for adventurers who at
length rivalled the vikingar in atrocity. The effect upon the
Spanish colonies was most injurious ; for rising and flourish-
358 ENGLISH SEAMEN
ing settlements were some subverted, and others removed
into the interior, to be beyond the reach of a descent : hereby
much growing civilisation was destroyed, and the people
were withdrawn from the influence of maritime commerce,
which is of all things most conducive to its progress. The
expeditions undertaken in Elizabeth's reign against the
Spaniards are said to have produced no advantage to England
in any degree commensurate with the cost of money and
expense of life with which they were performed, though
great evil was inflicted upon the enemy. If the advantage
were to be calculated by the rule of profit and loss, and
consisted only in tangible gain, this would be undeniable ;
but the effects produced upon the navy and upon the national
character must be taken into the account. In these expedi-
tions it was that those seamen were trained by whose skill, so
far as human skill was rendered instrumental in our deliver-
ance, the Spanish armada was averted from our shores ; and a
succession of such seamen has from that time been unin-
terruptedly maintained from generation to generation.
THOMAS CAVENDISH
THE most successful of all those adventurers who followed
in Drake's track was Thomas Cavendish, who was born
to a large possession and a fine mansion at Trimley St.
Martin, in the county of Suffolk. Having in a few years
almost consumed his whole estate in extravagance, and
following the court, he " thought to recover himself by a
voyage into the South Sea, at a time when the war having
openly begun it was lawful to make any spoil upon the
Spaniards ". This resolution was taken while he had yet
means enough remaining from the waste of his fortune to
build from the stocks one ship of 120 and one of 60 tons, to
purchase a barque of 40, fit them out, and victual them for
two years ; and with 123 persons of all sorts in this little
squadron he sailed from Plymouth on the 21st of July, 1586.
The names of his vessels were the Desire, the Content and
the Hugh Gallant.
They made the Canaries on the 5th of August, and on the
26th anchored at Sierra Leone. The next day two negroes