DRAKE'S EXPLOIT WITH A SLEEPING SPANIARD—HIS ACHIEVEMENTS AT CALLAO—BATTLE WITH A TREASURE-SHIP—DRAKE GIVES A RECEIPT FOR HER CARGO—INDITES A TOUCHING EPISTLE—HIS PLANS FOR RETURNING HOME—FRESH CAPTURES—PERFORMANCES AT GUATULCO AND ACAPULCO—DRAKE DISMISSES HIS PILOT—EXCEEDING COLD WEATHER—DRAKE REGARDED AS A GOD BY THE CALIFORNIANS—SAILS FOR THE MOLUCCAS—VISITS TERNATE AND CELEBES—THE PELICAN UPON A REEF—THE RETURN VOYAGE—PROTEST OF THE SPANISH AMBASSADOR—HE STYLES DRAKE THE MASTER-THIEF OF THE UNKNOWN WORLD—QUEEN ELIZABETH ON BOARD THE PELICAN—DRAKE'S USE OF HIS FORTUNE—HIS DEATH—THE VOYAGE OF JOHN DAVIS TO THE NORTHWEST.

A fortnight after leaving Valparaiso, Drake anchored at the mouth of the Coquimbo. The watering party sent ashore had barely time to escape from a body of five hundred horse and foot. At another place, called Tarapaca, the waterers found a Spaniard lying asleep, and took from him thirteen bars of silver of the value of four thousand ducats. Southey states, as if it were a trait of magnanimity, that no personal injury was offered to the sleeping man. They next captured eight lamas, each carrying a hundred pounds of silver. At Arica they found two ships at anchor, a single negro being on board of each: from the one they took forty bars of silver, and from the other two hundred jars of wine. As the Pelican was more than a match for the two negroes, the latter wisely offered no resistance. Drake arrived at Callao, the port of Lima,—Lima being the capital of Peru,—before it was known that an enemy's ship had entered the waters of the Pacific. He immediately boarded a bark laden with silk, which he consented to leave unmolested on condition that the owner would pilot him into Callao, which he did. Here Drake found seventeen ships, twelve of which had sent their sails ashore, so that they were as helpless as logs. He rifled them of their silver, silk, and linen, and then cut their cables and let them drift out to sea. Learning that a richly-laden treasure-ship, named the Cacafuego, had lately sailed for Paita, he at once gave chase. He stopped a vessel bound for Callao; and such was his thirst for gain, that he took from it a small silver lamp, the only article of value on board. In a ship bound to Panama he found forty bars of silver, eighty pounds of gold, and a golden crucifix set with large emeralds. Soon after crossing the line, the Cacafuego was discovered ten miles to seaward, by Drake's brother John. The Pelican's sailing qualities were now improved by what Sylva, the pilot, calls a "pretty device." Empty jars were filled with water and hung with ropes over the stern, in order to lighten her bow. The Spaniard, not dreaming of an enemy, made towards her, whereupon Drake gave her three broadsides, shot her mainmast overboard, and wounded her captain. She then surrendered. Drake took possession, sailed with her two days and two nights from the coast, and then lay to to rifle her. He took from her an immense quantity of pearls and precious stones, eighty pounds of gold, twenty-six tons of silver in ingots, a large portion of which belonged to the king, and thirteen boxes of coined silver. The value of this prize was not far from one million of dollars. Then, as if he had been engaged in a legal commercial transaction, Drake asked the captain for his register of the cargo, and wrote a receipt in the margin for the whole amount!

The prize, thus lightened of her metallic cargo, was then allowed to depart. Her captain received from Drake a letter of safe conduct in case he should fall in with the Elizabeth or the Mary. This letter is remarkable for its deep and touching piety. After recommending the despoiled captain to the friendly notice of Winter and Thomas, Drake concludes thus:—"I commit you all to the tuition of Him that with his blood hath redeemed us, and am in good hope that we shall be in no more trouble, but that he will help us in adversity; desiring you, for the passion of Christ, if you fall into any danger, that you will not despair of God's mercy, for he will defend you and preserve you from all peril, and bring us to our desired haven: to whom be all honor, and praise, and glory, forever and ever. Amen.

"Your sorrowful captain,

Whose heart is heavy for you,

Francis Drake."

Drake now considered his object in these seas as accomplished: the indignities offered by the Spaniards to his queen and country were avenged, and their commerce was well-nigh annihilated. He next examined the various plans of returning home with his booty. He thought it impossible to go back by the way he had come: the whole coast of Chili and Peru was in alarm, and ships had undoubtedly been despatched to intercept him. Moreover, the season (for it was now February, 1579) was unfavorable either for passing the Strait or for doubling the Cape. He might have followed the course of Magellan, and thus have circumnavigated the globe; but this seemed but a paltry imitation to his daring and inventive mind. He conceived the idea of discovering a Northwest Passage and returning to England by the North Polar Sea. He therefore sailed towards the north, making the coast of Nicaragua in the middle of March. Here he captured a small craft laden with sarsaparilla, butter, and honey. A neighboring island supplied him with wood and fish: alligators and monkeys also abounded there. A vessel from Manilla, which he captured while her crew were asleep, contributed to his stores large quantities of muslin, Chinese porcelain, and silks. A negro taken from this vessel piloted him into the haven of Guatulco, on the coast of Mexico, inhabited by seventeen Spaniards and a few negroes. Drake ransacked this place, but boasts of no other booty than a bushel of silver coins and a gold chain that Thomas Moon took from the person of the escaping governor. At Acapulco he found a few Spaniards engaged in trying and condemning a parcel of the unhappy natives. He broke up the court, and sent both judges and prisoners on board his vessel.

Before leaving Acapulco, Drake put the pilot, Nuno da Sylva, whom he had taken at the Cape Verds, on board a ship in the harbor, to find his way back to Portugal as best he could. He then sailed four thousand five hundred miles in various directions, till he found himself in a piercingly cold climate, where the meat froze as soon as it was removed from the fire. This was in latitude forty-eight north. So he sailed back again ten degrees and anchored in an excellent harbor on the California coast. This harbor is considered by numerous authorities as the present Bay of San Francisco. The natives, who had been visited but once by Europeans,—under the Portuguese Cabrillo, thirty-seven years before,—had not learned to distrust them, and readily entered into relations of commerce and amity with Drake's party. From the Indians the latter obtained quantities of an herb which they called tabak, and which was undoubtedly tobacco. The Californians soon came to regard the strangers as gods, and did them religious honors. The king resigned to Drake all title to the surrounding country, and offered to become his subject. So he took possession of the crown and dignity of the said territory in the name and for the use of her majesty the queen. The Californians, we are told, accompanied this act of surrender with a song and dance of triumph, "because they were not only visited of gods, but the great and chief god was now become their god, their king and patron, and themselves the only happy and blessed people in all the world." Drake named the country New Albion, in honor of Old Albion or England. He set up a monument of the queen's "right and title to the same, namely, a plate nailed upon a fair great post, whereon was engraved her majesty's name, with the day and year of arrival." After remaining five weeks in the harbor, Drake weighed anchor, on the 23d of July, resolved to abandon any further attempt in northern latitudes, and to steer for the Moluccas, after the example of Magellan.

On the 13th of October he discovered several islands in latitude eight degrees north, and was soon surrounded with canoes laden with cocoanuts and fruit. These canoes were hollowed out of a single log with wonderful art, and were as smooth as polished horn, and decorated throughout with shells thickly set. The ears of the natives hung down considerably from the weight of the ornaments worn in them. Their nails were long and sharp, and were evidently used as a weapon. Their teeth were black as jet,—an effect obtained by the use of the betel-root. These people were friendly and commercially inclined. Drake visited other groups, where the principal occupation of the natives was selling cinnamon to the Portuguese. At Ternate, one of the Moluccas, the king offered the sovereignty of the isles to Drake, and sent him presents of "imperfect and liquid sugar,"—molasses, probably,—"rice, poultry, cloves, and meal which they called sagu, or bread made of the tops of certain trees, tasting in the mouth like sour curds, but melting like sugar, whereof they made certain cakes which may be kept the space of ten years, and yet then good to be eaten." Drake stayed here six days, laid in a large stock of cloves, and sailed on the 9th of November. At a small island near Celebes, where he set up his forge and caused the ship to be carefully repaired, he and his men saw sights which they have described in somewhat exaggerated terms:—"tall trees without branches except a tuft at the very top, in which swarms of fiery worms, flying in the air, made a show as if every twig had been a burning candle; bats bigger than large hens,—a very ugly poultry; cray-fish, or land-crabs, one of which was enough for four men, and which dug huge caves under the roots of trees, or, for want of better refuge, would climb trees and hide in the forks of the branches." This spot was appropriately named Crab Island.

On the 9th of January, 1580, the ship ran upon a rocky shoal and stuck fast. The crew were first summoned to prayers, and then ordered to lighten the ship. Three tons of cloves were thrown over, eight guns, and a quantity of meal and pulse. One authority says distinctly that no gold or silver was thrown into the water, though it was the heaviest part of the cargo; another authority asserts the contrary in the following passage:—"Conceiving that the best way to lighten the ship was to ease their consciences, they humbled themselves by fasting, afterwards dining on Christ in the sacrament, expecting no other than to sup with him in heaven. Then they cast out of their ship six great pieces of ordnance, threw overboard as much wealth as would break the heart of a miser to think of it, with much sugar and packs of spices, making a caudle of the sea round about." The ship was at last freed, and started again on her way. Her adventures from this point offer no very salient features: she stopped at Java, the Cape of Good Hope, and Sierra Leone. In the latter place Drake saw troops of elephants, and oysters fastened on to the twigs of trees and hanging down into the water in strings.

Drake arrived at Plymouth after a voyage of two years and ten months. Like Magellan, he found he had lost a day in his reckoning. He immediately repaired to court, where he was graciously received, his treasure, however, being placed in sequestration, to answer such demands as might be made, upon it. Drake was denounced in many quarters as a pirate, while in others collections of songs and epigrams were made, celebrating him and his ship in the highest terms. The Spanish ambassador, Bernardino de Mendoza, who called him the Master-Thief of the Unknown World, demanded that he should be punished according to the laws of nations. Elizabeth firmly asserted her right of navigating the ocean in all parts, and denied that the Pope's grant of a monopoly in the Indies to the Spaniards and Portuguese was of any binding effect upon her. She yielded, however, so far as to restore, to the agent of several of the merchants whom Drake had despoiled, large sums of money. Enough remained, however, to make the expedition a remunerating one for the captors. The queen then, in a pompous and solemn ceremony, gave to the entire affair an official and governmental ratification. She ordered Drake's ship to be drawn up in a little creek near Deptford, to be there preserved as a monument of the most memorable voyage the English had ever yet performed. She went on board of her, and partook of a banquet there with the commander, who, kneeling at her feet, rose up Sir Francis Drake. The Westminster students inscribed a Latin quatrain upon the mainmast, of which the following lines are a translation:

"Sir Drake, whom well the world's end knows, which thou didst compass round,
And whom both poles of heaven saw—which north and south do bound,—
The stars above will make thee known, if men here silent were:
The sun himself cannot forget his fellow-traveller."

The ship remained at Deptford till she decayed and fell to pieces: a chair was made from one of her planks and presented to the University of Oxford, where it is still to be seen.

Such was the first voyage around the world accomplished by an Englishman. Drake's success awakened the spirit and genius of navigation in the English people, and may be said to have contributed in no slight degree to the naval supremacy they afterwards acquired. If, in accordance with the manner of the times, he was quite as much a pirate as a navigator, and mingled plunder and piety, prayer and pillage, in pretty equal proportions, and is to be judged accordingly, he at least made a noble use of the fortune he had acquired, in aiding the queen in her wars with Spain, and in encouraging the construction of public works. He built, with his own resources, an aqueduct twenty miles in length, with which to supply Plymouth with water. He died at sea, while commanding an expedition against the Spanish West India Islands. He wrote no account of his adventures and discoveries. A volume published by Nuno da Sylva, his Portuguese pilot, whose statements were confirmed by the officers, has served as the basis of the various narratives in existence.

We may briefly allude here to an attempt made in 1585, under the auspices of the English Government, by John Davis, a seaman of acknowledged ability, with two ships,—the Sunshine and Moonshine,—to discover the Northwest Passage. After a voyage of six weeks, he saw, in north latitude 60°, a mountainous and ice-bound promontory. It was the southwestern point of Greenland, and he gave it the name of Cape Desolation, which it still retains. He now sailed to the northwest, discovered islands, coasts, and harbors, to which he gave appropriate appellations. He thus was the first to enter the strait which bears his name, and beyond which Baffin, thirty years later, was to discover the vast bay which, in its turn, was to bear his name. Davis made two subsequent voyages to these waters in search of a passage across the continent, but, with the exception of the discovery of Davis' Strait, effected nothing which needs to be chronicled here. This single discovery, however, was one of the utmost importance, as it served to stimulate research and to encourage further effort in this direction. More than two centuries were nevertheless destined to elapse before success was to be attained.