Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Captain In 1548 arguably one of the best captains in England’s history was born. Sir Francis Drake was born to a wealthy family on the Crowndale estate of Lord Francis Russell. What started Drake’s obsession and controversial career for battle and for the sea began when he enlisted as an 18 year old eager young man ready for exploration, battle, and riches. Drake’s life really began when a peasant Roman Catholic priest accused him of Robbery and theft. These allegations led Drake to flee his native country, Which led Drake to lead the Hawkins African Trade ships.
By 1568 Drake had command of his own ship and fleets for the slave trade to the spanish colonies of the Caribbean. These voyages to the Spanish colonies lead to difficulties and problems with the Spanish conquistadors and slavers, many “wrongs” were put on Drake and his fleets when the talk of changes to the slave trade to the colonies were brought to the conversations. On Drake’s return voyage to the colonies he brought John Hawkins along, as they arrived at San Juan de Ulua off the coast of Mexico, the trip ended shortly and was disastrous for the English interlopers.
Much of the crew of Sir Francis Drake were killed by the attacking Spanish, Drake survived with wounds but got away and headed towards England to take command of a small vessel, The Judith. By this time Sir Francis Drake had great determination to get revenge upon the Spanish and their King, King Philip II. Even though Drake’s finances were not up to par with what he needed, this caught the attention of Queen Elizabeth I who had herself invested in the slave trade that Drake commanded.
In the next several years that came after, he made two expeditions in small vessels to the West Indies, in order “to gain such intelligence as might further him to get some amend for his loss. “(Sir Francis Drake) Secretly Drake started sendings scouts, spies, and sailors to check out the Spanish ports on the colonies and mainland. Coming up with devious ways to defeat the Spaniards worse than they did him, mapping out the trade routes of the ships coming and going in and out of Spain he would eventually find a weak point.
In 1572 having obtained from the queen a privateering commission, which amounted to a license to plunder in the king of Spain’s lands Drake set sail for America in command of two small ships, the 70-ton Pasha and the 25-ton Swan. He was nothing if not ambitious and ready for the battle, for his aim was to capture the important town of Nombre de Dios, Pan. Although Drake was wounded in the attack, which failed, he and his men managed to get away with a great deal of plunder by successfully attacking a silver-bearing mule train.
This was perhaps the foundation of Drake’s fortune. In the interval between these episodes, he crossed the Isthmus of Panama. Standing on a high ridge of land, he first saw the Pacific, that ocean hitherto barred to all but Spanish ships. It was then, as he put it, that he “besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship in that sea. ” (Sir Francis Drake). He returned to England both rich and famous. Unfortunately, his return coincided with a moment when Queen Elizabeth and King Philip II of Spain had reached a temporary truce.
Although delighted with Drake’s success in the empire of her great enemy, Elizabeth could not officially acknowledge piracy. Drake saw that the time was inauspicious and sailed with a small squadron to Ireland, where he served under the earl of Essex and took part in a notorious massacre in July 1575. In which he seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth as there are no recorded accounts of him until 1577. Until now no one knew what had happened to Drake’s “Secret Voyage” of 1575-1577.
In 1577 he was chosen as the leader of an expedition intended to pass around South America through the Strait of Magellan and to explore the coast that lay beyond. The expedition was backed by the queen herself. (Sir Francis Drake). The exploration of the Pacific Northwest in hopes of finding the fabled Northwest Passage to eastern trade routes, and to establish a British colony in the New World–was hidden under a “cloak of secrecy” due to Drake’s complicated relationship with Queen Elizabeth and England’s precarious political situation with Spain(The Secret Voyage).
Queen Elizabeth wanted to keep this expedition so secret she would only speak to Drake face-to-face, any notes or letters sent were immediately burned after being read. The reasons for the secrecy was attributed to the short truce gland and Spain had reached, this was the occasion on which he first met the queen face-to-face and heard from her own lips that she “would gladly be revenged on the king of Spain for divers injuries that I have received. ” The explicit object was to “find out places meet to have traffic. ” Drake, however, devoted the voyage to piracy, without official reproof in England.
He set sail in December with five small ships, manned by fewer than 200 men, and reached the Brazilian coast in the spring of 1578. His flagship, the Pelican, which Drake later renamed the Golden Hind (or Hinde), weighed only about 100 tons. It seemed little enough with which to undertake a venture into the domain of the most powerful monarch and empire in the world(Sir Francis Drake). When arriving to South America, Drake alleged a plot by unreliable officers, and it’s supposed leader, Thomas Doughty, was tried and executed.
Drake was always a stern disciplinarian to point of treason or foolishness, and he clearly did not intend to continue the venture without making sure that all of his small company were loyal to him. Two of his smaller vessels, having served their purpose as store ships, were then abandoned after their provisions had been taken aboard the others, and on August 21, 1578, he entered the Strait of Magellan. It took 16 days to sail through, after which Drake had his second view of the Pacific Ocean this time from the deck his English ship. Then, s he wrote, “God by a contrary wind and intolerable tempest seemed to set himself against us. “(Sir Francis Drake) During the gale, Drake’s vessel and that of his second in command had been separated; the latter, having missed a rendezvous with Drake, ultimately returned to England, presuming that the Hinde had sunk. It was, therefore, only Drake’s flagship that made its way into the Pacific and up the coast of South America. He passed along the coast like a whirlwind, for the Spaniards were quite unguarded, having never known a hostile ship in their waters.
He seized provisions at Valparaiso, attacked passing Spanish merchantmen, and captured two very rich prizes that were carrying bars of gold and silver, minted Spanish coinage, precious stones, and pearls. He claimed then to have sailed to the north as far as 48° N, on a parallel with Vancouver, to seek the Northwest Passage back into the Atlantic. Bitterly cold weather defeated him, and he coasted southward to anchor near what is now San Francisco. He named the surrounding country New Albion and took possession of it in the name of Queen Elizabeth.
In July 1579 he sailed west across the Pacific and after 68 days sighted a line of islands most likely the remote Palau group. From there he went on to the Philippines, where he watered ship before sailing to the Moluccas. There he was well received by a local sultan and succeeded in buying spices. Drake’s deepsea navigation and pilotage were always excellent, but in those totally uncharted waters his ship struck a reef. He was able to get her off without any great damage and, after calling at Java, set his course across the Indian Ocean for the Cape of Good Hope.
Two years after she had nosed her way into the Strait of Magellan, the Golden Hind came back into the Atlantic with only 56 of the original crew of 100 left aboard(Sir Francis Drake). On September 26, 1580, Francis Drake took his ship into Plymouth Harbour. She was laden with treasure and spices, and Drake’s fortune was permanently made. Despite Spanish protests about his piratical conduct while in their imperial waters, Queen Elizabeth herself went aboard the Golden Hind, which was lying at Deptford in the Thames estuary, and personally bestowed knighthood on him.
In the same year, 1581, Drake was made mayor of Plymouth, an office he fulfilled with the same thoroughness that he had shown in all other matters. He organized a water supply for Plymouth that served the city for 300 years. In keeping with his new station, Drake purchased a fine country house Buckland Abbey a few miles from Plymouth. Drake’s only grief was that neither of his wives bore him any children. During these years of fame when Drake was a popular hero, he could always obtain volunteers for any of his expeditions.
But he was very differently regarded by many of his great contemporaries. Such well-born men as the naval commander Sir Richard Grenville and the navigator and explorer Sir Martin Frobisher disliked him intensely. He was the parvenu, the rich but common upstart, with West Country manners and accent and with none of the courtier’s graces. Drake had even bought Buckland Abbey from the Grenvilles by a ruse, using an intermediary, for he knew that the Grenvilles would never have sold it to him directly.
It is doubtful, in any case, whether he cared about their opinions, so long as he retained the goodwill of the queen. This was soon enough demonstrated when in 1585 Elizabeth placed him in command of a fleet of 25 ships. Hostilities with Spain had broken out once more, and he was ordered to cause as much damage as possible to the Spaniards’ overseas empire. Drake fulfilled his commission, capturing Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands and taking and plundering the cities of Cartagena in Colombia, St. Augustine in Florida, and San Domingo.
Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s principal minister, who had never approved of Drake or his methods, was forced to concede that “Sir Francis Drake is a fearful man to the king of Spain. ” (Sir Francis Drake) Drake’s later years, however, were not happy. An expedition that he led to Portugal proved abortive, and his last voyage, in 1596 against the Spanish possessions in the West Indies, was a failure, largely because the fleet was decimated by a fever to which Drake himself died of. He was buried at sea off the town of Puerto Bello modern Portobelo, Panama(Sir Francis Drake).
