Sir Francis Drake in the Ports of Spain
For three years after Drake had been dubbed Sir Francis by the
Queen he was the hero of every class of Englishmen but two: the
extreme Roman Catholics, who wanted Mary Queen of Scots, and the
merchants who were doing business with Portugal and Spain. The
Marian opposition to the general policy of England persisted for a
few years longer. But the merchants who were the inheritors of
centuries of commercial intercourse with England's new enemies were
soon to receive a shock that completely changed their minds. They
were themselves one of the strongest factors that made for war in
the knotty problem now to be solved at the cannon's mouth because
English trade was seeking new outlets in every direction and was
beating hard against every door that foreigners shut in its face.
These merchants would not, however, support the war party till they
were forced to, as they still hoped to gain by other means what only
war could win.
The year that Drake came home (1580) Philip at last got hold of a
sea-going fleet, the eleven big Portuguese galleons taken when
Lisbon fell. With the Portuguese ships, sailors, and oversea
possessions, with more galleons under construction at Santander in
Spain, and with the galleons of the Indian Guard built by the great
Menendez to protect New Spain: with all this performed or promised,
Philip began to feel as if the hour was at hand when he could do to
England what she had done to him.
In 1583 Santa Cruz, the best Spanish admiral since the death of
Menendez, proposed to form the nucleus of the Great Armada out of
the fleet with which he had just broken down the last vestige of
Portuguese resistance in the Azores. From that day on, the idea was
never dropped. At the same time Elizabeth discovered the Paris Plot
between Mary and Philip and the Catholics of France, all of whom
were bent on her destruction. England stood to arms. But false ideas
of naval defence were uppermost in the Queen's Council. No attempt
was made to strike a concentrated blow at the heart of the enemy's
fleet in his own waters. Instead of this the English ships were
carefully divided among the three squadrons meant to defend the
approaches to England, Ireland, and Scotland, because, as the
Queen-in-Council sagely remarked, who could be expected to know what
the enemy's point of attack would be? The fact is that when wielding
the forces of the fleet and army the Queen and most of her
non-combatant councillors never quite reached that supreme point of
view from which the greatest statesmen see exactly where civil
control ends and civilian interference begins. Luckily for England,
their mistakes were once more covered up by a turn of the
international kaleidoscope.
No sooner had the immediate danger of a great combined attack on
England passed away than Elizabeth returned to Drake's plan for a
regular raid against New Spain, though it had to be one that was not
designed to bring on war in Europe. Drake, who was a member of the
Navy Board charged with the reorganization of the fleet, was to have
command. The ships and men were ready. But the time had not yet
come.
Next year (1584) Amadas and Barlow, Sir Walter Raleigh's two
prospectors for the 'plantation' of Virginia, were being delighted
with the summer lands and waters of what is now North Carolina. We
shall soon hear more of Raleigh and his vision of the West. But at
this time a good many important events were happening in Europe; and
it is these that we must follow first.
William of Orange, the Washington of Holland, was assassinated at
Philip's instigation, while plots to kill Elizabeth and place Mary
on the throne began to multiply. The agents were executed, while a
'Bond of Association' was signed by all Elizabeth's chief
supporters, binding them to hunt down and kill all who tried to kill
her--a plain hint for Mary Queen of Scots to stop plotting or stand
the consequences.
But the merchants trading with Spain and Portugal were more than
ever for keeping on good terms with Philip because the failure of
the Spanish harvest had induced him to offer them special protection
and encouragement if they would supply his country's needs at once.
Every available ton of shipping was accordingly taken up for Spain.
The English merchant fleet went out, and big profits seemed assured.
But presently the "Primrose", 'a tall ship of London,' came flying
home to say that Philip had suddenly seized the merchandise,
imprisoned the men, and taken the ships and guns for use with the
Great Armada. That was the last straw. The peaceful traders now saw
that they were wrong and that the fighting ones were right; and for
the first time both could rejoice over the clever trick by which
John Hawkins had got his own again from Philip. In 1571, three years
after Don Martin's treachery at San Juan de Ulna, Hawkins, while
commanding the Scilly Island squadron, led the Spanish ambassador to
believe that he would go over to the Spanish cause in Ireland if his
claims for damages were only paid in full and all his surviving men
in Mexico were sent home. The cold and crafty Philip swallowed this
tempting bait; sent the men home with Spanish dollars in their
pockets, and paid Hawkins forty thousand pounds, the worth of about
two million dollars now. Then Hawkins used the information he had
picked up behind the Spanish scenes to unravel the Ridolfi Plot for
putting Mary on the throne in 1572, the year of St. Bartholomew. No
wonder Philip hated sea-dogs!
Things new and old having reached this pass, the whole of England,
bar the Marians, were eager for the great 'Indies Voyage' of 1585.
Londoners crowded down to Woolwich 'with great jolitie' to see off
their own contingent on its way to join Drake's flag at Plymouth.
Very probably Shakespeare went down too, for that famous London
merchantman, the "Tiger", to which he twice alludes--once in
"Macbeth" and once in "Twelfth Night"--was off with this contingent.
Such a private fleet had never yet been seen: twenty-one ships,
eight smart pinnaces, and twenty-three hundred men of every rank and
rating. The Queen was principal shareholder and managing director.
But, as usual in colonial attacks intended for disavowal if
necessity arose, no prospectus or other document was published, nor
were the shareholders of this joint-stock company known in any quite
official way. It was the size of the fleet and the reputation of the
officers that made it a national affair. Drake, now forty, was
'Admiral'; Frobisher, of North-West-Passage fame, was 'Vice';
Knollys, the Queen's own cousin, 'Rear.' Carleill, a famous general,
commanded the troops and sailed in Shakespeare's "Tiger". Drake's
old crew from the "Golden Hind" came forward to a man, among them
Wright, 'that excellent mathematician and ingineer,' and big Tom
Moone, the lion of all boarding-parties, each in command of a ship.
But Elizabeth was just then weaving the threads of an unusually
intricate diplomatic pattern; so doubts and delays, orders and
counter-orders vexed Drake to the last. Sir Philip Sidney, too, came
down as a volunteer; which was another sore vexation, since his
European fame would have made him practically joint commander of the
fleet, although he was not a naval officer at all. But he had the
good sense to go back; whereupon Drake, fearing further
interruptions from the court, ordered everything to be tumbled into
the nearest ships and hurried off to sea under a press of sail.
The first port of call was Vigo in the northwestern corner of Spain,
where Drake's envoy told the astonished governor that Elizabeth
wanted to know what Philip intended doing about embargoes now. If
the governor wanted peace, he must listen to Drake's arguments; if
war--well, Drake was ready to begin at once. A three-days' storm
interrupted the proceedings; after which the English intercepted the
fugitive townsfolk whose flight showed that the governor meant to
make a stand, though he had said the embargo had been lifted and
that all the English prisoners were at liberty to go. Some English
sailors, however, were still being held; so Drake sent in an armed
party and brought them off, with a good pile of reprisal booty too.
Then he put to sea and made for the Spanish Main by way of the
Portuguese African islands.
The plan of campaign drawn up for Burleigh's information still
exists. It shows that Drake, the consummate raider, was also an
admiral of the highest kind. The items, showing how long each part
should take and what loot each place should yield, are exact and
interesting. But it is in the relation of every part to every other
part and to the whole that the original genius of the born commander
shines forth in all its glory. After taking San Domingo he was to
sack Margarita, La Hacha, and Santa Marta, razing their
fortifications as he left. Cartagena and Nombre de Dios came next.
Then Carleill was to raid Panama, with the help of the Maroons,
while Drake himself was to raid the coast of Honduras. Finally, with
reunited forces, he would take Havana and, if possible, hold it by
leaving a sufficient garrison behind. Thus he would paralyze New
Spain by destroying all the points of junction along its lines of
communication just when Philip stood most in need of its help for
completing the Great Armada.
But, like a mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his
stride during the preliminary canter before the great race. The wind
being foul for the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde
archipelago and captured Santiago, which had been abandoned in
terror on the approach of the English 'Dragon,' that sinister hero
of Lope de Vega's epic onslaught "La Dragontea". As good luck would
have it, Carleill marched in on the anniversary of the Queen's
accession, the 17th of November. So there was a royal salute fired
in Her Majesty's honor by land and sea. No treasure was found,
French privateers had sacked the place three years before and had
killed off everyone they caught; the Portuguese, therefore, were not
going to wait to meet the English 'Dragon' too. The force that
marched inland failed to unearth the governor. So San Domingo,
Santiago, and Porto Pravda were all burnt to the ground before the
fleet bore away for the West Indies.
San Domingo in Hispaniola (Hayti) was made in due course, but only
after a virulent epidemic had seriously thinned the ranks. San
Domingo was the oldest town in New Spain and was strongly garrisoned
and fortified. But Carleill's soldiers carried all before them.
Drake battered down the seaward walls. The Spaniards abandoned the
citadel at night, and the English took the whole place as a New
Year's gift for 1586. But again there was no treasure. The Spaniards
had killed off the Caribs in war or in the mines, so that nothing
was now dug out. Moreover the citizens were quite on their guard
against adventurers and ready to hide what they had in the most
inaccessible places. Drake then put the town up to ransom and sent
out his own Maroon boy servant to bring in the message from the
Spanish officer proposing terms. This Spaniard, hating all Maroons,
ran his lance through the boy and cantered away. The boy came back
with the last ounce of his strength and fell dead at Drake's feet.
Drake sent to say he would hang two Spaniards every day if the
murderer was not hanged by his own compatriots. As no one came he
began with two friars. Then the Spaniards brought in the offender
and hanged him in the presence of both armies.
That episode cleared the air; and an interchange of courtesies and
hospitalities immediately followed. But no business was done. Drake
therefore began to burn the town bit by bit till twenty-five
thousand ducats were paid. It was very little for the capital. But
the men picked up a good deal of loot in the process and vented
their ultra-Protestant zeal on all the 'graven images' that were not
worth keeping for sale. On the whole the English were well
satisfied. They had taken all the Spanish ships and armament they
wanted, destroyed the rest, liberated over a hundred brawny
galley-slaves--some Turks among them--all anxious for revenge, and
had struck a blow at Spanish prestige which echoed back to Europe.
Spain never hid her light under a bushel; and here, in the
Governor's Palace, was a huge escutcheon with a horse standing on
the earth and pawing at the sky. The motto blazoned on it was to the
effect that the earth itself was not enough for Spain--"Non sufficit
orbis." Drake's humor was greatly tickled, and he and his officers
kept asking the Spaniards to translate the motto again and again.
Delays and tempestuous head winds induced Drake to let intermediate
points alone and make straight for Cartagena on the South American
mainland. Cartagena had been warned and was on the alert. It was
strong by both nature and art. The garrison was good of its kind,
though the Spaniards' custom of fighting in quilted jackets instead
of armor put them at a disadvantage. This custom was due to the heat
and to the fact that the jackets were proof against the native
arrows.
There was an outer and an inner harbor, with such an intricate and
well-defended passage that no one thought Drake would dare go in.
But he did. Frobisher had failed to catch a pilot. But Drake did the
trick without one, to the utter dismay of the Spaniards. After some
more very clever manoeuvres, to distract the enemy's attention from
the real point of attack, Carleill and the soldiers landed under
cover of the dark and came upon the town where they were least
expected, by wading waist-deep through the water just out of sight
of the Spanish gunners. The entrenchments did not bar the way in
this unexpected quarter. But wine casks full of rammed earth had
been hurriedly piled there in case the mad English should make the
attempt. Carleill gave the signal. Goring's musketeers sprang
forward and fired into the Spaniards' faces. Then Sampson's pikemen
charged through and a desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued. Finally
the Spaniards broke after Carleill had killed their standard-bearer
and Goring had wounded and taken their commander. The enemies ran
pell-mell through the town together till the English reformed in the
Plaza. Next day Drake moved in to attack the harbor fort; whereupon
it was abandoned and the whole place fell.
But again there was a dearth of booty. The Spaniards were getting
shy of keeping too many valuables where they could be taken. So
negotiations, emphasized by piecemeal destruction, went on till
sickness and the lateness of the season put the English in a sorry
fix. The sack of the city had yielded much less than that of San
Domingo; and the men, who were all volunteers, to be paid out of
plunder, began to grumble at their ill-success. Many had been
wounded, several killed--big, faithful Tom Moone among them. A
hundred died. More were ill. Two councils of war were held, one
naval, the other military. The military officers agreed to give up
all their own shares to the men. But the naval officers, who were
poorer and who were also responsible for the expenses of their
vessels, could not concur. Finally 110,000 ducats (equivalent in
purchasing power to nearly three millions of dollars) were accepted.
It was now impossible to complete the programme or even to take
Havana, in view of the renewed sickness, the losses, and the advance
of the season. A further disappointment was experienced when Drake
just missed the treasure fleet by only half a day, though through no
fault of his own. Then, with constantly diminishing numbers of
effective men, the course was shaped for the Spanish 'plantation' of
St. Augustine in Florida. This place was utterly destroyed and some
guns and money were taken from it. Then the fleet stood north again
till, on the 9th of June, it found Raleigh's colony of Roanoke.
Ralph Lane, the governor, was in his fort on the island ready to
brave it out. Drake offered a free passage home to all the
colonists. But Lane preferred staying and going on with his surveys
and 'plantation.' Drake then filled up a store ship to leave behind
with Lane. But a terrific three-day storm wrecked the store ship and
damped the colonists' enthusiasm so much that they persuaded Lane to
change his mind. The colonists embarked and the fleet then bore away
for home. Though balked of much it had expected in the way of booty,
reduced in strength by losses, and therefore unable to garrison any
strategic point which would threaten the life of New Spain, its
purely naval work was a true and glorious success. When he arrived
at Plymouth, Drake wrote immediately to Burleigh: 'My very good
Lord, there is now a very great gap opened, very little to the
liking of the King of Spain.'
This 'very great gap' on the American side of the Atlantic was soon
to be matched by the still greater gap Drake was to make on the
European side by destroying the Spanish Armada and thus securing
that mightiest of ocean highways through which the hosts of
emigration afterwards poured into a land endowed with the goodly
heritage of English liberty and the English tongue.
The year of Drake's return (1586) was no less troublous than its
immediate predecessors. The discovery of the Babington Plot to
assassinate Elizabeth and to place Mary on the throne, supported by
Scotland, France, and Spain, proved Mary's complicity, produced an
actual threat of war from France, and made the Pope and Philip gnash
their teeth with rage. The Roman Catholic allied powers had no
sufficient navy, and Philip's credit was at its lowest ebb after
Drake's devastating raid. The English were exultant, east and west;
for the "True Report of a Worthie Fight performed in the voiage from
Turkie by Five Shippes of London against 11 gallies and two frigats
of the King of Spain at Pantalarea, within the Straits" [of
Gibraltar] "Anno 1586" was going the rounds and running a close
second to Drake's West India achievement. The ignorant and
thoughtless, both then and since, mistook this fight, and another
like it in 1590, to mean that English merchantmen could beat off
Spanish men-of-war. Nothing of the kind: the English Levanters were
heavily armed and admirably manned by well-trained fighting crews;
and what these actions really proved, if proof was necessary, was
that galleys were no match for broadsides from the proper kind of
sailing ships.
Turkey came into the problems of 1586 in more than name, for there
was a vast diplomatic scheme on foot to unite the Turks with such
Portuguese as would support Antonio, the pretender to the throne of
Portugal, and the rebellious Dutch against Spain, Catholic France,
and Mary Stuart's Scotland. Leicester was in the Netherlands with an
English army, fighting indecisively, losing Sir Philip Sidney and
angering Elizabeth by accepting the governor-generalship without her
leave and against her diplomacy, which, now as ever, was opposed to
any definite avowal that could possibly be helped.
Meanwhile the Great Armada was working up its strength, and Drake
was commissioned to weaken it as much as possible. But, on the 8th
of February, 1587, before he could sail, Mary was at last beheaded,
and Elizabeth was once more entering on a tricky course of tortuous
diplomacy too long by half to follow here. As the great crisis
approached, it had become clearer and clearer that it was a case of
kill or be killed between Elizabeth and Mary, and that England could
not afford to leave Marian enemies in the rear when there might be a
vast Catholic alliance in the front. But, as a sovereign, Elizabeth
disliked the execution of any crowned head; as a wily woman she
wanted to make the most of both sides; and as a diplomatist she
would not have open war and direct operations going down to the root
of the evil if devious ways would do.
So the peace party of the Council prevailed again, and Drake's
orders were changed. He had been going as a lion. The peace party
now tried to send him as a fox. But he stretched his instructions to
their utmost limits and even defied the custom of the service by
holding no council of war when deciding to swoop on Cadiz.
As they entered the harbor, the English saw sixty ships engaged in
preparations for the Great Armada. Many had no sails--to keep the
crews from deserting. Others were waiting for their guns to come
from Italy. Ten galleys rowed out to protect them. The weather and
surroundings were perfect for these galleys. But as they came end-on
in line-abreast Drake crossed their T in line-ahead with the
shattering broadsides of four Queen's ships which soon sent them
flying. Each galley was the upright of the T, each English sailing
ship the corresponding crosspiece. Then Drake attacked the shipping
and wrecked it right and left. Next morning he led the pinnaces and
boats into the inner harbor, where they cut out the big galleon
belonging to Santa Cruz himself, the Spanish commander-in-chief.
Then the galleys got their chance again--an absolutely perfect
chance, because Drake's fleet was becalmed at the very worst
possible place for sailing ships and the very best possible place
for the well-oared galleys. But even under these extraordinary
circumstances the ships smashed the galleys up with broadside fire
and sent them back to cover. Then the Spaniards towed some
fire-ships out. But the English rowed for them, threw grappling
irons into them, and gave them a turn that took them clear. Then,
for the last time, the galleys came on, as bravely but as uselessly
as ever. When Drake sailed away he left the shipping of Cadiz
completely out of action for months to come, though fifteen sail
escaped destruction in the inner harbor. His own losses were quite
insignificant.
The next objective was Cape St. Vincent, so famous through centuries
of naval history because it is the great strategic salient thrust
out into the Atlantic from the southwest corner of Europe, and thus
commands the flank approaches to and from the Mediterranean, to and
from the coast of Africa, and, in those days, the route to and from
New Spain by way of the Azores. Here Drake had trouble with Borough,
his second-in-command, a friend of cautious Burleigh and a man
hide-bound in the warfare of the past--a sort of English Don.
Borough objected to Drake's taking decisive action without the vote
of a council of war. Remembering the terrors of Italian textbooks,
he had continued to regard the galleys with much respect in the
harbor of Cadiz even after Drake had broken them with ease. Finally,
still clinging to the old ways of mere raids and reprisals, he stood
aghast at the idea of seizing Cape St. Vincent and making it a base
of operations. Drake promptly put him under arrest.
Sagres Castle, commanding the roadstead of Cape St. Vincent, was
extraordinarily strong. The cliffs, on which it occupied about a
hundred acres, rose sheer two hundred feet all round except at a
narrow and well defended neck only two hundred yards across. Drake
led the stormers himself. While half his eight hundred men kept up a
continuous fire against every Spaniard on the wall the other half
rushed piles of faggots in against the oak and iron gate. Drake was
foremost in this work, carrying faggots himself and applying the
first match. For two hours the fight went on; when suddenly the
Spaniards sounded a parley. Their commanding officer had been killed
and the woodwork of the gate had taken fire. In those days a
garrison that would not surrender was put to the sword when
captured; so these Spaniards may well be excused. Drake willingly
granted them the honors of war; and so, even to his own surprise,
the castle fell without another blow. The minor forts near by at
once surrendered and were destroyed, while the guns of Sagres were
thrown over the cliffs and picked up by the men below. The whole
neighboring coast was then swept clear of the fishing fleet which
was the main source of supply used for the Great Armada.
The next objective was Lisbon, the headquarters of the Great Armada,
one of the finest harbors in the world, and then the best fortified
of all. Taking it was, of course, out of the question without a much
larger fleet accompanied by an overwhelming army. But Drake
reconnoitered to good effect, learnt wrinkles that saved him from
disaster two years later, and retired after assuring himself that an
Armada which could not fight him then could never get to England
during the same season.
Ship fevers and all the other epidemics that dogged the old sailing
fleets and scourged them like the plague never waited long. Drake
was soon short-handed. To add to his troubles, Borough sailed away
for home; whereupon Drake tried him and his officers by
court-martial and condemned them all to death. This penalty was
never carried out, for reasons we shall soon understand. Since no
reinforcements came from home, Cape St. Vincent could not be held
any longer. There was, however, one more stroke to make. The great
East-India Spanish treasure ship was coming home; and Drake made up
his mind to have her.
Off the Azores he met her coming towards him and dipping her colors
again and again to ask him who he was. 'But we would put out no flag
till we were within shot of her, when we hanged out flags,
streamers, and pendants. Which done, we hailed her with cannon-shot;
and having shot her through divers times, she shot at us. Then we
began to ply her hotly, our fly boat [lightly armed supply vessel of
comparatively small size] and one of our pinnaces lying athwart her
hawse [across her bows] at whom she shot and threw fire-works
[incendiary missiles] but did them no hurt, in that her ordnance lay
so high over them. Then she, seeing us ready to lay her aboard
[range up alongside], all of our ships plying her so hotly, and
resolutely determined to make short work of her, they yielded to
us.' The Spaniards fought bravely, as they generally did. But they
were only naval amateurs compared with the trained professional
sea-dogs.
The voyage was now 'made' in the old sense of that term; for this
prize was 'the greatest ship in all Portugal, richly laden, to our
Happy Joy.' The relative values, then and now, are impossible to
fix, because not only was one dollar the equivalent in most ways of
ten dollars now but, in view of the smaller material scale on which
men's lives were lived, these ten dollars might themselves be
multiplied by ten, or more, without producing the same effect as the
multiplied sum would now produce on international affairs. Suffice
it to say that the ship was worth nearly five million dollars of
actual cash, and ten, twenty, thirty, or many more millions if
present sums of money are to be considered relatively to the
national incomes of those poorer days.
But better than spices, jewels, and gold were the secret documents
which revealed the dazzling profits of the new East-India trade by
sea. From that time on for the next twelve years the London
merchants and their friends at court worked steadily for official
sanction in this most promising direction. At last, on the 31st of
December, 1600, the documents captured by Drake produced their
result, and the East-India Company, by far the greatest corporation
of its kind the world has ever seen, was granted a royal charter for
exclusive trade. Drake may therefore be said not only to have set
the course for the United States but to have actually discovered the
route leading to the Empire of India, now peopled by three hundred
million subjects of the British Crown.
So ended the famous campaign of 1587, popularly known as the
singeing of King Philip's beard. Beyond a doubt it was the most
consummate work of naval strategy which, up to that time, all
history records.
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