Title: Stories of Elizabethan heroes : Stirring records of the intrepid bravery and boundless resource of the men of Queen Elizabeth's reign
Author: Gilliat, Edward
Language: English
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  STORIES OF
  ELIZABETHAN HEROES

  STIRRING RECORDS OF THE INTREPID BRAVERY
  AND BOUNDLESS RESOURCE OF THE MEN
  OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S REIGN


  BY

  EDWARD GILLIAT, M.A. (Oxon.)

  SOMETIME MASTER AT HARROW SCHOOL

  AUTHOR OF "FOREST OUTLAWS," "HEROES OF MODERN INDIA,"
  "ROMANCE OF MODERN SIEGES," &c. &c.



  WITH FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS



  LONDON
  SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED
  38 GREAT RUSSELL STREET
  1914



  _UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_


  THE RUSSELL LIBRARY
  FOR
  BOYS & GIRLS

  A SERIES OF COPYRIGHT VOLUMES OF TRUE
  STORIES OF ADVENTURE

  _Fully Illustrated.  Extra crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. each_


  STORIES OF RED INDIAN ADVENTURE.

  By H. W. G. HYRST, Author of "Adventures in the
  Arctic Regions," &c.


  STORIES OF ELIZABETHAN HEROES.

  By Rev. EDWARD GILLIAT, M.A., sometime Master at
  Harrow School, Author of "In Lincoln Green,"
  "Heroes of the Indian Mutiny," &c., &c.


  SEELEY, SERVICE & CO. LIMITED



CONTENTS


CHAPTER I

The Elizabethan World


CHAPTER II

Sir John Hawkins, Seaman and Administrator


CHAPTER III

George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, the Champion of the Tilt-yard


CHAPTER IV

Sir Martin Frobisher, the Explorer of the Northern Seas


CHAPTER V

Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the Founder of Newfoundland


CHAPTER VI

Lord Howard of Effingham, the Trusted of the Queen


CHAPTER VII

Sir Richard Grenville, the Hero of Flores


CHAPTER VIII

John Davis, the Hero of the Arctic and Pacific


CHAPTER IX

Francis Drake, the Scourge of Spain


CHAPTER X

Sir Francis Drake, the Queen's Greatest Seaman


CHAPTER XI

Sir Richard Hawkins, Seaman and Geographer



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"Sir Francis" ... Coloured Frontispiece [missing from source book]

Attempt on Sir John Hawkins' Life

Fire-Ships

Capture of an Eskimo

England's First Colony

The Blowing-up of the "San Felipe"

Sir Richard Grenville and the "Revenge"

Drake captures Nombre de Dios

Angling for Albatross



_PUBLISHERS' NOTE_

_The contents of this volume have been taken from Mr. Gilliat's
larger book entitled "Heroes of the Elizabethan Age," published at
five shillings._



STORIES OF ELIZABETHAN HEROES



CHAPTER I

THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD

Before we touch upon the lives of some of the heroes of the Maiden
Queen, it were well to consider briefly what life was like in those
days, and how it differed from our own.

When on a November day in 1558 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton spurred his
steaming horse to Hatfield, in haste to inform the Princess Elizabeth
that Queen Mary was dead, he was bidden to ride back to the Palace of
St. James's and request one of the ladies of the bedchamber to give
him, if the Queen were really dead, the black enamelled ring which
her Majesty wore night and day.  So cautious had the constant fear of
death made Anne Boleyn's daughter.

Meanwhile a deputation from the Council had arrived at Hatfield to
offer to the new Queen their dutiful homage.

Elizabeth sank upon her knees and exclaimed: "A Domino factum est
istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris" ("This is the Lord's doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes")--a text which the Queen caused to
be engraved on her gold coins, in memory of that day of release from
anxiety.  For the poor young Princess had lived for years in a state
of alarm; she had been imprisoned in the Tower, the victim of plots
for and against her; she had been kept under severe control at
Woodstock under Sir Henry Bedingfeld, where she once saw a milkmaid
singing merrily as she milked the cows in the Park, and exclaimed,
"That milkmaid's lot is better than mine, and her life far merrier."

And now on a sudden her terrors were turned into a great joy; and
what the Princess felt all England was soon experiencing, as soon as
men realised that the tyranny of Rome and of Spain was shattered and
gone.

Elizabeth was now at the close of her twenty-fifth year, of striking
beauty and commanding presence, tall and comely, with a wealth of
hair, yellow tinged with red; she inherited from her mother an air of
coquetry, and her affable manners soon endeared her to her people.
The English were tired of Smithfield fires and foreign priests and
princes; a new era seemed to be dawning upon them at last--an era of
freedom for soul and body; and imagination ran riot with hope to
forecast a new and happier world.  The homage of an admiring nation
was stirred by her young beauty; and wild ambition, not content with
the quiet fields of England, turned adventurously to the New World
beyond the Atlantic, where men dreamed of real cities paved with
gold.  It is true that the Pope had given all the great West to his
faithful daughter, Spain; but Englishmen thought they had as much
right to colonise America as any son of Spain, and they soon obtained
their Queen's leave to land and explore.  But the first merchants who
ventured west found that Spanish policy forbade "Christians to trade
with heretics."  Nay, if they were taken prisoners by the Spaniards
they suffered the punishment of the rack and the stake; and if they
escaped, they came home with tales of cruelty that set all England
ablaze to take revenge.  "Abroad, the sky is dark and wild," writes
Kingsley, "and yet full of fantastic splendour.  Spain stands strong
and awful, a rising world-tyranny, with its dark-souled Cortezes and
Pizarros, Alvas, Don Johns and Parmas, men whose path is like the
lava stream: who go forth slaying and to slay in the names of their
Gods....  Close to our own shores the Netherlands are struggling
vainly for their liberties: abroad, the Western Islands, and the
whole trade of Africa and India, will in a few years be hers ... and
already Englishmen who go out to trade in Guinea, in the Azores and
New Spain, are answered by shot and steel."

We know a good deal of the life in Elizabethan England from an
account written by Harrison, Household Chaplain to Lord Cobham.  He
was an admirer of still older days, as we see from his complaint
about improved houses: "See the change, for when our houses were
builded of willow, then had we oaken men; but now that our houses are
come to be made of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a
great manie, through Persian delicacie crept in among us, altogether
of straw, which is a sore alteration....  Now have we manie chimnies;
and yet our tenderlings complain of rheumes, catarhs and poses.  Then
had we none but reredosses, and our heads did never ache.  For as the
smoke in those daies was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the
timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keep
the goodman and his family from the quake or pose."

Harrison notes how rich men were beginning to use stoves for sweating
baths, how glass was beginning to be used instead of lattice, which
was made out of wicker or rifts of oak chequer-wise, how panels of
horn for windows had been going out for beryl or fine crystal, as at
Sudeley Castle.  Then for furniture, it was not rare to see abundance
of arras in noblemen's houses, with such store of silver vessels as
might fill sundry cupboards.  There were three things that old men
remembered to have been marvellously changed; one was the multitude
of chimneys lately erected, whereas only the great religious houses
and manor places of the lords had formerly possessed them, but each
one made his fire against a reredosse in the hall, where he dined and
dressed his meat in the smoke and smother; the second thing was the
improved bedding.  Formerly folks slept on straw pallets covered only
with a sheet, and a good round log under their heads for a bolster.
"As for servants, if they had anie sheet above them, it was well, for
seldom had they any under them to keep them from the pricking straws
that ran oft through the canvas and rased their hardened hides."

The third thing was the exchange from wooden cups and platters into
pewter or tin.  Now the farmers had featherbeds and carpets of
tapestry instead of straw, sometimes even silver salt-cellars and a
dozen spoons of pewter.

Harrison bewails the decay of archery, and says that all the young
fellows above eighteen wear a dagger.  Noblemen wear a sword too,
while desperate cutters carry two rapiers, "wherewith in every
drunken fray they are known to work much mischief"; and as the
trampers carry long staves, the honest traveller is obliged to carry
horse-pistols; for the tapsters and ostlers are in league with the
highway robbers who rob chiefly at Christmas time, "till they be
trussed up in a Tyburn tippet."

There was a proverb, "Young serving-men, old beggars," because
servants were spoilt for any other service or craft; so that the
country swarmed with idle serving-men, who often became highwaymen.

A German traveller writes of England thus: "The women there are
charming, and by nature so mighty pretty as I have scarcely ever
beheld, for they do not falsify, paint or bedaub themselves as they
do in Italy or other places, but they are some deal awkward in their
style of dress; for they dress in splendid stuffs, and many a one
wears three cloth gowns, one over the other.  Then, when a stranger
goeth to a citizen's house on business, or is invited as a guest, he
is received by the master of the house and the ladies and by them
welcomed: he has even a right to take them by the arm and to kiss
them, which is the custom of the country; and if any one doth not do
this, it is regarded and imputed as ignorance and ill-breeding on his
part."

Erasmus, writing in 1500, after a visit to Sir Thomas More, exclaims
merrily: "There is a custom which it would be impossible to praise
too much.  Wherever you go, every one welcomes you with a kiss, and
the same on bidding you farewell.  You call again, when there is more
kissing....  You meet an acquaintance anywhere, you are kissed till
you are tired.  In short, turn where you will, there are kisses,
kisses everywhere."

It was the same before and after a dance: you bowed, or curtseyed,
and kissed your partner in all formal ceremony.  So Shakespeare--

  "Come unto these yellow sands,
    And then take hands:
  Curtseyed when you have, and kissed,
    The wild waves whist" (hushed).


Another foreigner describes the English as serious, like the Germans,
liking to be followed by hosts of servants who wear their masters'
arms in silver, fastened to their left arms: they excel in music and
dancing, and their favourite sport is hawking: they are more polite
than the French in eating, devour less bread but more meat, which
they roast in perfection.  They put a great deal of sugar in their
drink, a habit which may account for their teeth turning black in
age.  Harrison tells us that the nobles had "for cooks
musicall-headed Frenchmen, who concocted sundrie delicacies: every
dish being first taken to the greatest personage at the table."

We are told that Sir Walter Raleigh was once staying with a noble
lady, whom he heard in the morning scolding her servant and crying,
"Have the pigs been fed? have the pigs been fed?"

At eleven o'clock Master Walter came down to dinner, and could not
resist a sly remark to his hostess, "Have the pigs been fed?"  The
lady drew herself up haughtily and rejoined, "You should know best,
Sir Walter, whether you have had your breakfast or no."  So the laugh
was turned on the wit for once: for indeed it had become unusual for
people to require any breakfast before eleven o'clock in Queen
Elizabeth's time.  Formerly they had four meals a day, consisting of
breakfast, dinner, nuntion or beverage, and supper.  "Now these odd
repasts," says Harrison, "thanked be God! are very well left, and
each one (except here and there some young hungrie stomach that
cannot fast till dinner-time) contenteth himself with dinner and
supper only."  It was the custom at table amongst yeomen and
merchants for the guest to call for such drink as he desired, when a
servant would bring him a cup from the cupboard; but when he had
tasted of it, he delivered it again to the servant, who made it clean
and restored it to the cupboard.  "By this device much idle tippling
is cut off, for if the full pots should continually stand neare the
trencher, divers would be alwaies dealing with them."  Yet in the
houses of the nobles it was not so, but silver goblets or glasses of
Venice graced the tables.

They were content with four or six dishes, finishing with jellies and
march-paine "wrought with no small curiosity"; potatoes, too, began
to be brought from Spain and the Indies.  The best beer was usually
kept for two years and brewed in March; of light wines there were
fifty-six kinds, mostly foreign, from Italy, Greece, and Spain,
clarets from France, and Malmsey wine.

"I might here talk somewhat of the great silence that is used at the
tables of the honourable and wiser sort, likewise of the moderate
eating and drinking that is daily seen, and finally of the regard
that each one hath to keep himself from the note of surfeiting and
drunkennesse."

They were a proud, self-respecting people in those spacious times,
and even the poorer sort, when they could get a time to be merry,
thought it no small disgrace if they happened to be "cup-shotten."

In regard to their dress the English at that time seem to have been
somewhat extravagant, copying first the Spanish guise, then the
French, anon the Italian or German--nay, even Turkish and Moorish
fashions gained favour; "so that except it were a dog in a doublet,
you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of England."

Our good friend Harrison waxes quite sarcastic as he describes, "What
chafing, what fretting, what reproachful language doth the poor
workman bear away! ... Then must we put it on, then must the long
seams of our hose be set by a plumb-line: then we puff, then we blow,
and finally sweat till we drop, that our clothes may stand well upon
us."

It became the fashion for ladies to dye their hair yellow out of
compliment to the Queen, who however in her later years used wigs,
and was reputed to have a choice of eighty attires of false hair.

In 1579 the Queen gave her command to the Privy Council to prevent
excesses of apparel, and it was ordered that "No one shall use or
wear such excessive long cloaks; being in common sight monstrous."
Neither were they to wear such high ruffs of cambric about their
necks as were growing common, both with men and women.  Quilted
doublets, curiously slashed, and lined with figured lace, Venetian
hose and stockings of the finest black yarn, with shoes of white
leather, betokened the courtier, the clank of whose gilded spurs
announced his coming.

In regard to weapons, the long-bow had gone out of use, but they shot
with the caliver, a clumsy musket with a short butt, and handled the
pike with dexterity.  Corslets and shirts of mail still remained;
every village could furnish forth three or four soldiers, as one
archer, one gunner, one pikeman, and a bill-man.  As to artillery,
the falconet weighed five hundred pounds, with a diameter of two
inches at the mouth; the culverin weighed four thousand pounds,
having a diameter of five inches and a half; the cannon weighed seven
thousand, and the basilisk nine thousand pounds.

In 1582 Queen Elizabeth had twenty-five great ships of war, the
largest being of 1000 tons burden, besides three galleys: there were
135 ships that exceeded 500 tons, which could fight at a pinch, for
many private owners possessed ships of their own.

A man-of-war in those days was well worth two thousand pounds, and
"it is incredible to say how greatly her Grace was delighted with her
fleet."  After all, it is the men that count most, and the men of
that day were as full of good courage as the best of us.

On the Continent they had a saying that "England is a paradise for
women, a prison for servants, and a purgatory for horses"; for the
females had more liberty in England than on the Continent, and were
almost like masters; while the servants could not escape from England
without a passport, and the poor horses were worked all too hard.

For instance, when the Queen broke up her Court to go on progress,
there commonly followed her more than three hundred carts laden with
bag and baggage.  For you must know that in Tudor England, besides
coaches, they used no waggons for their goods, but had only
two-wheeled carts, which were so large that they could carry quite as
much as waggons, and as many as five or six horses were needed to
draw them.

In those days they knew full well what deep ruts could do in the way
of lowering speed, and the jaded horses must sometimes have thought
that they were pulling a plough, and not a coach.

Fynes Moryson, a traveller, gives a pleasant account of his
journeyings: "The world affords not such Innes as England hath,
either for good and cheap entertainment after the guests' own
pleasure, or for humble attendance upon passengers.  For as soon as a
traveller comes to an Inne, the servants run to him, and one takes
his horse and walks him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him
meat.  Another servant gives the traveller his private chamber and
kindles his fire: the third pulls off his boots and makes them
cleane.  Then the Host or Hostess visits him; and if he will eat with
the Host, or at a common table with others, his meal will cost him
six pence, or in some places but four pence: but if he will eat in
his chamber, the which course is more honourable, he commands what
meat he will, according to his appetite, and when he sits at table
the Host or Hostess will visit him, taking it for courtesie to be bid
sit downe: while he eats he shall have musicke offered him: if he be
solitary the musicians will give him the good day with musicke in the
morning.  It is the custom to set up part of supper for his
breakfast.  Ere he goeth he shall have a reckoning in writing, which
the Host will abate, if it seem unreasonable.  At parting, if he give
some few pence to the chamberlain and ostler they wish him a happy
journey."

We may add that folk did not use night-gowns, as we see from George
Cavendishes "Life of Wolsey": "My master went to his naked bed."  But
a night-gown in those days meant a dressing-gown.  Hentzner gives us
a description of the life at Court, from which we will take a few
passages.  He was at Greenwich Palace, being admitted to the
presence-chamber, which was hung with rich tapestry and strewn with
hay, or rushes.  After noticing the small hands and tapering fingers
of the Queen, her stately air and pleasing speech, he says: "As she
went along in all this state and magnificence, she spoke very
graciously, first to one foreign Minister, then to another: for,
besides being well skilled in Greek, Latin, and French, she is
mistress of Spanish, Scotch, and Dutch.  Whoever speaks to her, it is
kneeling: now and then she will pull off her glove and give her hand
to kiss, sparkling, with rings and jewels.  The Ladies of the Court
that followed her, very handsome and well-shaped, were dressed in
white, while she was guarded on either side by her gentlemen
Pensioners, fifty in number, with gilt battle-axes."

What a marvellous lady was this Queen, so taught by suffering to
dissemble and deceive, so trained by her tutors, Ascham and others,
that she could make a speech in Latin to the Doctors of Cambridge and
Oxford, or converse with a Dutchman, nay, even with a Scot in his own
tongue.

We rather suspect that Hentzner may have been mistaken about the
Scot; for surely she could not speak with a Highlander in Gaelic, and
to understand a Lowland Scot could not have taxed her royal powers
much.

England was a strange mixture of richness and poverty, of learning
and superstition, of refined luxury and brutal amusements at that
age.  Hentzner describes how in a theatre built of wood he one day
sat to listen to excellent music and noble poetry of tragedy or
comedy, the next time he witnessed the cruel baiting of bulls and
bears by English bull-dogs.  "To this entertainment there often
follows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five
or six men standing around in a circle with whips, which they
exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them
because of his chain: he defends himself with all his force and
skill, throwing down all who come within his reach, and tearing the
whips out of their hands and breaking them.  At these spectacles" (he
writes in 1598) "the English are constantly smoking tobacco, and in
this manner: they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the
farther end of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed
into powder; putting fire to it they draw the smoke into their
mouths, which they puff out again through their nostrils, like to
funnels."

The writer has one of these Elizabethan pipes: it is made with an
exceedingly small bowl, showing how precious was the weed which
Raleigh had recently introduced.  The pipes have been found by
workmen employed on the banks of the Thames in Southwark.

We must remember, in criticising the conduct of Elizabethan heroes,
that they lived in a cruel age; that torture was still employed by
the law, even to delicate ladies; that much of their sport was
brutal, and much of their merriment gross and indelicate.  There is,
and there has been, a decided progress in the manners of Europeans;
so that it is with a moral effort that we try to see things with
their eyes and judge them with discrimination.  For instance, many of
their great seamen may in one aspect be regarded as pirates; for the
great Queen sometimes did not sanction their raids over western
waters until they had brought her some priceless spoil.  The pirate
was then knighted and commended for his valiant deeds of patriotism.
Even along the coasts of England local jealousy set the galleys of
the Cinque Ports in the south at making reprisals upon the traders of
Yarmouth.  When these depredations were made upon foreigners there
were few who denounced them; for it became a kind of sport, an
adventure well worth the attention of any squire's son, to snatch
some rich prize from the wide ocean and distribute largesse on safely
coming to port.

These men were the Robin Hoods of the sea, and when from selfish
plunderings they rose to be champions of religious freedom as well,
their career seemed in most men's minds to be worthy of all
admiration.  But in order to understand fully the motives which
induced the more noble spirits to go forth and do battle with Spain
on private grounds, and at their own expense, we ought to have sat at
the Mermaid, or other taverns, and heard the mariners' tales as they
told them fresh from the salt sea.  We should have listened to
stories of cruel wrongs inflicted on the brave Indians of South
America, which would have stirred any dormant spirit of chivalry
within us, and made us long to champion the weak.

We should have heard the story of the Indian chief who was taken
prisoner by the Spaniards, and suffered the penalty of losing his
hands because he had fought so strenuously for his mother-land.  This
Indian returned to his people, and devoted the rest of his life to
encouraging and heartening his countrymen to the great work of
fighting for life and liberty, showing his maimed arms, and calling
to mind how many others had had half a foot hacked off by the
Spaniards that they might not sit on horseback.  Then, when a battle
was being fought, we should have been told how this chief loaded his
two stumps with bundles of arrows and supplied the fighters with
fresh store, as they lacked them.  Surely men so brave as this man
challenged admiration and deserved succour.

The young Queen of England had suffered herself, and these stories
must have stirred her heart to say with the Dido of Virgil--

  "Haud ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco."


Raleigh and Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher, Shakespeare and Spenser may
have sat by a coal-fire and heard or told such stories; for Raleigh
writes: "Who will not be persuaded that now at length the great Judge
of the world hath heard the sighs, groans, and lamentations, hath
seen the tears and blood of so many millions of innocent men, women,
and children, afflicted, robbed, reviled, branded with hot irons,
roasted, dismembered, mangled, stabbed, whipped, racked, scalded with
hot oil, put to the strapado, ripped alive, beheaded in sport,
drowned, dashed against the rocks, famished, devoured by mastiffs,
burned, and by infinite cruelties consumed,--and purposeth to scourge
and plague that cursed nation, and to take the yoke of servitude from
that distressed people, as free by nature as any Christian."

It was not the massacres under Cortez and Pizarro, earlier in this
century, which roused the deepest indignation; it was the tales of
inhuman cruelty perpetrated by Spanish colonists in time of peace,
and of the noble conduct of the conquered Indians under the degrading
conditions of their slavery, which most moved pity and wrath and
feelings of revenge.

Men told the story of the Cacique who was forced to labour in the
mines with his former subjects, how he called the miners
together--ninety-five in all--and with a dignity befitting a prince
made them the following speech:--

"My worthy companions and friends, why desire we to live any longer
under so cruel a servitude?  Let us now go unto the perpetual seat of
our ancestors, for we shall there have rest from these intolerable
cares and grievances which we endure under the subjection of the
unthankful.  Go ye before, I will presently follow."  So speaking,
the Indian chief held out handfuls of those leaves which take away
life, prepared for the purpose; so they disdainfully sought in death
relief from the cruel bondage of their Spanish masters.

Again, an officer named Orlando had taken to wife the daughter of a
Cuban Cacique; but, because he was jealous, he caused her to be
fastened to two wooden spits, set her before the fire to roast, and
ordered the kitchen servants to keep her turning.  The poor girl,
either through panic, fear, or the torment of heat, swooned away and
died.  Now the Cacique her father, on hearing this, took thirty of
his men, went to the officer's house and slew the woman whom he had
married after torturing his former wife, slew her women and all her
servants; then he shut the doors of the house and burnt himself and
all his companions.  Tales such as these might well sting a generous
and kindly people into doing harsh actions.  Froude says in his
"Forgotten Worthies": "On the whole, the conduct and character of the
English sailors present us all through that age with such a picture
of gallantry and high heroic energy as has never been over-matched."
So, when we feel inclined to pass judgment upon our "heroes" for
their misdeeds, we must remember the spirit of the time, and the
wrongs of the weaker, and the promptings of generosity and religion.



CHAPTER II

SIR JOHN HAWKINS, SEAMAN AND ADMINISTRATOR

This famous sea-captain was the grandson of John Hawkins of
Tavistock, who was a merchant in the service of Henry VIII.  John was
born at Plymouth in the year 1520, and drank in the love of the salt
seas from his earliest years.  His father, William Hawkins, was known
to be one of the most experienced sea-captains in the west of
England: he had fitted out a "tall and goodly ship," the _Paul_ of
Plymouth, and made in her three voyages to Brazil and to Guinea.  He
treated the savage people so well that they became very friendly, and
in 1531 he brought one of their chiefs to England, leaving a Plymouth
man behind as hostage.  This chief was presented to King Henry and
became the lion of society.  On his way home to Brazil he died of
sea-sickness; but Hakluyt tells us that the savages, being fully
persuaded of the honest dealing of William Hawkins with their king,
believed his report and restored the hostage, without harm to any of
his company.

William Hawkins married Joan Trelawny and had two sons, John and
William, both of whom made their way as seamen and merchants.

John made some voyages to the Canary Islands when quite a youth, and
with his quick eye for gain soon learnt that negroes might be cheaply
gotten in Guinea and profitably sold in Hispaniola.  John Hawkins was
not the first to make and sell slaves, but he was the first
Englishman to take part in this cruel and inhuman barter.  The
Spaniards and Portuguese had used slaves, both Moors and negroes, and
Hawkins no doubt had seen plenty of cases of slave-holding along the
west coast of Africa, where savage warfare was carried on between
native tribes, and such of the conquered as were not eaten were
retained as slaves.  He may have thought therefore that he was only
carrying them to a less barbarous captivity; and we should remember
that slavery was defended even by some religious people until quite
recent times: but we must deplore the fact that this daring sea-dog,
who certainly was not without religious feelings, found in this
traffic a source of gain.

No doubt John, on his return to England, discussed the matter openly
with men of influence, for in October 1562, being now more than forty
years old, he led an expedition of a hundred men in three ships, the
_Solomon_ of 120 tons, the _Swallow_ of 100 tons, and the _Jones_ of
40 tons burden, and sailed direct for the coast of Sierra Leone, in
West Africa, just north of Guinea.  Hakluyt draws a veil over the
exact methods by which John Hawkins got possessed of 300 fine
negroes, besides other merchandise; but he probably took sides in
some local quarrel and carried off his share of the prisoners.  These
poor wretches were carried across the Atlantic in the stuffy holds of
small ships, and landed at San Domingo, one of the largest of the
Spanish islands in the West Indies.

John made due apologies for entering the Spanish port: they could see
he was really in want of food and water.  The Spaniards too were
polite, and as they peeped into his hold they saw the very thing they
wanted--negroes.  A bargain was quickly made, and John Hawkins took
off in return for his captives quite a goodly store of pearls, hides,
sugar, and other innocent materials.

Hawkins himself arrived safely in England with his three ships, but
his partner, Thomas Hampton, who took what was left over in two
Spanish ships to Cadiz, did not fare so well.  For when it became
known at Cadiz that English merchants had been trading with Spain's
colonies, Philip II. confiscated the cargo, and Hampton narrowly
escaped the prisons of the Inquisition.  Queen Elizabeth was warned
by her ambassador at Madrid that further voyages of this nature might
lead to war.

For it seems that Philip had been an admirer of the Maiden Queen, and
had been rebuffed as a suitor; whereby his love had changed to hate,
and he lost no opportunity of showing his resentment.

But Queen Bess had her father's spirit in her, and answered the
Spanish threat by permitting one of her largest ships, the _Jesus of
Lübeck_, to be chartered for a new voyage.  The Earls of Leicester
and Pembroke joined in raising money for the expedition--this time it
was a Court affair; there sailed a hundred and seventy men in five
vessels, and they were to meet another Queen's ship, the _Minion_,
before they got out of the Channel.

Again Hawkins raided the West African coast, "going every day on
shore to take the inhabitants, with burning and spoiling of their
towns."

It is strange how men engaged in such ruthless work could yet believe
that they were specially preserved by Providence.  For on New Year's
Day 1565 they were well-nigh surprised by natives as they were
seeking water.  But a pious seaman wrote thus in his journal: "God,
who worketh all things for the best, would not have it so, and by Him
we escaped without danger--His name be praised for it!"  Then they
set sail for the West Indies with a goodly cargo of miserable slaves;
but for eighteen days they were becalmed--"as idle as a painted ship,
upon a painted ocean."  "And this happened to us very ill, being but
reasonably watered for so great a company of negroes and ourselves.
This pinched us all: and, that which was worst, put us in such fear
that many never thought to have reached the Indies without great
dearth of negroes and of themselves; but the Almighty God, which
never suffereth His elect to perish, sent us the ordinary breeze."

Let us hope that they felt some pity for the poor negroes too, who
must have suffered agonies of thirst on that hideous journey.

But King Philip had ordered his Christian subjects to have no
dealings with heretics; and for some time they could sell no negroes
in Dominica.

But some heathen Indians presented cakes of maize, hens, and
potatoes, which the English crews bought for beads, pewter whistles,
knives, and other trifles.  "These potatoes be the most delicate
roots that may be eaten, and do far exceed our parsnips and carrots."

We need to remind ourselves occasionally of some of the luxuries
which our ancestors never knew till these old seadogs brought them
home--tobacco and potatoes! and later on, tea and coffee!  It is
difficult to imagine what the want of such things would mean to us
now.

But not all the Indians were so kind as these they first met; for on
the American mainland they fell in with a tribe whom the devilries of
Spain had turned to "ferocious bloodsuckers," and whom they only
narrowly avoided.  Hawkins, according to his instructions from the
Queen's Council, kept away from the larger dependencies and islands,
and tried to sell his cargo in out-of-the-way places which Philip's
orders might not have reached.  At Barbarotta he was refused
permission to trade.  But Hawkins sent in a message: "I have with me
one of Queen Elizabeth's own ships.  I need refreshment and without
it I cannot depart; if you do not allow me to have my way, I shall
have to displease you."

Thereat he ran out a few of his guns to mark the form which his
displeasure might assume: the Spaniards improved in politeness.  At
Curacoa they feasted on roast lamb to their heart's content: near
Darien they again had to use threats of violence in order to get
licence to trade; but the price offered by the Spaniards for the
negroes so disgusted the equitable mind of John Hawkins that he wrote
the Governor a letter saying that they dealt too rigorously with him,
to go about to cut his throat in the price of his commodities ... but
seeing they had sent him this to his supper, he would in the morning
bring them as good a breakfast.

When that breakfast was served--and served hot--it proved to be
garnished with a handsome volley of ordnance, with ships' boats
landing at full speed a hundred armed Englishmen: the Spaniards fled.

"After that we made our traffic full quietly, and sold all our
negroes."  Hawkins then sailed for Hispaniola, but being misled by
his pilot he found himself at Jamaica and then at Cuba, and so along
the coast of Florida, meeting many Indians whenever they landed who
were of so fierce a character that of five hundred Spaniards who had
recently set foot in the country only a very few returned; and a
certain friar who essayed to preach to them "was by them taken and
his skin cruelly pulled over his ears and his flesh eaten."  "These
Indians as they fight will clasp a tree in their arms and yet shoot
their arrows: this is their way of taking cover."

In coasting along Florida they found a Huguenot colony that had been
founded there at the advice of Admiral Coligny.  They had been
reduced by fighting the Indians from two hundred to forty, and were
glad to accept a passage home in the _Tiger_.  On the 28th of July
the English ships started for home, but, owing to contrary winds,
their provisions fell so short they "were in despair of ever coming
home, had not God of His goodness better provided for us than our
deserving."  On the 20th September they landed at Padstow in
Cornwall, having lost twenty persons in all the voyage, and with
great profit in gold, silver, pearls, "and other jewels great store."
The Queen was delighted with the bold way in which Hawkins had traded
in defiance of the Spanish king, and by patent she conferred on him a
crest and coat of arms.

The Spanish ambassador at once wrote off to his master, saying he had
met Hawkins in the Queen's palace, who gave him a full account of his
trading with full permission of the governors of towns (he did not
say by what means he had obtained such licence); "The vast profit
made by the voyage has excited other merchants to undertake similar
expeditions.  Hawkins himself is going out again next May, and the
thing needs immediate attention."  The result of this letter was that
Hawkins was strictly forbidden by Sir William Cecil from "repairing
armed, for the purpose of traffic, to places privileged by the King
of Spain."  So the ships went, but Hawkins stayed at home; his ships
returned next summer laden with gold and silver.  The crews did not
publish any account of how they had obtained their cargoes, and as
the Queen had recently been assisting the Netherlands in their
struggle for liberty against Spain, she made no indiscreet inquiries,
and proceeded to lend the _Jesus of Lübeck_ and the _Minion_ for
another expedition.  One of the volunteers was young Francis Drake,
now twenty-two years of age, whom Hawkins made captain of one of his
six vessels.

As they left Plymouth they fell in with a Spanish galley en route for
Cadiz with a cargo of prisoners from the Netherlands.  Hawkins fired
upon the Spanish flag, and in the confusion many of the captives
escaped to the _Jesus_, whence they were sent back to Holland.

The Spanish ambassador wrote strongly to the Queen, and the Queen
wrote strongly to Hawkins; but Hawkins had sailed away and was
encountering storms off Cape Finisterre, so that he had a mind to
return for repairs.  But the weather moderating he went on to the
Canaries and Cape Verde.  Here he landed 150 men in search of
negroes, but eight of his men died of lockjaw from being shot by
poisoned arrows.  "I myself," writes Hawkins, "had one of the
greatest wounds, yet, thanks be to God, escaped."

In Sierra Leone they joined a negro king in his war against his
enemies, attacked a strongly paled fort, and put the natives to
flight.  "We took 250 persons, men, women, and children, and our
friend the king took 600 prisoners," which by agreement were to go to
the English, but the wily negro decamped with them in the night, and
Hawkins had to be content with his own few.  They were at sea from
February 3rd until March 27th, when they sighted Dominica, but found
it difficult to trade, until after a show of force the Spaniards gave
in and eagerly bought the slaves.  At Vera Cruz the inhabitants
mistook our ships for the Spanish fleet.  There is a rocky island at
the mouth of the harbour which Hawkins seized.  The next morning the
Spanish fleet arrived in reality, but Hawkins would not admit them
until they had promised him security for his ships.  Now there was no
good anchorage outside, and if the north wind blew "there had been
present shipwreck of all the fleet, in value of our money some
£1,800,000."  So he let them in under conditions, for even Hawkins
thought that he ought not to risk incurring his Queen's indignation.
On Thursday Hawkins had entered the port, on Friday he saw the
Spanish fleet, and on Monday at night the Spaniards entered the port
with salutes, after swearing by King and Crown that Hawkins might
barter and go in peace.

For two days both sides laboured, placing the English ships apart
from the Spanish, with mutual amity and kindness.  But Hawkins began
to notice suspicious changes in guns and men, and sent to the Viceroy
to ask what it meant.  The answer was a trumpet-blast and a sudden
attack.  Meanwhile a Spaniard sitting at table with Hawkins had a
dagger in his sleeve, but was disarmed before he could use it.  The
Spaniards landed on the island and slew all our men without mercy.
The _Jesus of Lübeck_ had five shots through her mainmast, the
_Angel_ and _Swallow_ were sunk, and the _Jesus_ was so battered that
she served only to lie beside the _Minion_, and take all the battery
from the land guns.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: ATTEMPT ON SIR JOHN HAWKINS' LIFE]

As the Spanish and English fleets were anchored at Vera Cruz apparent
amity and goodwill existed between the two, but as Hawkins was
sitting at dinner one day a Spaniard sitting at table with him was
discovered with a dagger up his sleeve, but fortunately was disarmed
before he could use it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hawkins cheered his soldiers and gunners, called his page to serve
him a cup of beer, whereat he stood up and drank to their good luck.
He had no sooner set down the silver cup than a demi-culverin shot
struck it away.  "Fear nothing," shouted Hawkins, "for God, who hath
preserved me from this shot, will also deliver us from these traitors
and villains."

Francis Drake was bidden to come in with the _Judith_, a barque of 50
tons, and take in men from the sinking ships: at night the English in
the _Minion_ and _Judith_ sailed out and anchored under the island.
The English taken by the Spaniards received no mercy.  "They took our
men and hung them up by the arms upon high posts until the blood
burst out of their fingers' ends."

The _Judith_ under Drake sailed for England and reached Plymouth in
January 1569; the _Minion_, with 200 men, suffered hunger and had to
eat rats and mice and dogs.  One hundred men elected to be landed and
left behind to the mercies of Indians and Spaniards.  "When we were
landed," said a survivor, "Master Hawkins came unto us, where
friendly embracing every one of us, he was greatly grieved that he
was forced to leave us behind him.  He counselled us to serve God and
to love one another; and thus courteously he gave us a sorrowful
farewell and promised, if God sent him safe home, he would do what he
could that so many of us as lived should by some means be brought
into England--and so he did."  Thus writes Job Hartop.  So we see
that John Hawkins, the slave-dealer, sincerely tried after his
fashion to serve God as well as his Queen.  His men loved him and
spoke well of him when he failed; a good test of a man's worth when
men will speak well of you though all your plans be broken and your
credit gone.  But alas! for the poor hundred men left ashore on the
Mexican coast!  They wandered for fourteen days through marshes and
brambles, some poisoned by bad water, others shot by Indians or
plagued by mosquitoes, until they came to the Spanish town of
Panluco, where the Governor thrust them into a little hog-stye and
fed them on pigs' food.  After three days of this they were manacled
two and two and driven over ninety leagues of road to the city of
Mexico.  One of their officers used them very spitefully and would
strike his javelin into neck or shoulders, if from faintness any
lagged behind, crying, "March on, English dogs, Lutherans, enemies to
God."  After four months in gaol they were sent out as servants to
the Spanish colonists.  For six years they fared passing well, but in
1575 the Inquisition was introduced into Mexico, and then their
"sorrows began afresh."  On the eve of Good Friday all were dressed
for an _auto-da-fé_ and paraded through the streets.  Some were then
burnt, others sent to the galleys, the more favoured ones got three
hundred lashes apiece.  One who had escaped had spent twenty-three
years in various galleys, prisons, and farms.

Meanwhile Hawkins was taking his other hundred men back to England,
meeting violent storms, but "God again had mercy on them."  Then food
became scarce and many died of starvation: the rest were so weak they
could hardly manage the sails.  At last they sighted the coast of
Spain and put in at Vigo for supplies; here more died from eating
excess of fresh meat after their famine.  At length, with the help of
twelve English sailors they reached Mount's Bay in Cornwall, in
January 1569.

Here was a miserable ending of an ambitious expedition: no profits,
no gold, no silver for the rich merchants and courtiers who had
subscribed for the fitting out of the ships; no jewels for the lady
who graced the throne.  Sadly John Hawkins wrote to Sir William
Cecil: "All our business hath had infelicity, misfortune, and an
unhappy end: if I should write of all our calamities, I am sure a
volume as great as the Bible will scarcely suffice."

Thus our hero, ruined but not broken, bided his time for revenge.  As
the years wore on England and Spain grew more embittered.  Private
warfare had existed for some time, and Philip had wished to declare
open war in 1568; but the Duke of Alva cautioned him against making
more enemies, while they still found it hard to subdue the Low
Countries.  So, for a while, the King contented himself with
underhand efforts to stir up rebellion in Ireland and England.

In the year 1578 John Hawkins was summoned by the Queen from Devon
and appointed Comptroller of the Navy.  His business was to see to
the building of new ships, the repairing of old ones, and the
victualling and manning of all about to take the sea.  Hawkins is
said to have invented "false netting" for ships to fight in,
chain-pumps and other devices.  Acting with Drake he founded the
"Chest" at Chatham, a fund made up by voluntary subscriptions from
seamen on behalf of their poorer brethren.  In fact he entered upon
his work with the same zeal which he had shown in the West Indies.
Lucky was it for him that he had a mistress like Elizabeth; for under
the craven James he would certainly have been handed over to the
Inquisition, or put to death by Spanish order, like Raleigh.  In 1572
Hawkins and George Winter were commissioned to do their utmost to
clear the British seas of pirates and freebooters, for of late the
coasts of Norfolk and the East had been much troubled by sea-robbers.
But through all his multifarious duties the old sea-rover was ever
most bent on paying off old scores against King Philip.  So many of
his friends, beside himself, had lost their all or endured sharp
punishment in Spanish dungeons, that he grimly chuckled when he heard
of Drake having "singed King Philip's beard"; and when the news came
that the invasion of England was only put off, and Pope Sixtus V. had
spurred his Spanish Majesty to quick action by the oft-quoted taunt,
"The Queen of England's distaff is worth more than Philip's sword,"
then John Hawkins rubbed his hands gleefully, and lost no time in
getting all the Queen's ships taut and in order, well victualled and
well manned.  But Hawkins did not mince matters when he saw anything
amiss; any hesitation or signs of parsimony met with his blunt
disapproval.  He writes in February 1588 to urge that peace could
only be won by resolute fighting: "We might have peace, but not with
God.  Rather than serve Baal, let us die a thousand deaths.  Let us
have open war with these Jesuits, and every man will contribute,
fight, devise or do, for the liberty of our country."

Hawkins also wrote to ask for the use of six large and six small
ships for four months, with 1800 mariners and soldiers, which he
would employ in another raid upon the Spanish coast, so as to hinder
Philip's grand Armada.  "I promise I will distress anything that
goeth through the seas: and in addition to the injury done to Spain,
I shall acquire booty enough to pay four times over the cost of the
expedition."

But Burghley, like his mistress, kept a tight hand over slender
resources, and he rejected Hawkins' offer.  Macaulay says that even
Burghley's jests were only neatly expressed reasons for keeping money
carefully.  Lord Howard bitterly complained to Walsingham that "her
Majesty was keeping her ships to protect Chatham Church withal, when
they should be serving their turn abroad"; and again, when Drake was
being prevented from getting his Plymouth squadron in order for
sea-service, he writes: "I pray God her Majesty do not repent her
slack dealing....  I fear ere long her Majesty will be sorry she hath
believed some so much as she hath done."  Lord Burghley's task was to
defeat the Armada with an almost empty exchequer.  We find
calculations of his as to whether it will not be cheaper to feed the
sailors of the fleet on fish three days a week and bacon once,
instead of the usual ration of four pennyworth of beef each day.  And
naturally these attempts to cut down expenses were misconstrued into
parsimony.  But with all her rigid economy, Elizabeth could show a
brave front when the crisis came; as in the camp at Tilbury, when she
addressed the little army that was expecting every hour to be called
to meet the fierce onset of the invaders: "I have placed my chiefest
strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my
subjects; and therefore am I come amongst you, as ye see, at this
time, resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die
amongst you all; to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my
people, my honour and my blood even in the dust.  I know I have the
body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king,
and of a King of England too, and think it foul scorn that Parma, or
Spain, or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of
my realm; to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I
myself will take up arms, I myself will be your General, Judge, and
Rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field."

The Great Armada had left the Tagus on the 20th of May 1588.  It
consisted of one hundred and thirty-two ships under the command of
the Duke of Medina Sidonia.  Besides 8766 sailors, there were on
board 2088 galley slaves, 21,855 officers and soldiers ready for
action as soon as they should land; 300 monks and friars were pacing
the decks, sent to take spiritual charge _in partibus infidelium_.

Against this force Queen Elizabeth had only thirty-four of her own
ships, but all the seaports from Bristol to Hull sent small armed
vessels, while noblemen and merchants contributed to swell the total,
which came to nearly two hundred in all.

John Hawkins was there as Rear-Admiral under Howard, making with
Drake and Frobisher his headquarters at Plymouth.  "For the love of
God," he writes to Walsingham, on the 19th of June, "let her Majesty
care not now for charges," and in the same vein he wrote also to the
Queen.

As he kept watch the Spanish fleet came slowly on, intending to
surprise Plymouth; but Hawkins and his vessels were already awaiting
the foe outside, so they anchored for the night off Looe.  The next
day was Sunday, the 21st of July, and Medina Sidonia seems to have
made up his mind to go on to the Isle of Wight.  All that day the
little English ships were barking round the unwieldy galleys of
Spain.  "We had some small fight with them that Sunday afternoon,"
said Hawkins.  By three o'clock the Spanish fleet was in a pretty
confusion, hasting to get away from their tormentors.  On Monday and
Tuesday the fight continued, the details of which may be reserved for
a later chapter; but every day more reinforcements came to Howard, as
courtiers and merchants hurried down from London to serve in pinnace
or frigate.  By Wednesday morning the English ships had spent nearly
all their ammunition, and were begging for powder and shot at every
village they passed.  On Friday Lord Howard knighted Frobisher and
Hawkins for their valiant conduct; he then allowed the Armada to sail
along the Sussex coast and cross the Straits of Dover towards Calais.
There through Saturday and Sunday vast crowds of Flemings and
Frenchmen gathered to gaze at the two great fleets, which were
waiting, the Spaniards for the Prince of Parma to join them from
Dunkirk, the English to carry out a little device which Sir William
Winter had suggested.

Six of the oldest vessels were filled with combustibles and guns
loaded to the mouth with old iron, and at midnight were conducted in
the pitchy darkness of a rising storm within bow-shot of the Armada.

A train was fired, and the fierce south-west wind bore the fire-ships
into the crescent of the Spaniards.  The blaze, the explosions, the
cannon-shot, struck a panic into the Armada.  "The fire of Antwerp!"
they cried.  "Cut cable, up anchor!"  In a few minutes they were all
colliding together in their hurry to get away from the flames, and
all that night they sped away past Dunkirk and Parma even to the
mouth of the Scheldt.

"God hath given us so good a day in forcing the enemy so far to
leeward," wrote Drake, "as I hope in God, the Prince of Parma and the
Duke of Sidonia will not shake hands these few days....  I assure
your honour, this day's service hath much appalled the enemy."

Then on the Monday Hawkins in the Victory, Drake in the _Revenge_,
and Frobisher in the _Triumph_, led the English to the attack upon a
fleet disorganised and cowed, fearing alike the sands, the storm, and
the foe.  Every ship in the Spanish fleet had received damage, some
had been taken and others sunk, while a score or so went on shore and
were lost.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: FIRE-SHIPS]

The Spanish fleet lay safely moored in Calais Harbour, huge
impregnable castles of timber, but Howard's fire-ships caused them to
scurry away before the wind like frightened fowls.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"We pluck their feathers by little and little," wrote Lord Howard,
and if Burghley had only given them powder enough, the victory would
have been complete.  The English had no more ammunition left, but
still, as the Spaniards forged ahead to the north, they grimly
followed: "We set on a brag countenance and gave them chase."

It was not until Friday the 2nd of August that Howard abandoned the
pursuit.  He made for the Firth of Forth, took in victuals, powder,
and shot, and sailed southwards to be ready for Parma, should he
cross from Dunkirk.  As they sailed, a storm burst upon them,
scattering them so that they did not assemble again in Margate Roads
until the 9th of August.  A note from Lord Burghley suggests that as
the danger is over, the ships shall be at once discharged; but there
was no money to pay the men who had saved England in her hour of
danger.  Towards the end of August, Sir John wrote urgently to
Burghley for money to pay the seamen--£19,000 were already due to
them before the fight off Gravelines--and Lord Howard added a
postscript: "Hawkins cannot make a better return.  God knows how the
lieutenants and corporals will be paid."  Howard and Hawkins could
not pay them off.  The men were kept hanging on, ill-fed, ill-clad,
housed like hogs and dying as by a pestilence.  "'Tis a most pitiful
sight to see how the men here at Margate, having no place where they
can be received, die in the streets.  The best lodging I can get is
barns and such outhouses, and the relief is small that I can provide
for them here.  It would grieve any man's heart to see men that have
served so valiantly die so miserably."  So Howard writes to Burghley.

Burghley, at his wits' end, writes to Hawkins a melancholy letter:
"Why do you ask for money when you know the exchequer is so empty?"

Howard tells the Queen how the men sicken one day and die the next;
and as woman she pitied them, but could not find means to help her
sailors.  "Alas! these things must be--after a famous victory!"  Her
minister may have suggested some such reflection.

Meanwhile the great Armada, left to the judgment of God, was leaving
its wrecks on the coasts of Norway, Scotland, and Ireland.  It was
not until October that fifty-three ships out of one hundred and
thirty-two came back wearily to a Spanish port.

Sir Francis Drake tells us that many Spanish seamen landed in
Scotland and Ireland, of whom a few remained to live amongst the
peasantry, but the most part were coupled in halters and sent from
village to village till they were shipped to England.  "But her
Majesty, disdaining to put them to death, and scorning either to
retain or entertain them, they were all sent back again to their own
country to bear witness to the worthy achievement of their Invincible
Navy."

Sir John Hawkins in 1589 proposed to Lord Burghley a scheme for
capturing Cadiz and sinking all the Spanish galleys he could find
there.  "It is not honourable for her Majesty to seem to be in any
fear of the King of Spain."  But Burghley did not approve of any more
expenditure of money, and the scheme was dropped.

But every year English merchantmen were held up by Spanish galleys
and had to fight for their existence: so in 1590 we hear of Sir John
proposing another attack on Spain; and when this too was rejected, he
wrote to Burghley, saying that he was now out of hope that he should
be allowed to perform "any royal thing."  So out of heart was he now
that he begged he might be relieved of his duties as Treasurer of the
Navy.  "No man living hath so careful, so miserable, so unfortunate,
and so dangerous a life."  This request too was declined.  But in May
1590 Sir John was sent, with Sir Martin Frobisher as Vice-Admiral, in
command of fourteen ships to try and intercept a fleet of Portuguese
carracks coming from India.  They ransacked nearly every port on the
Spanish coast for five months, so that all valuables were hastily
removed inland, and all the Spanish galleys were hidden behind rocky
promontories.  But Philip had ordered the trading fleets to be kept
back, and therefore no prizes were captured, and the adventurers
returned empty-handed.

Queen Elizabeth was mightily incensed, though it was through no fault
of the admirals that the expedition had been a financial failure.

Hawkins wrote the Queen a lengthy epistle explaining why they had
failed, and he finished with a Biblical allusion: "Paul might plant,
and Apollos might water, but it was God only who gave the increase."
The Queen, stamping her foot, exclaimed hotly, "This fool went out a
soldier, and is come home a divine!"

So the poor seaman returned to his hated desk as Treasurer, though he
wrote to Burghley that he was fain to serve her Majesty in any other
calling.  "This endless and unsavoury occupation in calling for money
is always unpleasant."  He was now over seventy years of age, and his
son Richard had for some years been distinguishing himself on the
sea.  But when that son had to surrender to the Spaniards and was
sent to a Spanish prison, the old sea-dog thirsted to go abroad again
and rescue his son, or at least take a great revenge.

His old friend Sir Francis Drake was to go with him, for the Queen
had assented; but rumours of a fresh Armada kept them in England, for
"all men," says Camden, "buckled themselves to war," and mothers only
bewailed that their sons had been killed in France instead of being
alive and well to defend hearth and home in England.  But all the
Spaniards did was to cross from Brittany with four galleys and land
at Penzance.  This town they sacked and burnt, but as the inhabitants
had fled inland, no lives were lost.  This was the last hostile
landing made by the Spaniards on England's shore.

Next year, in August 1595, Drake and Hawkins left Plymouth with
twenty-seven ships and 2500 men, Drake sailing in the _Defiance_ as
Admiral, Hawkins in the _Garland_ as Vice-Admiral; Sir Thomas
Baskerville was the Commander by land.  The plan was to sail to
Nombre de Dios and march across the isthmus to Panama, there to seize
what treasure they could.  But just before they sailed letters came
from the Queen informing them that they were too late to intercept
the West Indian fleet; it had already arrived in Spain; but one
treasure-ship had lost a mast and put back to Puerto Rico; they were
to seek for this and take it.  So they sailed on the 28th of August,
and in four weeks reached the Grand Canary.  Drake and Baskerville
wished to land, victual the fleet, and take the island; Hawkins,
still smarting under Elizabeth's lash, was for strictly obeying the
Queen's instructions.  However, Baskerville promised he would take
the place in four days, and Hawkins consented to wait.  But finding
that a strong mole had been built, and that the landing-place was
defended by guns, and as a nasty sea was rising, they just landed to
get water on the western side of the island and made for Dominica.

After making some traffic in tobacco they went on to Guadaloupe,
where they cleaned their ships and let the men land.  The next day,
seeing some Spanish ships passing towards Puerto Rico, Drake
concluded that the treasure-ship was still there, and that this force
had been sent to convoy it.  Captain Wignol in the _Francis_, having
straggled behind out of Hawkins' fleet, fell in with these Spanish
ships under Don Pedro Tello, and was captured.  Tello put his men to
torture, and drew from them the object and proposed course of the
English ships.  When Hawkins heard of this from a small vessel that
had escaped the Spaniards, he suddenly fell sick: age, the troubles
of the voyage, this last disappointment--all were too much for him;
he struggled bravely against his malady, but every day he grew
weaker.  They started in three days from Guadaloupe and reached the
Virgin Islands, where they took plenty of fish.  Drake and Hawkins
had some dispute here, some difference of opinion, and this was the
last straw to weigh down the balance of death.  For on the morning of
the 12th of November the fleet passed through the Strait; and at
night, when it was off the eastern end of Puerto Rico, Hawkins
breathed his last.

Drake sailed in imprudently under the forts; one shot wounded his
mizzen-mast, another entered the steerage, where he was at supper,
and struck the stool from under him, killing two of his officers, but
not hurting him.  The treasure had been removed from the galleon, and
the empty galleon had been sunk in the mouth of the channel.  After a
fierce fight Drake had to give up the attempt to get the treasure and
sail away.

He only survived his old friend by eleven weeks.  Thus England lost
two of her grandest seamen in this expedition.  Hawkins was
seventy-five years old--too old to be exposed to the burning sun and
all the anxieties of warfare.  Then came bitter disappointment, and
the feeling that he had done nothing to rescue his son, and little to
avenge his wrongs.  For six weeks Sir John Hawkins strove to make
head against this "sea of troubles," but his work had been done, his
body was worn out, and he could endure no more.  In his adventurous
life he had done many questionable things; but we ought not to judge
him by the moral standard of another age; in his day, the rights of
the slave had not yet been thought of.  Hawkins had tried to do his
duty to God and man, as he conceived that duty, and to his unflagging
labours and zeal as Treasurer of the Navy, the success of England
against the Armada was largely due.



CHAPTER III

  GEORGE CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND, THE
  CHAMPION OF THE TILT-YARD

When a nobleman neglects his private duties to his home estates and
spends his fortune in fitting out ships to seek gold and jewels, and
to damage the trade of a country he hates, different estimates will
be formed of the honesty and nobility of the motives by which he is
prompted.

We shall see in the sketch of George Clifford's life how various
motives, good and indifferent, urged him to play the sea-king.

He was born in his father's castle at Brougham, Westmorland, in
August 1558, being fourteenth baron Clifford of Westmorland.  His
family history had been distinguished, for the Fair Rosamond of Henry
II. was a Clifford, and in the wars of York and Lancaster the
Cliffords took a prominent part on the Lancastrian side.  When George
was still a boy his father brought about his betrothment to the Lady
Margaret Russell, daughter of the second Earl of Bedford.  He was
being educated at Battle Abbey when his father died, and later he
went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to complete his studies under
Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then Master of
Trinity.  He also proceeded to Oxford for a time, as was not unusual
in those days.

Before he was nineteen he was married to his betrothed in St. Mary
Overy's Church, Southwark: the young lady was scarce seventeen years
old.  Clifford was a young man of expensive tastes.  Amongst his
other qualifications for Court life he excelled all the nobles of his
time in tilting, and soon won the recognition of the Queen by his
prowess in the Westminster tilt-yard.  So he was made a Knight of the
Garter, and in the twenty-eighth year of his age was appointed one of
the forty Peers by whom Mary Queen of Scots was tried at Fotheringay
Castle, in Nottinghamshire.

Was it policy, or love of adventure, or just desire for gain?  The
Earl soon began to form schemes for sending ships to plunder the
Spaniards; he fitted out at his own cost the _Red Dragon_ of 260
tons, and the barque _Clifford_ of 130.  Raleigh sent a pinnace to
join them, and they sailed in 1586 under the command of Robert
Withrington.  They took a few merchantmen on their way to Sierra
Leone; the principle on which they acted was a mixture of courtesy
and bullying.  Hakluyt says: "Our Admiral hailed their Admiral with
courteous words, willing him to strike his sails and come aboard, but
he refused; whereupon our Admiral lent him a piece of ordnance" (it
sounds so kind and friendly) "which they repaid double, so that we
grew to some little quarrel."  The result was that the English
boarded the hulks and helped themselves.  For they found the hulks
were laden in Lisbon with Spanish goods, and so thought them fair
game.  When they reached Guinea they went ashore, and in their search
for water and wood came suddenly upon a town of negroes, who struck
up the drum, raised a yell, and shot off arrows as thick as hail.

The English returned the fire, having about thirty calivers, and
retired to their boats, "having reasonable store of fish"; "and
amongst the rest we hauled up a great foul monster, whose head and
back were so hard that no sword could enter it; but being thrust in
under the belly in divers places, much wounded, he bent a sword in
his mouth as a man would do a girdle of leather about his hand: he
was in length about nine feet, and had nothing in his belly but a
certain quantity of small stones."  Later on they found another town
of about two hundred houses and "walled about with mighty great trees
and stakes, so thick that a rat could hardly get in or out."  They
got in, for the negroes had fled, and found the town finely and
cleanly kept, "that it was an admiration to us all, for that neither
in the houses nor streets was so much dust to be found as would fill
an egg-shell."  The English found little to take except some mats and
earthen pots; was it for this that they, on their departure, set the
town on fire?  "It was burnt in a quarter of an hour, the houses
being covered with reeds and straw."

Thence they sailed across to America, having no little trouble with a
disease which they had caught ashore.  They came to Buenos Ayres,
where was great store of corn, cattle, and wine; but no gold or
silver was to be had.  Here they fell into some contention as to
their further course, but as food was growing scarce they sailed
northwards, till they came to Bahia, where they met a hot welcome of
balls and bullets, but took some prizes.  Then came a storm, and some
of their prizes got loose and were lost.  "Anon the people of the
country came down amaine upon us and beset us round, and shot at us
with their bows and arrows."

Of another fight which occurred shortly after, when the barque
_Clifford_ was boarded by the enemy, the merchant Sarracoll says:
"Giving a mighty shout they came all aboard together, crying,
'Entrad!  Entrad!' but our men received them so hotly, with small
shot and pikes, that they killed them like dogs.  And thus they
continued aboard almost a quarter of an hour, thinking to have
devoured our men, pinnace and all ... but God, who is the giver of
all victories, so blessed our small company that the enemy having
received a mighty foil was glad to rid himself from their hands:
whereas at their entrance we esteemed them to be no less than betwixt
two and three hundred men in the galley, we could scarce perceive
twenty men at their departure stand on their legs; but the greater
part of them was slain, their oars broken and the galley hanging upon
one side, as a sow that hath lost her left ear, with the number of
dead and dying that lay one upon another."  While this terrible havoc
was a doing, others of the crew had gone ashore and fetched sixteen
young bullocks, "which was to our great comforts and refreshing."

After committing what havoc they could along the coast, with little
profit to themselves, the commander resolved to go home; which
resolution was "taken heavily of all the company--for very grief to
see my Lord's hopes thus deceived, and his great expenses cast away."

The Earl took part in the Armada fight on board the _Bonadventure_,
and the Queen, to mark her approbation, gave him a commission to go
the same year as General to the Court of Spain, lending him the
_Golden Lion_; this ship he victualled and furnished at his own
expense.  After taking one merchant ship and weathering a storm, he
was obliged to turn.

But the Queen was his good friend and lent him the _Victory_, and
with three smaller ships and 400 men he sailed from Plymouth in 1589.
We do not hear what his Countess thought of so much wandering into
danger, but duty, or profit, called her lord to the high seas.  He
made a few prizes, French and German, for he was not too scrupulous
about nationalities, and made for the Azores, where he cut out four
ships.  At Flores he manned his boats and obtained food and water
from Don Antonio, a pretender to the throne of Portugal.  As they
were rowing back to their ship, "the boat was pursued two miles by a
monstrous fish, whose fins many times appeared above water four or
five yards asunder, and his jaws gaping a yard and a half wide, not
without great danger of overturning the pinnace and devouring some of
the company"; they rowed at last away from the monster.  They were
now joined by a ship of Raleigh's and two others.

Meanwhile the richly laden vessels of Spain were on their way home,
with orders to rendezvous at St. Helena.  Some of the Earl's cruisers
sighted them, but did not dare attack the huge carracks, though
Linschoten tells us--and he was aboard one of them--that if the
English had attacked they must easily have been taken; for scurvy,
caused by bad food, was making ravages on the crews.  "Every day men
who had been some days dead were discovered in the places whither
they had crept that they might lie down and die in peace."  But all
the English cruisers did was to insult them with reproaches and annoy
them with musketry, and such small cannon-shot as vessels of thirty
tons could carry.  As Admiral Colomb used to say, "A captain of a
man-of-war in those days could carry a cannon-ball in his coat-tail
pocket," so small and light were they.

When the Earl was told that the West Indian fleet had sailed past, he
returned to Fayal and took possession of the town, consisting then of
some five hundred well-built houses; the inhabitants had abandoned it
at his approach.  He set a guard to preserve the churches and
monasteries and stayed there four days, till a ransom of 2000 ducats,
mostly in church-plate, was brought to him, with sixty butts of wine.

While taking two Brazilian ships at St. Mary's laden with sugar, the
bar detained his vessel in a position exposed to the enemy; eighty of
his men were killed, the Earl was wounded slightly in the side; "his
head also was broken with stones, so that the blood covered his face,
and both his face and legs were burnt with fire-balls."

On their way home they fell in with a Portuguese ship laden with
sugar, hides, and silver.  Full of joy at their good speed they
resolved upon going home.  Captain Lister was sent in the prize to
Portsmouth.  He was wrecked at Helcliff, in Cornwall; all in her was
lost, and only five lives saved.  The Earl was delayed so long by bad
weather that drink began to fail, and they had to collect what they
could in sheets during a storm of rain.  Many licked the moist boards
and masts with their tongues, like dogs.  In every corner of the ship
were heard the lamentable cries of the sick and hurt, ten or twelve
men died every night.  Yet, we are told, the Earl ever encouraged his
men by his presence of mind and his example; then they spoke a vessel
which helped them with a little beer, and at last they put into
Ventre-haven on the west coast of Ireland.

On arriving in London, as if the Earl had not suffered enough
already, news was brought him that his eldest son was dead.  But
shortly after came another messenger announcing the birth of a
daughter; this was the Lady Anne Clifford, who became, first,
Countess of Dorset, and then of Pembroke.  In this voyage thirteen
prizes had been taken, and the profit doubled the outlay on his
adventure in spite of the loss of his richest prize.  It is difficult
to realise the exceeding bitter feeling that existed between Spain
and England at that time--a bitterness sharpened by religious
differences, and kept in memory by private revenge.

For instance, Hakluyt tells us of a small English ship of about forty
tons which was captured on the seas.  Her crew were put by the
Spaniards under hatches and coupled in bolts together; these men,
after they had been prisoners three or four days, were murdered by a
Spanish ensign-bearer, who had had a brother killed in the Armada
fight, and who wished to revenge his death.  This man took a poniard
in his hand and went down under the hatches, where he found eight
Englishmen sitting in chains, and with the same poniard he stabbed
six of them to the heart; the remaining two clasped each other about
the middle and threw themselves into the sea and there were drowned.

It is only fair to say that this act was much disliked by the other
Spaniards, who carried the ensign-bearer a prisoner to Lisbon.  The
King of Spain willed he should be sent to England, that the Queen
might treat him as she thought good; however, his friends interceded
that he might be beheaded instead.  On a Good Friday, as the Cardinal
was going to Mass, captains and commanders stopped his Eminence and
entreated for the man's pardon, and in the end they got his pardon,
and his life was saved.

In 1592 the Earl of Cumberland hired the _Tiger_ of 600 tons, and
with his own ship the _Samson_, the _Golden Noble_, and two small
vessels, he set forth.  Contrary winds kept him east of Plymouth so
long that it became too late to intercept the outward-bound carracks,
so the Earl transferred his command to Captain Norton and returned to
London.  After some hard fighting the ships returned with a richly
laden carrack.  The narrator of the voyage moralises upon the happy
finding thus: "I cannot but enter into the acknowledgment of God's
great favour towards our nation, who, by putting this purchase into
our hands, hath manifestly discovered those secret trades and Indian
riches which hitherto lay strangely hidden from us ... whereby it
should seem that the will of God for our good is to have us
communicate with them in those East Indian treasures, and by the
erection of a lawful traffic to better our means to advance true
religion and His holy service."  The pious sailor then goes on to
enumerate the goods that were stored in the holds of the Spanish
carrack--from jewels and silks of China to spices and carpets of
Turkey--in all estimated to be worth £150,000.  This was of course to
be divided amongst the adventurers.

But exaggerated expectations ended in general discontent, for the
Queen had one small ship at the capture of the carrack, and because
the Earl was not commanding in person his share was adjudged to
depend on her Majesty's mercy and bounty.  The royal lioness "dealt
but indifferently with him."  She took her share, and the other
jackals helped themselves as largely as they dared; so that the Earl
was fain to accept of £36,000 for him and his, as a pure gift.  The
carrack was unloaded at Dartmouth, and being so huge and unwieldy she
was never removed from the river, "but there laid up her bones."

The spirit of adventure in the Earl was not quenched by this
disappointment, for in the latter end of 1593 he got ready two ships
royal and seven others, which set sail next spring.  Off the isle of
Flores he met the Portuguese fleet and had to stand off to avoid
them, as they were too numerous to attack.  He was taken ill and
would have died, had not Monson gone ashore on Corvo and stolen a
milch cow, which they brought aboard.  Twelve hulks yielded him some
treasure, and he left for home after a gainful voyage.

Three of his ships he had sent to the West Indies, and they made for
the pearl fisheries at Margarita.  A Spaniard treacherously showed
them where the pearls were stored in a ranckeria; they surprised it
by night with twenty-eight men and carried off £2000 worth of pearls.
Coasting along, two of them fell in with seven ships, moored
alongside head and stern, and fought all day, hammer-and-tongs.  The
Spaniards got into their boats next day and made for the land,
carrying the rudders with them; the English helped themselves and
fired the ships.  They then brought the chief ship of 250 tons safely
to Plymouth.

Next year the Earl set forth on his eighth voyage, and in June came
in sight of a big Indian ship whose name was _Las Cinque Llagas_
("the Five Wounds"), and she carried 1400 persons, of whom 270 were
slaves.

The Earl's _Mayflower_ was the first to get up to her, and was hotly
fired into; for the Portuguese had sworn to defend their ship to the
last, and fought with desperation.  Don Rodrigo de Cordoba, having
both his legs shattered, cried out, "Sirs, I have got this in the
discharge of my duty.  Be of good heart.  Let no one forsake his
post; let us perish rather than be taken."

Twice did the English board, and twice were they driven out with
great loss.  Downton the rear-admiral was crippled for life, and
Cave, who commanded the Earl's ship, was mortally wounded by a shot
through both legs.  To make the hideous scene worse, fire was thrown
about and the _Cinque Llagas_ caught and began to burn.

A Franciscan friar, Antonio, was seen standing with a crucifix in his
hand, encouraging the crew to commit themselves to the waves and
God's mercy, rather than die in the flames, and a vast number plunged
into the sea.  It is said that the English boats made no attempt to
save these unfortunates, but the English themselves were on fire and
were probably busy putting their own ships in order.  But the
rear-admiral's boat picked up Nuno Velho and some others; Nuno had
been Governor of Mozambique and had been only recently shipwrecked
and rescued by the _Cinque Llagas_.  There were also on board two
Portuguese ladies of high birth, Doña Isabel Pereira and her
beautiful daughter, Doña Luiza de Mello.  They had been wrecked in
the _Santo Alberto_, and had since travelled through Kaffraria on
foot nearly a thousand miles.  The young lady was travelling home to
take possession of her entailed property at Evora.  In the confusion
and panic they could get no attention, and fear of something worse
than death urged them to fasten themselves together with a Franciscan
cord and leap into the sea.  Their bodies, so bound together, were at
length cast up on the shore of the island of Fayal.

Nuno Velho and Braz Correa, captain of the _Nazareth_, were taken as
prisoners to England, where the Earl treated them hospitably for a
whole year.  It was perhaps not wholly from kindly and unselfish
motives, for in the end Nuno Velho paid three thousand cruzados for
the ransom of both.

As for the _Cinque Llagas_, she burned all day and all night, but
"the next morning her powder, being sixty barrels, blew her abroad,
so that most of the ship did swim in parts above the water."

Towards the end of June they fell in with another great ship, which
they at first took for _S. Philip_, the admiral of Spain, and were
mighty cautious how they approached her guns.  But seeing she was a
carrack they bestowed on her some shot and summoned her to yield,
unless she would undergo the same fate as the _Five Wounds_.  But the
Portuguese captain was a brave man and replied: "I acknowledge Don
Philip, King of Spain, not the Queen of England.  If the Earl of
Cumberland has been at the burning of the _Cinque Llagas_, so have I,
D. Luis Continho, been at the defeat and capture of Sir Richard
Grenville in the _Revenge_.  Do what you dare, Earl, for your Queen,
and I, Luis, will do what I can for my King.  My ship is homeward
bound from India, laden with riches, and with many jewels on board.
Come and take her if ye can."

The fight was renewed, but the English, having already many officers
killed and wounded, and by reason of the "murmuring of some
disordered and cowardly companions," sailed away for England, having
done much harm to the enemy and little good to themselves.

So the Earl returned to England, and at once set about building a
ship big enough to lie alongside any of the Spanish vessels; she was
900 tons, the largest ship ever yet built by a British subject.  The
Queen was so pleased by the Earl's spirit that she, at the launching
of the big ship, gave it the name of the _Scourge of Malice_.

Her first voyage in 1595 was not a success, for as they reached
Plymouth a command was received from her Majesty that the Earl should
return.  So he sent Captain Langton on, who took three Dutch ships
that were carrying ammunition and provisions for the King of Spain,
and returned to England.

The ninth expedition in 1596, led by the Earl in his new ship, with
the _Dreadnought_ of the Royal Navy, was also a failure; for a
violent storm split the Earl's mainmast and he had to return home.

In 1597 the Earl obtained letters-patent authorising him to levy sea
and land forces, and he began to prepare the largest expedition which
had ever been undertaken by a private individual without royal help;
it consisted of eighteen sail, and the Earl took the command in
person.

His design was, first, to impoverish the King of Spain; secondly, to
catch the outward-bound fleet as it sailed from the Tagus.  If this
failed, then thirdly, to seize some town or island that would yield
him riches.

They set out on the 6th of March, but in a few hours the masts of the
_Scourge of Malice_ began to show weakness, and she had to put in
near Lisbon and be repaired.  They worked night and day, fearing to
be discovered, while the other vessels kept out at sea.  On rejoining
his fleet he heard that a ship from England with Spaniards on board
had sailed into the Tagus and warned the Indian fleet.  The carracks
remained therefore under cover of the fort's guns, and the Earl
sailed for the Canaries, where he landed on Lancerota, "borrowed some
necessaries," as the looting was described, and found his men had got
drunk and were mutinous.  So the Earl preached them a sermon and
threatened to hang the sinners on the next offence.  Hence they
sailed across the Atlantic to Dominica, where the inhabitants
welcomed them, as they too hated the Spaniards; here they found a hot
spring at the north-west end of the island.  "The bath is as hot as
the King's bath in the city of Bath."  Here their sick men disported
themselves and found "good refreshing."  They were enchanted with the
beauty of the valleys and trees and rivers and gathered new strength.
Then they went on to Puerto Rico, the key of all the Indies, and the
Earl assured his men that the island was rich, and they must take the
town.  "The Indian soldiers," he said, "live too pleasantly to
venture their lives.  They will make a great show, and perhaps endure
one brunt, but if they do any more, tear me to pieces!"

So they landed on a beach four leagues from the town and marched on
the hot sand, now and again paddling in the cool waves like merry
children.  A negro was compelled to lead them, and they had to
clamber over rough rocks till they came to an entrance of an arm of
the sea and saw that the town was set upon a little island.  Then
were they at their wits' ends how to cross over, but as they had seen
some horsemen, the Earl thought there must be a passage.  By dint of
bullying the negro they made him show a path "through the most
wickedest wood that ever I was in in all my life."  By sunset they
came to a long and narrow causeway leading to a drawbridge which
linked the little island with the greater one.  But the bridge was
up, and they asked the negro if it were possible to ford the passage:
"Yes, at ebb-tide, massa," he replied.  So they lay down and slept,
being very tired.  Two hours before day the alarm was quietly given,
"for we needed not but to shake our ears."  As they advanced along
the rugged causeway the Earl's shield-bearer stumbled and fell
against his master, knocking him into the sea, where, being by reason
of his heavy armour unable to rise, he was in great danger of
drowning.  He swallowed so much salt-water that he was extremely
sick, and had to lie down whilst the assault was going on.  But the
Spaniards resisted stoutly, the tide too came up, and the English had
to retire with a loss of fifty men.

A second attempt with a vessel was more successful and the Spaniards
were driven from their fort.  When the Earl's men entered the town
they found only women and old men.  The men had retired to another
fort and refused to yield; so two batteries were brought up and
"began to speak very loud."

During the siege the Earl had to punish a good soldier of his "for
over-violent spoiling a gentlewoman of her jewels."  The man was
hanged in the market-place in the presence of many Spaniards.  A
sailor too, who had defaced a church, was condemned to die.  Twice he
was taken to the gallows, and twice he was removed in obedience to
the clamours for his pardon.  In a few days the Spaniards demanded a
parley and surrendered, carrying their arms.

But the climate of the island began to tell on the health of the
English.  Books had their glued backs melted by the heat, candied
fruits lost their crust, and English comfits grew liquid.  In July
more than 200 died, and twice as many were sick of a flux and hot
ague, with the limbs cold and weak.  So the Earl made haste to store
the hides, ginger, and sugar, also the town's guns and ammunition.
He put on board, too, specimens of the sensitive plant, of which the
chaplain said: "It hath a property confounding my understanding, for
if you lay a finger upon the leaves of it, the leaves will contract
and wither and disdainfully withdraw themselves, as if they would
slip themselves rather than be touched."

The Earl soon sailed for the Azores, hoping to catch the Mexican
fleet; but he found that the homeward-bound carracks had already
passed and the Mexican fleet was not expected, so in disappointment
they sailed home.  Seven hundred out of the thousand men who had
landed at Puerto Rico had died, and the Spaniards had, knowing this,
refused to ransom the city.  So this grand expedition became a very
serious loss to the Earl, but it was the cause of a greater loss to
Spain, by preventing the carracks from going to or returning from the
Indies.  This was the Earl of Cumberland's last venture.  Fuller
eulogises him as "a person wholly composed of true honour and
valour."  But when we reflect that prodigal expenditure at Court,
display at the tilting-field, and losses in horse-racing were amongst
the incentives to these rash exploits, we must place him a little
lower than old Fuller does.  However, the Earl compares to advantage
with our modern spendthrifts, most of whom will make no effort to
retrieve their ruined fortunes, and expect their kind relations to
support them in idleness.  The Earl of Cumberland played a man's
part, and was not above serving his country as well as his personal
interests.  There was something heroic about him even in his actions
at Court.

For they say that on one of these occasions the Queen dropped her
glove, either by accident, or from some coquettish fancy natural to
her.  The Earl picked it up, and on his knee presented the glove to
her.  "My Lord, an it please thee, keep it in my memory," she
murmured.  The courtier put the glove into his bosom and bowed low.
Another would have hidden it in a cabinet, labelled and dated, but
the Earl sent the glove to his jeweller, and had it emblazoned with
diamonds.  It was then set in front of his hat and worn at all public
assemblies when he was likely to appear before the Queen.

In his youth the Earl had fallen in love with the daughter of Sir
William Hollis, a lovely and beautiful girl.  But her father rejected
the proposal of the Earl, much to his discontent--"My daughter shall
marry a good gentleman with whom I can enjoy society and friendship,
and I will not have a son-in-law before whom I must stand cap in
hand."  He next paid his addresses to Lady Margaret Russell, daughter
of Francis, Earl of Bedford, and was accepted.  She bore him two
sons, both of whom died in infancy, and a daughter, to whom he left
£15,000--a young lady who inherited the common sense of her mother
and the high spirit of both parents.

This charming girl, Lady Anne, married first Sackville, Earl of
Dorset, and afterwards Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and
Montgomery.  She seems to have been one of the last in England to
support the old baronial dignity of feudal times.  She had the honour
of erecting a monument to the poet Spenser, founded two hospitals,
and repaired or built seven churches and six castles--no bad record
for one lady of noble blood.

It is said that one of her friends advised her to be more sparing in
building churches and castles now the Lord Protector Cromwell was in
power; for he might take it in hand to demolish them.

"Let him destroy them if he will," she replied proudly; "he shall
surely find, as often as he does so, I will rebuild them while he
leaves me a shilling in my pocket."



CHAPTER IV

  SIR MARTIN FROBISHER, THE EXPLORER OF
  THE NORTHERN SEAS

It has been conjectured that Martin Frobisher was the son of Francis
Frobisher, who in the year 1535 was Mayor of Doncaster, and lived at
Finningley, some seven miles south-east of Doncaster.  One historian
claims Frobisher as a Devon man, but Fuller in his "Worthies" writes:
"Why should Devonshire, which hath a flock of worthies of her own,
take a lamb from another county?"  Another tells us that Frobisher
was born at Normanton in Yorkshire, and was about as old as Humphrey
Gilbert.

Lock, an adventurer and merchant of London, says in his Memoir that
Martin "was born of honest parentage, a gentleman of a good house and
antiquity, who in his youth, for lack of schools thereabout, sent him
to London, where he was put to Sir John York, knight, being his
kinsman; he, perceiving Martin to be of great spirit and bold courage
and natural hardness of body, sent him in a ship to the Gold Country
of Guinea, in company of other ships sent out by divers merchants of
London."  This was in the autumn of 1554: it was one of the first
expeditions sent out from England to explore the western coast of
Africa, and was commanded by John Lock.  They landed on the Gold
Coast and began a prosperous trade in gold and elephants' teeth,
returning to London in 1555.  For eleven years after this little is
known of Frobisher's doings, except that he made more voyages to West
Africa and to the Levant in the Mediterranean.

In 1566 he had risen to the rank of captain, and was apparently noted
for his daring voyages, as in May of that year he was examined by
order of the Queen's Council on suspicion of having fitted out a ship
for piracy.

In 1572, when he was lodging at Lambeth after one of his voyages, one
Ralph Whalley called upon him at his lodging and introduced himself
as a follower of the Earl of Desmond, an Anglo-Irish nobleman, at
that time imprisoned in the Tower for treason.  He was the head of
the great house of the southern Fitzgeralds, who were all-powerful in
Munster, but Sir Henry Sidney, by Queen Elizabeth's orders, had sent
him on arrest to England.  He surrendered his property into the
Queen's hands, but was committed for security to the Tower.

Whalley explained all this to Frobisher, and suggested how profitable
it would be to help this deserving gentleman to escape out of
England.  Why should he be kept in the Tower? he had done no ill to
any one.  Frobisher was appealed to as a daring sailor, well known by
repute in all the ale-houses where the sign of the bush was hung out,
and as generous as he was brave.

Well, the idea was that the Earl, having got free out of the Tower,
should be carried in an oyster-boat as far as Gravesend, and there
should embark on board a ship to be provided by Frobisher.

The reward which Whalley held out, to counterbalance the risk
incurred in helping a prisoner to escape, was a share in the vessel
of the value of £500, and a free gift from Earl Desmond of his island
of Valentia, on the coast of Derry.  We do not know whether Frobisher
entertained the idea of helping Desmond; probably he thought it too
risky, for the attempt was not made.  Possibly on thinking it over
Frobisher believed it to be his duty to inform the Government, for he
signed a declaration four months later in which he describes the
Lambeth incident.  Desmond did get away later on and broke out in
rebellion in Ireland, only to be killed at last in an Irish cabin.
Frobisher had latterly been employed by the Government in sailing
along the Irish coast to intimidate rebels and prevent the landing of
foreign sympathisers.  This he continued to do for three or four
years after the Lambeth incident, and so he came under the notice of
Burghley and the Queen, and won the friendship of Sir Henry Sidney
and Sidney's favourite, Sir Humphrey Gilbert.  Now Sir Humphrey was
the chief promoter of attempts to find a north-west passage to the
Indies; he and Frobisher must have had many a long talk together over
the Arctic map; and at last the Queen heard of the idea and granted a
licence in 1575 to Master Martin Frobisher, and divers gentlemen
associated with him, for finding a north-west passage to Cathay.

The chief argument in Frobisher's mind which proved the existence of
such a passage was that Nature did all things in harmony.  Now, as
she had made a fair communication between the Southern Atlantic and
the Pacific, so she would be found to have established the same
water-way between the Northern Atlantic and the Pacific.  It was of
the same order of reasoning as the old theory that "Nature abhors a
vacuum."

However, it seemed so very reasonable that many moneyed men in the
city of London were willing and anxious to spend money on the search.
Lock subscribed £100, Sir Thomas Gresham £100, Lord Burghley £50, the
Earls of Sussex, Leicester, Warwick £50 each, and others smaller
sums, until a fund of £875 was secured; in modern currency this was
equivalent to some £6000, but was not sufficient for carrying out the
project.

Frobisher went about London, Lock tells us, a sad man and thoughtful;
Lock lent him books and maps, and got him friends and subscriptions,
but still the fund remained insufficient.  "I made my house his home,
my purse his purse, and my credit his credit, when he was utterly
destitute both of money and credit and of friends."

The ships were, however, being furnished in the docks, and after all
the many conferences in Fleet Street and Mark Lane, and even at
Greenwich Court, still the money came slowly in.  At last, by May
1576, two strongly built barques, the _Gabriel_ and the _Michael_,
each of 25 tons burden, together with a small pinnace of 10 tons, lay
ready in the Thames, hard by old London Bridge.  Frobisher received
his commission as admiral, Hall and Griffin were masters, and
Chancellor purser of the voyage.  They numbered about forty officers
and men, and started on the 7th of June.

As they sailed off Deptford the pinnace was run down by a vessel
coming up stream; her bowsprit and foremast were broken, and
twenty-four hours were spent in doing repairs.

At midday on Friday the vessels sailed past Greenwich, firing guns as
a salute in honour of the Court.  The Queen sat at a window watching
them, and waved her hand in token of farewell.

Anon she sent a messenger in a rowing-boat to tell her brave seamen
that she liked well their doings and thanked them for it, and also
willed that Master Frobisher should come the next day to the Court to
take his leave of her.  This he did with a beating heart; for was not
his ambition of fifteen years being now satisfied!

They sailed round the western coast of England and Scotland, and
halted in the Shetlands to calk the _Gabriel_, for she was leaking,
and to take in water.  Sailing west from the Faroe Islands they
caught sight of "some high and ragged land rising like pinnacles of
steeples"--perhaps the south of Greenland.  They could not land for
"the great store of ice that lay along the coast, and the great mists
that troubled them not a little."

As they sailed north and west a great storm arose and swept away the
pinnace, so that they saw her no more.  Next day they lost the
_Michael_, but her crew, after waiting about on the ice-bound coast
of Labrador, concluded that Frobisher and the rest in the _Gabriel_
were drowned, and so they returned home and came to Bristol on the
1st of September.

And now Frobisher in the _Gabriel_, with eighteen mariners and
gentlemen, pushed boldly on, undaunted by the strange perils that
surrounded them, and they reached the group of islands lying westward
of what is now called Davis's Straits.  Neither could they land for
the ice, snow, and fog, but at last found a resting-place on an
island which Frobisher called "Hall's Island," for that Hall, master
of the _Gabriel_, there first landed.  Thence he sailed into a bay
and called it "Frobisher's Straits," thinking it would lead them to
India.

Once, on landing, they saw some things floating in the sea afar off,
which they thought to be porpoises, but on coming nearer they found
they were men in small leathern boats.  These brought salmon for
barter, laying it down on the rocks and signing to the English to do
the same with their goods.  If not satisfied the natives took up
their fish and went away.

They were disposed to be friendly, and liked to climb the rigging of
our ships, and "tried many masteries upon the ropes after our
mariners' fashion."

Others reported less favourably of them, saying that their manner of
life and food was "very beastly."  "They be like to Tartars, with
long black hair, broad faces and flat noses, tawny in colour, wearing
sealskins ... the women are marked in the face with blue streaks down
the cheeks and round about the eyes."

On the 20th of August one of the Eskimos was brought on board the
_Gabriel_, to whom Frobisher gave a bell and a knife, sending him
ashore in the ship's boat with five of the crew to manage it.  They
were ordered not to go out of sight, but curiosity led them to land,
and they never returned.

Five days were spent in coasting along the shore, in blowing of
trumpets and firing guns to attract his men's attention, but all in
vain; they were believed to have been murdered.  Now Frobisher had
only thirteen men left and no ship's boat; he felt he could do no
more that year.

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[Illustration: CAPTURE OF AN ESKIMO]

Frobisher had lost several men through the treachery of the natives,
and determined to make an example of one of them.  He enticed one by
holding out a bell and other trinkets, and as soon as he came within
reach he dropped the bell, seized the man by the arm, and hauled him
bodily on board.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

But before he left the land "he wrought a pretty policy; for, knowing
how they greatly delighted in our toys, and especially in bells, he
rang a pretty, low bell, making signs that he would give him the same
that would fetch it."  At first they feared to come, but at last one
of them came near the ship's side to receive the bell.  But as he
stretched out his hand to take the bell, Frobisher let the bell fall
and caught the man fast, plucking him with main force, boat and all,
out of the sea on to the _Gabriel's_ deck.

This was not the only time that Martin Frobisher thus proved his
strength.  But the Eskimo, when he found he was caught, bit his
tongue in twain within his mouth, for very anger and vexation.

On the voyage home, as they passed Iceland, one of the crew was blown
overboard by a violent gust of wind, but he chanced to lay hold of
the foresail sheet and hung on till Frobisher, leaning down, picked
him up and hauled him dripping aboard again.

On the 2nd of October the _Gabriel_ entered the river at Harwich,
having been rather less than four months absent from England, after
exploring much northern territory, but without finding the desired
passage to Cathay.

"Why! we thought you were all lost!  The _Michael_ came home and they
said you were nowhere to be found!" was the first greeting they
received.

But in London they were joyfully welcomed on October 9th, bringing
with them the strange infidel and his boat, whose like was never
seen, read, nor heard of before, and whose language was neither known
nor understood of any.

But the poor stranger, who could resist the inclemency of an Arctic
winter, could not withstand our damp autumn gales; he caught a cold
at sea, and lingered only a few weeks, after being the brief wonder
of the town.  But a more extraordinary discovery, and one which
afterwards spoiled all Frobisher's attempts at scientific research,
was this.

Philip Sidney, writing in 1577, says to his tutor: "I wrote to you
about a certain Frobisher, who, in rivalry of Magellan, has explored
the sea which, as he thinks, washes the north part of America.  It is
a marvellous history.  He touched at a certain island in order to
rest his crew; there by chance a young man picked up a piece of earth
which he saw glittering on the ground and showed it to Frobisher; but
he, being busy with other matters, and not believing that precious
metals were produced so far north, considered it of no value.  But
the young man kept the earth by him till his return to London.  And
there, when one of his friends saw it shining in an extraordinary
manner, he tested it and found it was the purest gold."

Another account says that this "earth" was a black stone, much like
to sea-coal in colour; "and it fortuned a gentlewoman, one of the
adventurers' wives, to have a piece thereof, which by chance she
threw and burnt in the fire so long that at length, being taken forth
and quenched in a little vinegar, it glittered with a bright
glistening of gold."  So the stuff was taken with some show of
excitement to certain gold-refiners in the City to make an
assay-thereof; and their verdict was that it held gold and that in
very rich measure.

Immediately this news got bruited about, there was no small stir
among the merchants and courtiers--all, seamen and men of learning
alike, clamoured for another expedition; for they argued that it was
of small importance to find a passage to Cathay, if treasures equally
valuable lay so near at hand.

Queen Elizabeth and Burghley were both ready to throw economy to the
winds, if good gold could be gotten by "Master Frobisher."

So a charter was granted to the "Company of Cathay," and Frobisher
was to have 1 per cent. of all he found, together with a fixed yearly
stipend.  He was to take his own ships _Gabriel_ and _Michael_, each
of 25 tons burden, and a Queen's ship, the _Aid_, of 200 tons, and
furnished with sixty-five sailors and twenty-five soldiers.

Among the crews were ten convicts--highway robbers--taken out of
prison and lent to Frobisher as "likely men of their hands."

Frobisher had no relish for such gentry, as being men who might lead
mutinies and do lawless deeds; he therefore dropped them on the
English coast and carefully forgot to take them with him.

When Frobisher opened his "instructions" he found to his disgust that
the finding of a North-West Passage was a very subordinate part of
his duty.  He was to go to Hall's Island, leave his large ship in
safe harbour, and search for gold with the two smaller vessels.  He
was to plant a colony and capture eight or ten people of the country,
"whom we mind shall not return again thither, and therefore you shall
have great care how you do take them, for avoiding of offence towards
them and the country."

On taking leave, Frobisher had the honour of kissing her Majesty's
hand as he knelt before her, who dismissed him "with gracious
countenance and comfortable words."  At Gravesend they went to church
and received the Sacrament--"prepared as good Christians towards God
and resolute men for all fortunes."

At Harwich they tarried three days to take in provisions and weed out
the convicts.  The next place they stopped at was Orkney, where they
found the people so strange that they fled from their pebble-built
cottages with shrieks at their approach.  "The goodman, wife,
children, and others of the family eat and sleep on the one side of
the house, and the cattle on the other--very beastly and rudely in
respect of civility."

As they sailed north great fir-trees came floating by, torn by the
roots out of the rocky soil by the great storms, also some icebergs
came in their way.  When they reached Greenland they could find no
place to land; for three days Frobisher wandered up and down in a
rowing-boat, but saw only a ragged coast-line of high mountains and
snow-clad rocks, looking like lumps of ice in the misty sea.  At
Hall's Island all the ships met after being separated by a storm.

Then for five weeks Frobisher searched the land for gold ore, and
found little.  They met some natives near Frobisher's Straits and
very pleasantly spent a great part of one day in exchanging
merchandise, the Eskimos making all possible signs of friendship.
But Frobisher, in obedience to the Queen's orders, tried to coax two
of the natives into his boat, and at once the new-found friends were
turned into enemies; for they ran for their bows and wounded several
of our men.  Soon after they were menaced by a host of icebergs, a
thousand or more, and the whole night long was spent in evading these
dangerous visitors.  "Some scraped us, and some escaped us.  In the
end we were saved, God being our best steersman."

In the morning Frobisher called his men to thank God heartily for His
protection of them in the time of danger.  The storm cleared
Frobisher's Straits of pack-ice, and sailing up they found a big fish
embayed with ice, about twelve feet long, having a horn of two yards
long growing out of its snout.  This horn, "wreathed and straight,
like in fashion to a taper made of wax," they took home and presented
to the Queen at Windsor.

In their explorations they thought they saw much gold ore, and
entered some houses built two fathoms under ground, round like ovens,
and strengthened above ground by bones of whales, for lack of timber.
The men were of the colour of a ripe olive, very active and nimble,
clad in sealskins and hides of bear, deer, and fox.  They loved
music, could keep time to any tune that was sung to them, and could
soon sing aptly any tune they heard.  They were excellent marksmen,
and when they shot at a fish they used to tie a bladder to the arrow,
which, by buoying the dart, at length wearied out and killed the
fish.  All they had to burn was heath and moss, and they kindled a
fire by fretting one stick against another.

"The women carry their sucking children at their backs and do feed
them with raw flesh, which first they do a little chew in their own
mouths."  They believed in magic and said prayers to stones in order
to cure a headache, and would lie on the ground face downwards, and
by groans do obeisance to the foul fiend.

Once the English had a desperate fight with natives, who would never
give in, but if mortally wounded, despairing of mercy, would leap
headlong off the rocks into the sea, lest they should be eaten.  In
this fight in York Sound two women were caught; one being old was
taken by the sailors for a witch, so they plucked off her buskins to
see if she were cloven-footed!  She was not; and the poor thing, for
her ugly hue and deformity, was let go.  The other was young and
encumbered with a young child.  As she was hiding behind some rocks,
she was taken for a man and shot through the hair of her head; her
child's arm too was pierced by an arrow.  When brought to the surgeon
she cried out, and the surgeon with kind intent applied salves to the
baby's arm.  But the mother plucked the salves away, and by constant
licking of her tongue healed the wound.

By the middle of August Frobisher had loaded his ships with some two
hundred tons of mineral, and as cold weather was coming he decided to
return.  So lighting a bonfire in the Countess of Warwick's Island,
and all marching round it with blare of trumpets and echo of guns,
they said good-bye to the "Meta Incognita" for this year, 1577.

The _Aid_ arrived at Milford Haven on September 23rd and proceeded to
Bristol, when they learnt that the _Gabriel_ had already arrived, and
that the _Michael_ had sailed safely to Yarmouth.

Frobisher was invited to Windsor and there heartily thanked by the
Queen.  "Two hundred tons of gold ore you have brought, Master
Frobisher? and pray, where shall this treasure be stored?  That asks
some considering."

Poor Frobisher! not a question asked about his geographical
discoveries, or the North-West Passage; but two hundred tons of gold
ore were enough to make all England merry--let us not blame the
Queen.  Most of it was deposited in Bristol Castle, the rest conveyed
to the Tower of London; and the Queen sent a special messenger to
remind the Warden that four locks were to be placed upon the door of
the treasury, and that one key should be handed over to Martin
Frobisher, one to Michael Lock, one to the Warden of the Tower, and
one to the Master of the Mint.  Ah! if only all these tons had
contained gold, how happy would Master Frobisher have made his Queen
and her subjects!  But as yet all were agog with the wonderful news
and with hopes of still more treasure to be gotten another year.

At once small parcels were doled out to the best gold-refiners in
London, and at Bristol, where Sir William Winter controlled the ore.
The refiners heated their furnaces--and themselves week after week.
It was passing strange! they could not induce the gold to show itself.

On the 30th of November Michael Lock, Frobisher's great friend and
financier, informed Secretary Walsingham that some unbelief in the
quality of the mineral was growing up; and Winter at Bristol
confessed that they had not been able to get a furnace hot enough "to
bring the work to the desired perfection." The general verdict was
that "the ore was poor in respect of that brought last year, and of
that which we know may be brought the next year."

So the merchant adventurers, the Cathay Company, the Queen's Court,
and all the little subscribers in county towns tried to comfort
themselves.  And to prove that the gold was there--must be there--a
much larger expedition was preparing for 1578, Frobisher's third
voyage!

Fifteen ships were being fitted out to bring home two thousand tons
of good rock.  One wonders where it all lies now!

Six months were occupied in the work; for they were to leave a colony
of a hundred men in "Meta Incognita"; and for these they were to take
out a strong fort of timber to defend the colonists against cold and
enemies.  Besides these Frobisher was to select one hundred and
thirty able seamen, a hundred and sixty pioneers, sixty soldiers,
besides gunners, carpenters, surgeons, and two or three ministers to
conduct divine service according to the rites of the Church of
England.  Captain E. Fenton was to be vice-admiral and captain of the
colony, and he, with Captains Yorke, Philpott, Best, and Carew, were
to be Frobisher's chief advisers.

The ships assembled at Harwich on the 27th of May; on the 28th
Frobisher and his fourteen captains repaired to the Court at
Greenwich, and there they had a splendid "send-off."  Her Highness
bestowed on the General a fair chain of gold, and the other captains
had the honour of kissing her hand.  We may gather something to
elucidate Frobisher's character from the code of instructions which
he drew up to be observed by his fleet:--

"Art. 1.  Imprimis.  To banishe swearing, dice, cards' playing and
all filthie talk, and to serve God twice a day with the ordinary
service, usual in the Church of England.

"Art. 8.  If any man in the fleete come upon other in the nyghte and
haile his fellow, knowing him not, he shall give him this
watch-worde, 'Before the world was God'; the other shall make answer,
'After God came Christ, His sonne'--Martyn Furbusher."

It was no uncommon thing in those days for an educated man to be
rather vague about the spelling of words, and even his own name might
have variations.  Frobisher, with all his passionate temper, tried to
serve God according to his lights; he was resolute that his men
should do so too.

They sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May, and on the 6th of June
fell in with some Bristol traders who had been assailed by French
pirates, and were so wounded and hungry that they were like to perish
in the sea, their food for many days having been olives and stinking
water.

Frobisher sent his surgeons to dress their wounds, gave them store of
food, and steering north-west reached the south of Greenland.

He this time found a good harbour, native boats, and tents.  The
people ran away, and Frobisher only took two white dogs, leaving some
knives for payment.

Soon after, the Solomon struck a great whale with her full stern so
violently that the ship stood still.  "The whale thereat made a great
and ugly noise and cast up his body and tail, and so went under
water; within two days there was found a great whale dead, swimming
above water."  The creature had probably been asleep on the surface.

On the 2nd of July they had reached Frobisher's Straits, which to
their discontent they found choked up with ice, and the ships were in
great danger for some days.  The _Denis_, of 100 tons, was struck by
an iceberg and lost.  She carried the movable fort; her crew only
were saved.

Then followed a great storm, and they had much ado to defend the
sides of their ships from "the outrageous sway and strokes" of the
fleeting ice.  For planks of timber of more than three inches thick
were shivered and cut asunder by the surging of the sea and
ice-floes, and the noise of the tides and currents reminded them of
the waterfall under London Bridge.  When the storm abated, under the
lee of a huge iceberg Frobisher mustered his ships and caused the
crews to offer up special thanksgivings for their great deliverance.
After the storm came fogs, and they lost their bearings.  Frobisher
said the coast was in Frobisher Straits; Hall averred it was not, and
they quarrelled like schoolboys; for "Frobisher fell into a great
rage and sware that it was so, or else take his life."

However, Frobisher was afterwards proved to be in the wrong; he had
discovered the great inlet, called subsequently "Hudson's Strait."
This he followed up for three hundred miles, trying to persuade his
comrades that they were in the right course.  He himself began to see
he had been misled, but a strong desire and hope came upon him--he
would now find the passage to Cathay!  But his crew cared little for
such poor ambition; they talked against their leader behind his back,
and soon openly demanded to be taken home.  So they turned once more
to the region of fog, and after imminent risks, the mariners being
scared in the darkness and crying continually, "Lord, now help or
never!" they cleared the corner of "Meta Incognita" on the 23rd of
July.  Then the mutineers murmured again because Frobisher wished to
wait for the rest of the fleet; but Frobisher mastered them and
brought his ships to the Countess of Warwick's Sound.  There he was
welcomed by the crews of the _Judith_ and the _Michael_, and two days
afterwards Hall appeared with the remaining vessels.

Special services of thanksgiving were offered and the mutinous men
were forgiven, though they continued to be sulky and obeyed under
protest.  No colony could be left, because the timber for the fort
was lost.  When they reached Bear's Sound the flame of discontent
blazed up so fiercely that it was even proposed to put their admiral
ashore and leave him to perish in the snow.  However, this was voted
against by the majority, who perhaps were wondering what the Queen
might say.  For it was well known that she had a high opinion of her
"trusty and well-beloved" Master Frobisher.

They embarked for home after they had filled their bunkers, and had
hardly entered the open sea with their cargoes of mineral than a
violent storm dispersed them; the _Aid_ was nearly wrecked, and lost
her pinnace.  So with contrary winds and heavy storms they battled
their way south, and reached port somewhere in England by October.

As before, their coming was welcomed with hearty delight, and once
more the hopes of speculators stirred the enthusiasm of the nation.

One old chronicler writes: "Such great quantity of gold appeared that
some letted not to give out for certaintie that Solomon had his gold
from thence, wherewith he builded his temple."

The Queen had advanced £4000 herself, to show her belief in Frobisher
and in the gold ore, and all were now waiting for the refiners'
verdict.  It came very rapidly--no gold to be got out of all these
tons of rock!  Enthusiasm and shouting gave way to abuse and slander,
not only in the Court and City, but the mutinous part openly accused
Frobisher of having misled them: "his vainglorious mind would not
suffer any discovery to be made without his own presence."

Even Lock, Frobisher's good friend in time of prosperity, now led the
opposition to him, and refused to pay the salary that was due to him.

There was an added bitterness in this which the world did not know
of; for Frobisher had been obliged to leave his wife and children
poorly provided for.  A letter from Dame Isabel Frobisher, "the most
miserable poor woman in the world," to Sir Francis Walsingham,
describes to us a pitiful state of affairs.  She complains that
whereas her former husband had left her with ample means for herself
and children, her present husband--whom God forgive!--had spent all
she had, and "put them to the wide world to shift."  In fact, they
were starving in a poor room at Hampstead, and when Frobisher came
home he doubtless comforted her, saying his salary was overdue, and
all would soon be well.  Then Frobisher goes into the City and is
told he cannot have his salary!  He is furious, for his temper was
ever stormy, and calls Lock "a bankrupt knave."  Lock writes to
Walsingham and complains that Frobisher has raged against him like a
mad beast.  Others, who have met Frobisher and railed against him for
bringing home worthless mineral, meet with similar ill-treatment.  No
wonder! for the man is well-nigh beside himself to find his pains and
sufferings for England's sake miscalled neglect, to know that a
pamphlet has been written against him as an arrogant, obstinate, and
prodigal knave, "full of lying talk, impudent of tongue, and
perchance the most unprofitable of all who have served the Company."

We need not wonder if Frobisher, having been spoilt by praise and
flattery after his two former voyages, now lost his temper and swore
that he would hip his masters "the Adventurers" for their ungenerous
treatment.  It was the search for this non-existent gold which
cramped him and deprived his voyages of half their usefulness: the
blame rested elsewhere.

Lock was thrown into the Fleet Prison for buying a ship for £200 and
not being able to pay for it.  No doubt other speculators were
equally near ruin.

It is pleasant to know that the Queen never lost her belief in her
trusty servant, though she, like others, must have chafed at the loss
of her subscription.

"No more expeditions, an it please you," said the City merchants; but
the wealthy courtiers, Leicester and Shrewsbury, Oxford, Pembroke,
and Warwick, proposed to try one more voyage, and Drake offered to
fit out a ship of 180 tons.  Frobisher went home to his wife in high
glee: "It will all come right, pretty mistress; there is to be
another voyage, and I, Martin Frobisher, the Admiral."  Yet when the
instructions came, the poor earnest discoverer was taken aback; for
in the paper he read, "We will that this voyage shall be only for
trade, and not for discovery of the passage to Cathay."

His heart sank within him--another search for gold!  No! he would
have none of it.  He had the scientific spirit of Agassiz, who, when
offered by New York any terms he liked, if he would come and lecture,
replied by telegram: "Gentlemen, I have no time for making money."

So Frobisher bluntly refused to lead such an expedition, and Edward
Fenton went in his place,--and it was to look for carracks in the
South Seas!

How Frobisher and his lamenting wife lived for the next few years we
do not know; but in 1580 he was appointed Clerk of her Majesty's
ships, and once he went as captain on a Queen's ship, the
_Foresight_, to prevent the Spaniards giving help to the Irish rebels
in Munster.

In 1585 a fleet was fitted out to annoy the King of Spain in the West
Indies, in return for his seizing all the English ships and seamen
found in his ports.

Sir Francis Drake was admiral in the _Elizabeth Bonadventure_,
Frobisher was vice-admiral in the _Primrose_; there were twenty-five
vessels and 2300 men, and they were authorised by the Crown to make
war upon King Philip of Spain.  It was looked upon as a religious war
in defence of freedom of conscience.  Walsingham wrote to Leicester:
"Upon Drake's voyage, in very truth, dependeth the life and death of
the (Protestant) cause, according to men's judgment."

The fleet left Plymouth on the 14th of September 1585, and after
receiving the submission of Vigo and doing some damage and liberating
some English prisoners, they went to Palma, in the Canaries.  Here,
owing to "the naughtiness of the landing-place, well furnished with
great ordnance," Drake and Frobisher were driven off with some loss.
At Cape de Verde one of his men was murdered by a Spaniard, and the
penalty exacted was the burning of Santiago, the hospital excepted.

Here a severe sickness broke out, extreme hot burning and continual
agues, which led to "decay of their wits" and strength for a long
time after; thereby they lost more than two hundred men.  Thence they
sailed to Dominica, St. Kitts, and Hispaniola.  At San Domingo 1200
men were landed under Master Carlisle.  It was New Year's Day, 1586,
when a hundred and fifty Spanish horse came out to crush the
invaders, but had to retire within the walls.  There were two gates
facing the sea; by these Carlisle entered, dividing his force and
vowing that, if God would help them, they would meet in the
market-place.  This they succeeded in doing, and next day Drake and
Frobisher brought their vessels into the harbour, and landed most of
the men to share in the spoil.

San Domingo was held for a month and ransacked, but little gold or
silver was found, only wine, oil, olives, cloth, silk, and good store
of brave apparel, some of which they saved, doubtless for their wives
at home.

The Spanish Governor and the troops had fled to a fort three miles
from the town, and Drake sent a negro boy with a flag of truce to
treat with them for their ransom.  The poor lad was met half-way, and
so beaten that he could scarcely crawl back to die at the admiral's
feet.

Drake was not the man to leave such an outrage unavenged; he ordered
the Provost-Marshal to carry two friars to the same spot and hang
them there.  He also sent a messenger to inform the Governor that two
prisoners would be hanged every day until the murderer was given up.

The murderer was given up and hanged, and then the town was fired.

Similar proceedings were taken at Cartagena, though here the
Spaniards fought more stoutly, and Indian archers "with arrows most
villainously empoisoned" caused the death of many.  Many English,
too, "were mischiefed to death by small sticks, sharply pointed, that
were fixed in the ground, with the points poisoned."  As the attack
was made in the dark, many were wounded and died.  Cartagena was held
for six weeks, and many courtesies passed between the Spaniards and
the English.  A ransom of £28,000 was paid, and Drake restored the
town to its inhabitants.

They left Cartagena on the 31st of March, after blowing up the fort,
and sailed along the coast of Florida, sacking and burning the
Spanish settlements of San Juan de Pinos and St. Augustine; then they
came to the island of Roanoke, where they found Raleigh's colonists
on the verge of starvation, offered them help and a passage home.
These colonists had behaved cruelly to the Indians and had suffered
for it.  They brought home a strange herb, which is thus described:
"There is a herb," says Hariot, one of the colonists, "which is
called by the natives uppowoc: the Spaniards call it tobacco.  The
leaves thereof being dried and brought into powder, they are to take
the fume thereof, by sucking it through pipes made of clay, into
their stomach and head, whence it purgeth superfluous phlegm and
other gross humours, or openeth all the pores and passages of the
body."

A month's sailing brought them to Portsmouth, but it was not
considered a successful cruise, for they had lost seven hundred and
fifty men, chiefly from disease, brought home two hundred pieces of
brass cannon, and sixty thousand pounds, of which one-third was given
to the soldiers and sailors as prize-money.  But the chief gain was
in the effect on Philip, who forbade the sailing of his Indian fleet
until Drake and Frobisher returned.

These found on landing that nearly every gentleman in England was
fitting out a ship for privateering against Spain; that Hawkins and
Winter were busy overhauling the Queen's navy, and that England was
expecting an invasion.  No doubt Frobisher was soon kept busy too,
and we will hope that the wife and children at Hampstead had less
cause to complain of their poverty when they got their share of the
prize-money.  And how glad they all were when Frobisher rode home one
evening and cried: "News! good wife.  What think ye, lads and lasses?
The great Armada is on her way at last."

"Alack! and wail-away! is that news for your poor family, Master
Frobisher?"

"Ha! ha! it is the time when honest men come to the front, wife.  In
a word, you shall have no stint of rations henceforth; for I, Martin
Frobisher, am to-day appointed Vice-Admiral, in command of a squadron
in the Queen's fleet, and go down to Plymouth to-morrow.  The Lord
High Admiral, Lord Howard, hath writ right excellently of me to her
Majesty to this effect nearly: 'Sir Francis Drake, Mr. Hawkins, Mr.
Frobisher, and Mr. Thomas Fenner are those whom the world doth judge
to be men of the greatest experience that this realm hath.'  So, God
help us all and defend the right!"

Thus Frobisher, the vice-admiral, rode a-horseback down to Plymouth,
and probably played many a game of bowls on the Hoe, while the
captains waited for the signal.  History tells how, when the call
came, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher waited upon the Spanish rear
squadron on that famous Sunday of the 21st of July, cutting in and
out amongst the unwieldy galleons, and cheering one another on amid
fire, smoke, and bellowing cannon.  For six hours the English hornets
pursued the Spanish monsters, and by three o'clock the Spanish fleet
was disordered and confused, and the English seamen sat down to
supper and prayers and letter-writing.

Anon they returned to the pursuit, and as luck would have it, the
flagship of the Andalusian squadron under Don Pedro de Valdez came
athwart the _Triumph_ and Martin Frobisher.  She had lost her
foremast and was crippled for speed; so the Duke of Medina Sidonia
left her in the lurch.  "Left me comfortless in the sight of the
whole fleet," wrote Pedro to King Philip.  However, Frobisher
signalled to Hawkins, and together they came buzzing round the lofty
Spaniard with shot of guns.  All through the night the flagship
defended herself bravely; in the morning who should come through the
mist but Drake in the _Revenge_.

Drake was a busy man just now and could not afford to waste powder,
so he sent a pinnace to command them to yield.  Don Pedro replied
that he was four hundred and fifty strong; he spoke much of his
honour and proposed conditions.  Drake in return said, "I really have
no leisure to parley.  If thou wilt yield, do it presently and at
once; if not, then I shall well prove that Drake is no dastard."  How
that terrible name struck a panic into the Spaniards!  It was Drake!
Don Pedro made haste to come on board the _Revenge_ with forty men,
and bowed with Spanish courtesy, paid Drake many compliments, and
yielded up his sword.  That day Don Pedro dined at Drake's table; his
men were sent to Plymouth till their ransoms were paid.  Drake's crew
took 15,000 ducats in gold out of the spoil and shared it merrily
among themselves.

But Frobisher and Hawkins had meant to take this galleon and share in
all this prize-money and ransom-money.  They had no time now to
grumble or quarrel, as the fight was not yet over; but long after, on
the 10th of August, when the crews were again on shore, Frobisher
said angrily of Drake: "He thinketh to cozen us of our shares of the
15,000 ducats; but we will have our share, or I will make him spend
the best blood in his belly, for he hath done enough of those
cozening cheats already."

Don Pedro having defended his ship all night against Frobisher and
Hawkins had then surrendered to the mere terror of Drake's name.  A
better-tempered man than Frobisher might have felt aggrieved at the
ill-luck.

By Wednesday most of the fighting was over, and Lord Howard divided
his fleet, now increased from sixty sail to a hundred in one week,
into five squadrons, of which Frobisher was to command the fourth
squadron and guard the narrow sea.  On Thursday, 25th July, Frobisher
had a hard fight against the _Santa Anna_ and a Portuguese galleon.
At last Lord Howard came to his rescue, and was so full of admiration
for the prowess shown that the next day he knighted Frobisher and
Hawkins.

By Monday the 29th of July, we find Frobisher in the _Triumph_, with
Drake and Hawkins closely pursuing the Spaniards over the Flemish
shoals; there they dashed in upon the crescent formation and drove
some ashore to be wrecked, and others to the angry seas outside.  The
galleons of Spain were so tall that the English could not
conveniently assault them; so "using their prerogative of nimble
steerage, they came oftentimes very near upon the Spaniards, and
charged them so sore that now and then they were but a pike's length
asunder.  And so, continually giving them one broadside after
another, they discharged all their shot, both great and small upon
them, spending a whole day in that violent kind of conflict."

Later, when the great Armada sped north under a rising gale,
Frobisher and his squadron remained in the Channel to guard the shore
against Parma.

In May 1590, he was sent as vice-admiral under Sir John Hawkins to
cruise along the Spanish coasts and intercept the carracks from
India.  But Philip was keeping all his trading vessels in port; so
they returned to England in October with so few prizes that the Queen
expressed great displeasure.  The next thing we hear of Frobisher is
his being sent in a swift pinnace by the Queen to recall Walter
Raleigh as he was starting for the Isthmus of Darien.  Frobisher took
Raleigh's place and commanded one squadron; his orders being to
cruise about the coasts of Spain and "to amaze the Spanish fleet."

Fortunately a big Biscayan ship with a valuable cargo came in sight,
was captured and sent home, to the Queen's well liking; but after
that Frobisher had no more good fortune.

In 1594 Henry of Navarre wrote to Queen Elizabeth for help in
dislodging a force of 3000 Spaniards from the Brittany coast.
Raleigh pressed the subject at Court until Frobisher was sent with
ten ships to try and save Brest from falling into Philip's hands.
Frobisher landed his troops and joined Sir John Norris, who was about
to attack Fort Crozon, near Brest.  The Spaniards made a stout
resistance and many English fell.  The Queen, hearing this news,
wrote to Norris advising more caution: "The blood of man ought not to
be squandered away at all adventures."  She wrote, too, in November
to Frobisher:--

"Trustie and well-beloved, wee greet you well ... we perceive your
love of our service and your owne good carriage, whereby you have won
yourself reputation....  We know you are sufficientlie instructed
howe to prevent any soddaine mischief, by fire or otherwise, upon our
fleet under your charge...."

So we see the Queen caring for her men and her ships, and frankly
commending her trusty admiral for his foresight--but letting him see
that she was ever watchful over his doings.

The Crozon fort was taken and razed to the ground, but the brave
Frobisher was wounded in the hip by a musket-ball.  It would have
been a trifle in our days of scientific dressing, but the surgeon,
when he extracted the ball, left the wadding behind; the wound
festered, fever and death ensued.  Here is Frobisher's last letter to
the Lord High Admiral as he lay wounded:--

"I was shott in with a bullett at the batterie, so as I was driven to
have an incision made to take out the bullett; so as I am neither
able to goe nor ride.  And the mariners are verie unwilling to goe
except I goe with them myself.  Yet, if I find it come to an
extremitie, we will do what we are able: if we had our vittels, it
were easily done."

That was just like Frobisher! though he lies on his death-bed, he is
ready to go with his men to front the foe, "if it come to an
extremitie."



CHAPTER V

  SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT, THE FOUNDER
  OF NEWFOUNDLAND

Humphrey Gilbert was the second son of Sir Otho Gilbert of the
manor-house of Greenaway in South Devon; his mother was Catherine,
daughter of Sir Philip Champernown, of pure Norman descent, having
the blood of the Courtneys in her veins.

The three brothers, John, Humphrey, and Adrian, living at Greenaway
close to the Dart, about two miles above Dartmouth, no doubt often
played at being sailors in the beautiful reach of water that runs so
deep beneath the windows, that the largest vessels may ride safely
within a stone's throw.  They were brave boys, full of promise even
in their boyhood, and all three destined to win the honour of
knighthood for daring deeds.

Humphrey, born about the year 1539, was no mere fighting seaman, but
a thoughtful, earnest discoverer of such scientific truths as were
within the intellectual grasp of the sixteenth century.

He was educated at Eton and Oxford, but his heart was ever in
seamanship.  He talked so learnedly about his profession that news of
his prowess came to the ears of Walsingham, who rehearsed them to the
Queen.  Hence it came that Humphrey Gilbert was examined before her
Majesty and the Privy Council: a record of this examination was drawn
up by Humphrey and still exists.  He was "for amending the great
errors of naval sea-cards, whose common fault is to make the degree
of longitude in every latitude of one common bigness"; he had already
begun to invent instruments for taking observations and for studying
the shape of the earth.  But his great idea was to form colonies in
the New World and find an outlet for trade and a population growing
too thick upon English soil.  His manner and intelligence left a
great impression upon the Virgin Queen, for he reminded her more of
her favourite Greek philosophers than of a blunt English squire.

Sir Otho must have died when Humphrey was about twelve years old, and
his mother then married Mr. Raleigh of Hayes; he was a country
gentleman of slender means, living in a modest grange in a village
between Sidmouth and Exmouth.  Whether her three boys accompanied her
we do not know; but when Walter Raleigh was a boy, he used to visit
his half-brothers at Compton Castle, amid the apple orchards of
Torbay, or at the Greenaway manor-house.  We can imagine how that
imaginative child would sit by the river and listen to the stories of
his half-brothers, drinking in a love of adventure, a hatred of
religious persecution, and a belief in God's providence.  For the
river was full of quaint vessels from every port, and the sailors
were full of moving stories of the prisons of the Inquisition, or the
sufferings of the Netherlanders; and the Gilberts had been brought up
by their mother to see the hand of God in all the great events of
life.

As one of Frobisher's men said, when describing the great tussle with
the ice-floes, "The ice was strong, but God was stronger."

We may be sure that one of the most critical moments in Walter
Raleigh's education was the time when he stayed with the Gilberts,
and listened to ideas of empire and duty which only a few in any age
have been inspired to feel and know and carry into practice.

Humphrey shows in his writings that he had read deeply; Homer and
Aristotle and Plato are quoted in his Discourse to prove a north-west
passage to Cathay.  Philosophers of Florence, Grantor the Grecian,
and Strabo, Proclus, and Philo in his book _de Mundo_, and the German
Simon Gryneus, and a host of modern geographers are called to bear
witness to his theory that America was an island.  Then he had read
all the accounts brought home by great seamen, and skilfully wrought
them together to prove his theory.  But of course his facts were very
unreliable and mixed with strange errors, but that was not his fault.
If he believed that there was unbroken land to the South Pole, except
for the narrow opening of the Straits of Magellan, the error was not
his.

At the end of his memorial to the Queen, he writes: "Never therefore
mislike with me for the taking in hand of any laudable and honest
enterprise; for if through pleasure or idleness we purchase shame,
the pleasure vanisheth, but the shame remaineth for ever.  Give me
leave therefore, without offence, always to live and die in this
mind: that he is not worthy to live at all that, for fear or danger
of death, shunneth his country's service and his own honour, seeing
that death is inevitable and the fame of virtue immortal."

We can imagine the great Queen looking admiringly at this tall knight
of Devon, so fair and yet so strong, so practical and inventive, and
yet so compact of fancy and imagination; a man after her own heart,
brave and loyal, and one who feared God alone.

Humphrey was only twenty-five years old when he petitioned the Queen
in association with Anthony Jenkinson for licence to find out a
north-eastern passage to Cathay, a country which surpassed in wealth
all the parts of the Indies visited by the Spaniards.  Gilbert
promised to fit out such an expedition at his own expense, all the
profits to go to those who embarked upon it, except the fifths, which
belonged to the Crown.  However, Elizabeth did not yet listen
favourably to this project; she sent Jenkinson back to Russia as her
Ambassador, and found service for Gilbert under the Earl of Warwick
at Havre in 1563.  Here he received a wound and had to come home for
a space of three years; then he was ordered to Ireland in July 1566,
to be employed under the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney.  Humphrey was
appointed captain in the army which under Sidney was resisting the
forces of the Irish rebel chief, Shan O'Neill, and saw a good deal of
desperate fighting.

In November 1566, Sir Henry Sidney sent Gilbert with despatches to
England, and the daring youth presented another petition to the
Queen, asking for two of the Queen's ships, provided he supplied two
others, and requesting the life government for himself of any
countries he might conquer, and a tenth part of all their land.  In
this petition he proposed to reach the Indies by the north-west, and
to this change of plan he remained constant.  But the Company of
Merchant Adventurers protested against this as an infringement of
their own charter, and it was abandoned.

But the Queen never lost sight of her able young officer.  In March
1567 Gilbert was back in Ireland, and in June the Queen wrote to
Sidney bidding him see how far the Irish rebels could be restrained
by establishing a colony of honest men in Ulster.  She recommended
him to use the services of Humphrey Gilbert, as the colonists would
come chiefly from the west of England; these Gilbert was to select,
to conduct them to Lough Foyle and there to be their President.  But
this plan was never carried out, and Gilbert went back to his
soldiering.  For the next two years, as leader of a band of horse, he
helped Sidney to put down rebellion.

When in 1568 he was sent back to England and fell dangerously ill,
the Queen inquired carefully into his condition, and wrote to Sir
Henry Sidney to say that Gilbert was to have his full pay during his
absence, and some better place was to be found him on his return to
Ireland.  So, with a Queen to back him up, Gilbert was made a
colonel, and defeated M'Carthy More in September.  This victory won
for him the honourable duty of keeping the peace in the province of
Munster, where he showed more vigour and stern discipline than
sympathy.

In December we find him writing to the Lord Deputy, saying he was
determined to have neither parley nor peace with any rebel; for he
was convinced that no conquered nation could be ruled with gentleness.

Henry Sidney was not averse to the strong hand, and wrote to the
Queen, praising Gilbert's "discretion, judgment, and lusty courage,"
and on January 1, 1570, he knighted Gilbert at Drogheda.

In 1571 Sir Humphrey Gilbert married Anne, daughter of Sir Anthony
Ager of Kent, not unmindful perhaps of the old proverb:--


  "A Knight of Gales, and a Gentleman of Wales, and a Laird
      of the North Countree,
  A Squire of Kent with his yearly rent will weigh them down
      --all three."


He was then returned as M.P. for Plymouth.

But Elizabeth, who had been helping the Netherlands against Philip in
secret, underhand ways, began in 1572 to be impressed by the Catholic
League, and to fear that England, like all other Protestant
countries, must look to encounter the whole forces of the Pope.  She
remembered the words of Walsingham, "Unless God had raised up the
Prince of Orange to entertain Spain, Madam, we should have had the
fire long since at our own door."

So Gilbert went to Flanders in 1572 with 1400 Englishmen to fight
against Philip's stern deputy, the Duke of Alva.  He took part in the
siege of Sluys, and wrote to ask the Queen for more men to be sent.
He then helped in the assault on Tergoes.  But his rash, hot-headed
style of fighting, acquired perhaps in Ireland, offended the slow and
cautious Dutchmen whom he was assisting, and Gilbert returned to
England, convinced that the Dutch lacked animal courage.

Then for two years Sir Humphrey lived quietly at Limehouse, busy with
chemical researches; but as his partners wished to try the so-called
science of alchemy and to transmute iron into copper, he begged leave
to withdraw, mistrusting their modicum of science.

Gilbert had time to meditate now on his relentless treatment of Irish
rebels.  A brave and chivalrous gentleman, for those times, a
scientific explorer and a man of deep piety, he could now compare his
conduct in Ireland with Alva's in the Netherlands, and wonder if
Sidney's high praise had been deserved.

"For the Colonel," Sidney wrote to Cecil in 1570, "I cannot say
enough.  The highways are now made free where no man might travel
unspoiled.  The gates of cities and towns are now left open, where
before they were continually shut or guarded with armed men....  And
yet this is not the most, nor the best that he hath done; for the
estimation that he hath won to the name of Englishman there, before
almost not known, exceedeth all the rest; for he hath in battle
broken so many of them, wherein he showed how far our soldiers in
valour surpassed those rebels, and he in his own person any man he
had.  The name of an Englishman is more terrible now to them than the
sight of a hundred was before.  For all this, I had nothing to
present him with but the honour of knighthood, which I gave him; for
the rest, I recommend him to your friendly report."

That was the better side of the question--order kept and duty done.
But Sir Humphrey in his two years of quiet thinking and writing must
have often recalled with compunction scenes in Ireland which he could
not approve of, and perhaps was dimly conscious of at the time.

For the English troops, spread abroad over a lonesome countryside and
held in check only by some ruthless sergeant-major, would often, when
opposed to desperate men, meet outrage with outrage, and cruelty with
cruelty.

Sidney himself loathed his vile task, and often implored to be called
away from "such an accursed country."

We may be sure, then, that a man so gentle and humane as Sir Humphrey
Gilbert must have felt that the government of Ireland was no pleasant
task.  It was also very expensive, for the cost of it to England
above the revenue levied in Ireland itself from the date of
Elizabeth's accession was now £90,000.

No one seems to have thought that lenity might win a greater success
than stern discipline.  Rokeby writes to Cecil: "It is not the image
nor the name of a President and Council that will frame them to
obedience; it must be fire and sword, the rod of God's vengeance.
Valiant and courageous soldiers must make a way for law and justice;
or else, farewell to Ireland."

In the winter of 1574 Gilbert received a visit at Limehouse from
George Gascoigne, the poet.  "Well, Sir Humphrey, how do you spend
your time in this loitering vacation from martial stratagems?" asked
the poet.

"Come into my writing-room, George, and you shall see sundry
profitable exercises which I have perfected with my pen--and that of
my half-brother, Walter Raleigh."  Thereupon Gilbert put into his
friend's hands the celebrated Discourse on the North-west Passage.

As Gascoigne read the concluding words: "If your Majesty like to do
it all, then would I wish your Highness to consider that delay doth
oftentimes prevent the performance of good things, for the wings of
man's life are plumed with the feathers of death," he turned and said
with a laugh, "It is easy for a rhymester to see that Walter, the
poet, writ those words.  But suffer me to take it home: such good
stuff asketh some study."

The manuscript of the Discourse was handed about in influential
quarters, and that very winter the Queen reminded the Governor and
Directors of the Muscovy Company that twenty years had passed since
they last sent out an expedition to search for Cathay.  It was Martin
Frobisher who bore the Queen's letter to the Governor; and when the
Company declined to find a North-west Passage, the Queen granted a
licence to Frobisher and others to search for the same.  But the
initial impulse had been given by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Walter
Raleigh.

Various schemes these restless adventurers proposed to the Queen, but
it was not until June 1578 that a charter was granted to Gilbert for
discovering and possessing any distant and barbarous lands which he
could find, provided they were not already claimed by any Christian
prince or people.  He was authorised to plant a colony and to be
absolute governor both of the Englishmen and of the natives dwelling
in it; and he was to rule, "as near as conveniently might be," in
harmony with the laws and policy of England.

How swiftly Gilbert set about preparing his expedition!  Fortunately
long arrears of pay had lately been issued to him for his services in
Ireland.  All this he lavished on his ships and their provision,
leaving his little wife but a slender margin to live upon.  But his
faith was so strong in his theories that he dared to risk almost all
he had.

Friends came round him, eager to help and--not least--to share the
profits of the expedition; among these were Walter and George
Raleigh, George and William Carew, Denny, his cousin, Nowell and
Morgan.  But best of all, the Queen wished him all good success; for
she had sent two of her own kinsmen, Henry and Francis, sons of Sir
Francis Knollys, to join him on the expedition.

By the end of summer, 1578, Gilbert's fleet of eleven sail, manned by
five hundred young gentlemen and sailors, seemed ready for sea as it
lay at anchor between the wooded cliffs that girdle the Dart.

But a strange discord was already making Gilbert's life bitter to
him; there were too many masters in that little fleet, and petty
bickerings spoilt the voice of authority and command.

Naturally, the common seamen took their cue from their betters.  They
were for the most part reckless men who had broken out of prison;
blasphemers and ruffians who had been tempted to volunteer from sheer
love of piracy.

Some of these men went brawling and rioting through Plymouth,
insulting the night-watch, and even adding murder to pillage.

The townsfolk complained, and the Earl of Bedford, at that time
Lord-Lieutenant of Devon, demanded that the guilty should be
delivered up.  Sir Humphrey would have seconded the Earl's efforts to
keep order, but Henry Knollys, to whose ship most of the rioters
belonged, set the law at defiance, laughed at the disorders, and thus
encouraged his crew to commit further excesses.

Knollys, relying on his kinship to the Queen, even ventured to be
rude and insolent towards his leader, and boasted to Sir Humphrey
that he was worth twenty knights.  Once, when Gilbert had invited him
to dinner, Knollys declined the invitation, insolently remarking that
he had money to pay for his own dinner, and that the admiral might
keep his trenchers for such beggars as stood in need of his
hospitality.

Every day these bickerings and insults passed between the captains
and threatened to end in bloodshed.  Henry Knollys, being left second
in command while Sir Humphrey was absent on business, took the
opportunity to pay off a grudge he had against Captain Miles Morgan.

Fortunately Gilbert returned just in time to stay the proceedings.
As he rowed to the ship he asked the meaning of the flag being at
half-mast.  "They be agoing to string up Cap'en Morgan at the
yardarm, Admiral."

One may imagine how anger and shame and disappointment troubled the
mind of the thoughtful explorer, as he hastened to save his captain
from the savage vengeance of Henry Knollys.

Then, to secure himself against an appeal to the Queen's Council,
Gilbert submitted the matter to the Mayor of Plymouth, who, after
hearing evidence on both sides, gave judgment in favour of the
admiral.

But this did not put a stop to the quarrels of the captains, and
Henry Knollys, his brother Francis, Captain Denny, Gilbert's cousin,
and others of the company broke away from the admiral with four
ships, and set sail on their own account.  It is pleasant to know
that the Queen stood by her faithful Gilbert, and would listen to no
complaints from the Knollys.

It was not until the 19th of November that Sir Humphrey, with Walter
Raleigh, was able to sail from Plymouth with seven ships and three
hundred and fifty men.  But whither they went has been left in
obscurity.

It seems that Gilbert wished to plant a colony on the North American
coast, a little south of Newfoundland, but the majority of his
officers were for making an attack upon the Spanish possessions
further south.  In attempting this they fell in with a strong Spanish
fleet in the spring of 1579, and were defeated with the loss of one
of their best ships and of the brave Captain Miles Morgan, and of
many others among the adventurers.

So Raleigh and Gilbert gave up the voyage and returned to Plymouth in
May.  They came to London, poor in funds and somewhat dashed in
spirit; but the unlooked-for sympathy of admiring courtiers and
merchants cheered them not a little.

"Walter, we will not give it up yet!  Let us work hard for a better
ending."

The Queen was much concerned for Gilbert's failure, and sent him with
Walter Raleigh in two ships to the Irish coast to prevent James
Fitz-Maurice from raising an insurrection along the south coast.
After some active service against Spanish vessels, Gilbert was sent
back to England, while Raleigh remained to serve under Lord Grey of
Wilton.  Gilbert, returning to his wife in poverty and
disappointment, was not unlike Martin Frobisher; they both suffered
in promoting the expansion of the Queen's Empire, and both found
their wives in abject destitution.

In July 1581 Sir Humphrey writes to Walsingham from his house in
Sheppey a piteous letter, begging that he may be paid a small sum of
money owed him for his services in Ireland, whereby he had lost so
much that he was reduced to extreme want.  "It is a miserable thing
that after twenty-seven years' service I should now be subjected to
daily arrests for debt, to executions and outlawries, and should have
to sell even my wife's clothes from off her back."

Still Sir Humphrey did not despond, but talked much of his new colony
which he was to found in Baccalaos, or Newfoundland.

The elder Cabot had discovered the island, and Spaniards and French
had made trading voyages to it in search of codfish.  The Bristol
merchants still preferred commerce with Iceland, though Anthony
Parkhurst of Bristol reported in 1578 that the English fishing fleet
had increased from thirty to fifty sail, and he urged that more
should try that trade.

But the moneyed gentlemen of the Court and City thought little of
cod-fish, and yearned for the wealth of the Aztecs in Mexico, where
lumps of gold as large as a man's fist could be picked up, and pearls
were measured by the peck.  With some retailers of such marvellous
stories Gilbert had conference, and, with help from many speculative
friends, he was able to make a second start in the summer of 1583.

His brother, Walter Raleigh, and his old friends Sir George Peckham
and Carlile, helped to fit out the expedition.  Raleigh, having made
money in Ireland and at Court, fitted out the _Raleigh_, a barque of
200 tons.  There were also the _Delight_, of 120 tons, the _Golden
Hind_ and the _Swallow_, each of 40 tons, and the tiny _Squirrel_, of
10 tons.  In these vessels were some two hundred and sixty persons.
"For solace of the people and amusement of the savages we were
provided with music in great variety, not omitting toys, as
morris-dancers, hobby-horses, and many like conceits, for to delight
the savage people, whom we intended to win by all fair means
possible."

The Queen, ever willing to lend approval to her sea-captains, not
without a sense of favours to come from the Indies, had sent Gilbert,
by Raleigh, a token, an anchor in gold guided by a lady; "And further
she willed me to send you word that she wished you as good hap as if
she herself were there in person, desiring you to have care of
yourself as of that which she tendereth ... further, she commandeth
that you leave your picture with me."

This time Gilbert had his own way and steered straight for
Newfoundland, leaving Plymouth harbour on the 11th of June 1583.  The
wind was fair all day, but a great storm of thunder and wind fell in
the night.

On the third day signal was made from Raleigh's barque that Captain
Butler and many of his crew were fallen sick--a contagious sickness
had broken out which constrained them to forsake the fleet and return
to Plymouth.

"The reason I never could understand," says the chronicler, Edward
Hayes, captain and owner of the _Golden Hind_.  "Sure I am, no cost
was spared by their owner, Master Raleigh, in setting them forth,
therefore I leave it unto God."

After this they passed through a series of fogs and storms, and were
separated; they saw many mountains of ice drifting southwards.  About
fifty leagues this side of Newfoundland they passed the Bank, having
twenty-five fathoms water below them.  There they saw many Portuguese
and French fishing over the Bank; they knew without sounding how far
the Bank extended, by the incredible multitude of sea-fowl hovering
over the same.  When the _Golden Hind_ at last reached the Bay of
Conception they found the _Swallow_ again, and all her men much
altered in apparel.  At their first meeting the crew of the _Swallow_
"for joy and congratulation spared not to cast up into the air and
overboard their caps and hats in good plenty."  These men, it turned
out, being pirates for the most part, had stopped a home-bound
barque, just to borrow a little victual and raiment.  "Deal
favourably with them, my lads," quoth the captain of the _Swallow_.

Off went the cock-boat with a merry crew and boarded the English
fishing-smack; from which they rifled and took store of tackle,
sails, cables, victuals, and raiment.  While, if any tried to hide
his valuables, they wound a cord about his head full merrily, pulling
it taut till the blood gushed out.  "But God's justice did follow the
same company," for as they took their cock-boat to go aboard the
_Swallow_, it was overwhelmed in the sea, and certain of the men were
drowned.  The rest were saved even by those whom they had before
spoiled; but God's vengeance was, we are told, only delayed.  They
then held on southwards until they came to St. John's harbour, where
they found the _Squirrel_ at anchor outside; for the captains of the
merchant ships had refused to let her enter the harbour.

So, while making ready to fight and force an entrance, Gilbert
despatched a boat to let them know that he came with no ill intent,
but had a commission from her Majesty for the present voyage.

Permission was at once granted, and the four ships were sailing in,
when the _Delight_ ran upon a rock fast by the shore.  "But we found
such readiness in the English merchants to help us in that danger,
that without delay there were brought a number of boats which towed
off the ship and cleared her of danger."

When they had let fall their anchors, the captains and masters of the
merchantmen came on board; the admiral showed his commission, to take
possession on behalf of the Crown of England, and they all welcomed
him with salutes of guns and offer of provisions.  Also invitations
were issued to continual feasts and merry entertainments.  "We were
presented with wines, marmalades, most fine rusk, or biscuit, sweet
oils and sundry delicacies.  Also we wanted not of fresh salmons,
trouts, lobsters, and other fresh fish brought daily unto us."

After their hard fare and tedious sea-passage such abundance came to
them as a delightful surprise.

The next day being Sunday, the 4th of August 1583, Sir Humphrey and
his officers went on shore and were shown "the garden."  "But nothing
appeared more than Nature herself without art, who confusedly hath
brought forth roses abundantly, wild but odoriferous, and to sense
very comfortable.  Also the like plenty of raspberries, which do grow
in every place."

Gilbert was so pleased with what he saw that he resolved to make St.
John's the chief place in the new colony.

On Monday there was a mass meeting called before the admiral's tent,
and the charter was explained to all; then in the Queen's name
Gilbert took possession of Newfoundland, England's first and oldest
colony, and had delivered unto him a rod and a turf of the soil, as
the custom of England was.

Three laws to begin with Sir Humphrey proposed, and all agreed
thereto:--

"1.  All the religion in public exercise shall be according to the
Church of England.

"2.  If any one attempt anything prejudicial to the Queen's
authority, he shall be tried and executed as in case of high treason.

"3.  If any shall utter words sounding to the dishonour of her
Majesty, he shall lose his ears, and have his goods and ship
confiscate."

Then amid general shouts of joy the Arms of England, engraven in lead
and fixed upon a pillar of wood, were set up not far from the
admiral's tent.

For a short time Sir Humphrey spent a very happy life in
Newfoundland, for he had won for himself and his descendants almost
regal power; and he was no selfish adventurer, but one who from a
good heart and fear of God wished to advance the welfare of his Queen
and country, while he benefited the merchants and natives.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: ENGLAND'S FIRST COLONY]

Sir Humphrey Gilbert landed at St. John's, and there took formal
possession of Newfoundland for the Crown, by receiving a rod and a
turf of the soil, as the custom of England was.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

He appointed men to repair and trim the ships, others to gather
supplies and provisions, others to search the country round for
account of what was most noteworthy.  By his orders two maps were
drawn of the coast, which were however lost at sea.  The explorers
came back full of enthusiasm for the new colony, having found no
natives in the south part, but in the north many harmless savages.

Fish, trout, salmon, and cod were reported to be in incredible
quantities; whales and turbot, lobsters and herrings and oysters
abounded.  They saw fir-trees, pine, and cypress, all yielding gum
and turpentine; they were told that the grass would fatten sheep in
three weeks, and were shown peas gathered in early August.

They found also large partridges, grey and white, and rough-footed
like doves, red-deer, bears, and ounces, wolves and foxes and otters,
rich in fur beyond price.

The General had brought to him a sable alive, which he sent to his
brother, Sir John Gilbert, knight of Devonshire; but it was never
delivered.

The narrator in Hakluyt bursts into a pæan of delight at the lavish
gifts of a munificent God: "Though man hath not used a fifth part of
the same, choosing to live very miserably within this realm pestered
with inhabitants, rather than to adventure as becometh men."

Especially in the matter of minerals had Gilbert ordered his refiner,
Daniel, to make diligent inquiry, who one day brought the admiral
some ore and said, "If silver be the thing which may satisfy thee,
seek no further."

Gilbert commanded him not to let others know of his discovery; he
sent it on board for further assay when they should be on the high
sea.

Some people have found fault with Sir Humphrey for not having
exercised more forethought for housing his colonists in the winter;
but the fault and the failure of the first settlement lay in the men
he had been given to take out with him.  For indeed many of them were
lawless robbers, men who hated honest work--gaol-birds let out to
avoid the expense of keeping them at home.

The bad men amongst them corrupted the weaker, and in a fortnight
Gilbert had such a ruffianly crew that his heart must have sunk
within him.

Some were for stealing away vessels by night and taking to piracy.
One band of marauders carried away out of the harbour a ship laden
with fish, after they had set the poor crew ashore.  Others--and many
of them--stole away into the woods, hiding themselves, and living as
wild men; others lay about in drunken exhaustion.  Some were sick of
fluxes, and many died; and not a few craved licence to depart home.

So less than three weeks after the glad blowing of horns and booming
of guns, the little colony had grown so weak and dispirited that
Gilbert resolved to leave the _Swallow_ behind, to carry home the
sick as soon as they could travel, while he himself in the
_Squirrel_, with the _Delight_ and the _Golden Hind_, set out to
explore the coast to the south.  He preferred the little _Squirrel_,
because she was so light and could search into every harbour and
creek; for he intended to return next year and plant yet another
colony, if it pleased God, of a better sort of men.

Under Cape Race, at the south-west of the island, they were becalmed
several days, and laid out hook and line to fish: in less than two
hours they took cod so large and so abundant that for many days after
they fed on no other food.  On reaching Cape Breton Isle, Gilbert
intended to land; but the crew of the _Delight_ turned mutinous, and
sailed out to the open sea.

The _Golden Hind_ and the _Squirrel_ gave chase, but the _Delight_
sped on faster, and her crew kept up their spirits with noisy music
of drums and cornets.

Towards the evening of August the 27th, the crew of the _Golden Hind_
caught "a very mighty porpoise with a harping iron"; they had seen
many--a sure sign of a coming storm.  Some declared that they heard
that night strange voices which scared them from the helm.  Men who
would meet a known danger face to face were apt to run away from what
seemed weird and ghostly.  Next day the _Delight_, keeping ill watch,
struck against a rock, and in an hour or two had her stern beaten in
pieces.  The others dared not venture so near shore to help them, but
they could see the crew taking to their boats and to rafts in the
raging sea.

Thus Gilbert lost his largest ship, freighted with great care, and
with all his papers, and with her he lost nearly a hundred men;
amongst whom were the learned Budæus of Hungary, who was to have
celebrated their exploits in the Latin tongue, Daniel, the Saxon
refiner, and Captain Maurice Brown, "a vertuous, honest, and discrete
gentleman," who refused to leave his ship.  One pinnace, overfull of
passengers, had a narrow escape.  There was on board a brave soldier,
named Edward Headly, who said, "My friends, 'twere better that some
of us perish rather than all.  I make this motion, that we cast lots
who shall be thrown overboard, thereby to lighten the boat.  I offer
myself with the first, content to take this adventure gladly, so some
be saved."

But the master, Richard Clark, answered him thus:

"No, no!  I refuse the sacrifice, and I advise you all to abide God's
pleasure, who is able to save all, as well as a few."

The little boat was carried for six days before the wind, and then
they arrived famished and weak on the Newfoundland coast, saving that
Headly, who had been ill, could not hold out, but died of hunger by
the way.  Those that were saved were taken to France by certain
fishermen.

The weather continued thick and blustering, and the cold grew more
intense; they began to lose hope, and doubted they were engulfed in
the Bay of St. Lawrence, where the coast was unknown and full of
dangers.  Above all, provisions waxed scant and their clothes were
thin and old.  The men of the _Golden Hind_ and of the _Squirrel_
exchanged signs, pointing to their mouths and ragged clothing, till
Gilbert was moved to compassion for the poor men, and called the
captain and master of the _Hind_ on board the _Squirrel_ and said:

"Be content, we have seen enough, and take no care of expense past.
I will set you forth royally next spring, if God send us safe home.
Therefore, I pray you, let us no longer strive here, where we fight
against the elements."  So with much sorrow they consented to give up
the voyage, being comforted by the General's promise to return
speedily next spring.

It was Saturday, the 31st of August, when they changed their course,
and at the very instant when they were turning there passed along
towards the land which they were forsaking "a marvellous creature,
like a lion in shape, hair, and colour, not swimming after the manner
of a beast, but rather sliding upon the surface, with all his body
exposed except the legs.  Thus he passed along, turning his head to
and fro, yawning and gaping wide, with ugly demonstration of long
teeth and glaring eyes: and, to bid us farewell, he sent forth a
horrible voice, roaring as doth a lion; which spectacle we all beheld
so far as we were able to discern the same, as men prone to wonder at
every strange thing, as this doubtless was, to see a lion in the
ocean sea, or fish in shape of a lion.  The General took it for a
Bonum Omen, rejoicing that he was to warre against such an enemie, if
it were the devil."

On Monday Sir Humphrey went aboard the _Golden Hind_ to have the
surgeon dress his foot, which he had hurt by treading on a nail.

He was merry enough, and they comforted one another with hope of hard
toil being all past, and of the good hap that was coming.

They agreed all to carry lights always by night that they might the
better keep together.  But when they begged Sir Humphrey to stay
aboard the larger vessel, he laughed and shook his head and rowed
back to the _Squirrel_.  Immediately after followed a sharp storm
which they weathered with some difficulty; then, the weather being
fair again, the General (as they called him) came aboard the _Hind_
again, and made merry with the captain, master, and company,
continuing there from morning until night.

This was their last meeting, and sundry discourses were made touching
affairs past and to come: but Sir Humphrey lamented sore the loss of
his great ship, and of the men, and most of all of his books and
notes; for which he seemed out of measure grieved: so that the
chronicler deemed he must be sorrowing over the loss of his silver
ore.

But Sir Humphrey's great soul was above such trash.  He had seen
enough in Newfoundland to know that its possession by England would
be a jewel in the Queen's crown beyond all price.  This was his
second failure, not from any fault of his, but he doubtless feared
that God was wroth with him for some fault of temper.  For faults of
temper he had, and confessed the same, saying: "Do ye mind when I
sent my boy aboard the _Delight_ to fetch some charts and papers
before she had gone on the rocks?"

"Aye, aye, General; 'twas when we were becalmed off Newfoundland,
near unto Cape Race."

"I be wondrous sorry now that I beat the lad so grievously in my
great rage; but he had forgotten to bring the chief thing I wanted."

They kept silence, as he sighed and looked away through the rigging.
Anon they would talk of next year's voyage, please God! and Sir
Humphrey reserved unto himself the north for discovery, affirming
that this voyage had won his heart from the south, and that he was
now become a northern man altogether.

"But what means have you, General, to compass the charges of so great
a preparation for next spring--with two fleets, a southern and a
northern?"

"Oh! leave that to me, friends; I will ask a penny of no man.  I will
bring good tidings unto her Majesty, who will be so gracious to lend
me a thousand pounds.  Nay, lads, be of good cheer; for I thank God
with all my heart for that I have seen in Newfoundland: enough there
for us all, and no need to seek any further."

Such comfortable words Sir Humphrey kept oftentimes repeating, with
demonstration of great confidence and fervency, and belief in the
inestimable good which this voyage should procure for England.  But
his hearers looked on and listened, with considerable doubt and
mistrust.

"I will hasten to the end of this tragedy," writes Mr. Hayes; "as it
was God's ordinance upon him, even so the vehement persuasion and
entreaty of his friends could nothing avail to divert him from a
wilful resolution to go through in his ten-ton frigate, which was
overcharged upon her decks, with nettings and small artillery, too
cumbersome for so small a boat that was to pass through the ocean at
that season of the year."

All the answer which his well-wishers got was a cheery refusal to
stay: "I will not forsake my little company going homeward, with whom
I have passed so many storms and perils."  It is worth noting, too,
that a squirrel was in the crest of the Gilberts.  So, seeing he
would not bend to any reason, they carried some better provision for
him aboard the _Squirrel_ and committed him to God's protection.

By this time they had brought the Azores south of them, and were
still keeping to the north until they had got to the latitude of
South England.  Here they met with very foul weather and terrible
seas, "breaking short and high, pyramid-wise"; so that men said they
never saw more outrageous seas.  Also upon the mainyard sat a little
fire by night which seamen call Castor and Pollux, a sure sign of
more tempest to follow.

Monday, the 9th of September, a great wave passed over the little
_Squirrel_, yet she shook herself like a bird and recovered; and then
they saw Sir Humphrey Gilbert sitting abaft with a book in his hand.
And as oft as the _Golden Hind_ approached within hearing, the crew
heard him cry out to them from his frigate, "Courage, my friends; we
are as near to heaven by sea as by land."

This speech he repeated more than once, "well beseeming a soldier,
resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he was."

The same Monday night, about midnight or not long after, when the
little _Squirrel_ was ahead of the _Golden Hind_, suddenly her lights
were seen to go out; the watch cried, "The General is cast away"; and
this proved too true.

The _Golden Hind_ battled on, signalling to every small vessel they
saw in the distance, in case she should be their consort, but all in
vain.  They arrived at Falmouth the 22nd day of September, then on to
Dartmouth to certify Sir John Gilbert of his brother's death, who
courteously offered hospitality to the captain and his company.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert has been described as one of the worthiest of
the Elizabethan heroes.  He had all Raleigh's high sense of honour,
and a more genial manner.  He gave England her first colony, and
ruined himself in doing it.  Mr. Hayes, who sailed with him, says,
"The crosses, turmoils, and afflictions, both in the preparation and
execution of this voyage, did correct the intemperate humours in this
gentleman, which made less delightful his other manifold virtues."

No doubt, the fact that his aunt, Kate Ashley, had been Elizabeth's
old and valued governess first commended him to the Queen, but her
continued favour was due to Humphrey Gilbert's sterling worth and
loyal service.  Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," describes him as
"an excellent hydrographer and no less skilful mathematician, of an
high and daring spirit, though not equally favoured of fortune.  His
person recommended him to esteem and veneration at first sight; his
stature was beyond the ordinary size, his complexion sanguine, and
his constitution very robust."

The motto on his arms, _Mutare vel timere sperno_, if not good Latin,
yet breathed the spirit of chivalry.  Sir Humphrey did "scorn to
waver or to fear," and he has earned an Empire's gratitude.



CHAPTER VI

  LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM, THE
  TRUSTED OF THE QUEEN

Charles, eldest son of Lord William Howard, was born in 1536, his
mother being Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Gamage of
Glamorganshire.  His father, brother of the Duke of Norfolk and uncle
of Queen Catherine Howard, was, on that lady's execution, condemned
to life imprisonment for having concealed her faults; but the
sentence was soon remitted, and in Mary's reign he was appointed High
Admiral of England.  It was under such a father that Charles was
trained both on land and sea service.  He was about twenty-two years
of age at the accession of Elizabeth, and his "most proper person,"
or handsome appearance, at once won the Queen's favour; for she liked
a jewel set in a goodly case.

So Charles was sent to France on an embassy of condolence after the
death of Henry II., and to congratulate the young king.  Soon he was
elected one of the knights for his native county of Surrey in the
Parliament of 1562.  We next hear of him as being a General of Horse
under the Earl of Warwick, in the army sent against the rebel Earls
of Northumberland and Westmorland in 1569.

In 1570, when Lord Lincoln was Lord Admiral, Howard was ordered to
command a squadron of ships-of-war sent by Queen Elizabeth to escort
Anne of Austria, sister of the Emperor Maximilian, from Zealand into
Spain, whither she was going for the purpose of being married to
Philip II.  Howard of course knew that Philip had no love now for the
Queen of England; so, when the great Spanish galleons came into
British waters he first made them salute the Queen's flag, and then
gave them all honourable escort, to show his Queen's respect for the
house of Austria.  It was a deed which gave promise of great exploits
hereafter.  Richard Hakluyt thus describes it in a letter to Lord
Charles Howard:--

"When the Emperor's sister, the spouse of Spain, with a fleet of one
hundred and thirty sail, stoutly and proudly passed the narrow seas,
your Lordship, accompanied by ten ships only of her Majesty's Royal
Navy, environed their fleet in most strange and warlike sort,
enforced them to stoop gallant and to vail their bonnets for the
Queen of England, and made them perfectly to understand that old
speech of the Prince of Poets, Virgil,

  'Non illi imperium pelagi sævumque tridentem,
      Sed tibi sorte datum."

('It was not to him that fate had given the Empire of the deep and
the fell trident, but to thee.')


"Yet after they had acknowledged their duty, your Lordship, on her
Majesty's behalf, conducted her safely through our English Channel,
and performed all good offices of honour and humanity to that foreign
Princess."

No doubt this proud demand for homage to the flag of England went far
to secure for Lord Charles the post of Lord High Admiral in 1585.
For relations between Spain and England were growing ever more
strained, and war conducted at first by private adventurers was bound
to issue in a national contest.  The Queen began to prepare for this
by purchasing arms and powder abroad.  She had many pieces of great
ordnance of brass and iron cast, and luckily a rich vein of stone was
found in Cumberland, near Keswick, which helped much in the works for
making brass.  How patriotic our forefathers were can be seen by the
cheerful way in which both nobles and peasants helped in providing
weapons.

In every nobleman's house complete armouries were provided, private
individuals built ships-of-war, and poor men flocked to the ports to
offer their services.  When Spain insolently warned off all the
English from trading with America, when she instigated revolt in
Ireland, and hired assassins to murder Elizabeth, patriotism was
awakened from a long sleep.  The near approach of danger had evoked
the nation's dormant spirit and indomitable courage.

When the Prince of Orange had been assassinated and the Prince of
Parma had taken Antwerp, Elizabeth hesitated no longer to conclude a
treaty with the Netherlands against their Spanish oppressors, and
issued a long statement of the reasons for so doing.  Other Christian
princes admired such manly fortitude in a woman.  The King of Sweden
said she had taken the crown from her head and adventured it upon the
chance of war.

There was no need in those days to compel the men to bear arms and
defend their country.  Englishmen were not then devoted to sports and
games, but hastened from north to south to offer their maligned Queen
bands of horse and foot.  Amongst the first was Lord Montague, a
Roman Catholic peer, with two hundred horsemen led by his own sons,
and with them a young child, very comely, seated on his pony, the
eldest son to his lordship's heir; so there were grandfather, father,
and son at one time on horseback before the Queen, ready to do her
service.

There were many Roman Catholics who remained loyal, and not least
among them was Lord Charles Howard, who had been for many months
looking after the welfare of the fleet, seeing all was in good order,
and now and then issuing out to check or pursue pirates.

"The Queen," we are told by Fuller, "had a great persuasion of his
fortunate conduct, and knew him to be of a moderate and noble
courage, skilful in sea matters, wary and provident, valiant and
courageous, industrious and active, and of great authority and esteem
among sailors."

Another admirer of Lord Howard's admits that he was no deep seaman
like Sir Humphrey Gilbert; but he had sense enough to know those who
had more skill than himself, and to follow their instructions; he was
not one to go his own wilful way, but ruled himself by the
experienced in sea matters--thus the Queen had a navy of oak and an
admiral of osier.  With the help of Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher,
the new Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, formed his plans of
defence.  Sir Philip Sidney, too, was deep in their counsels,
planning expeditions, subscribing money, and persuading rich friends
to volunteer or fit out ships.

Early in January 1588 Philip, to gain time for his preparations, had
proposed through the Duke of Parma, his Governor in the Netherlands,
that commissioners should meet to negotiate a treaty of peace.  Both
Elizabeth and Burghley were in favour of this, not seeing that it was
but a blind to cover their exertions to repair the damage done by
Drake at Cadiz the year before.

Howard wrote at once to Walsingham: "There never was such a stratagem
and mask to deceive her Majesty as this treaty of peace.  I pray God
that we do not curse for this a long grey beard with a white head
witless (Burghley's), that will make all the world think us
heartless....  Therefore, good Mr. Secretary, let every one of ye
persuade her Majesty that she lose no time in taking care enough of
herself."

Lord Charles does not forget his wife as danger begins to face him:
"I request that, if it please God to call me to Him in this service
of her Majestie, which I am most willing to spend my life in, that
her Majestie of her goodness will bestow my boy upon my poor wife"
(he was probably a page at Court), "and if it please her Majestie to
let my poor wife have the keeping either of Hampton Court, or
Oatlands, I shall think myself most bound to her Majestie; for" (in
his own spelling) "I dow assur you, Sir, I shall not leve heer so
well as so good a wyfe dowthe desarve."

It is strange to mark from the letters written a few weeks before the
Armada set sail how very parsimonious both the Queen and Burghley
seemed to the admiral to be in providing for the expenses of fitting
out the fleet.  Drake had been prevented from getting his fleet in
order for sea-service at Plymouth.  "The fault is not in him," wrote
Howard, "but I pray God her Majestie do not repent her slack
dealing."  Four ships, which Howard had asked for, the Queen was loth
to use, and especially the _Elizabeth Jonas_, a stout vessel of 900
tons burthen, which carried more guns and not fewer seamen than any
of the other ships.  "Lord! when should she serve if not at such a
time as this?" wrote Howard to Walsingham on the 7th of April;
"either she is fit now to serve, or fit for the fire.  I hope never
in my time to see so great a cause for her to be used.  The King of
Spain doth not keep any ship at home, either of his own or any other
that he can get for money.  I am sorry that her Majestie is so
careless of this most dangerous time.  I fear me much, and with grief
I think it, that she relieth on a hope that will deceive her and
greatly endanger her, and then it will not be her money nor her
jewels that will help.  Well, well!  I must pray heartily for peace,
for I see the support of an honourable war will never appear.
Sparing and war have no affinity together."

Lord Howard had been painfully riding from port to port all along the
south coast of England, to scan the outfit and crews of all the
ships.  He had written letter after letter for more ships, better
victuals, more guns.  He had dared to say to the Queen what few
others could say, and had awakened her at last from her false hopes
of peace.  On the 21st of May, after leaving with Lord Henry Seymour
a fleet strong enough to protect the narrow seas from any invasion
that the Prince of Parma might attempt, Lord Howard left Dover with
most of the Queen's ships and a great number of private vessels, some
fifty sail, that were furnished by London and the east coast.  On the
23rd of May he entered Plymouth Road and was met by Sir Francis Drake
and a fleet of sixty vessels, Queen's ships and stout barques and
pinnaces fitted out by the town and nobles of the west coast.  Here
he was detained a week by contrary winds.  On the 28th he wrote to
Burghley, saying that his fleet of a hundred sail had only victuals
for eighteen days: "With the gallantest company of captains,
soldiers, and sailors ever seen in England, it were a pity they
should lack meat."  However, he did go out to meet the Armada, which
they thought was on its way, but a violent gale from the south
scattered his ships, which "danced as lustily as the gallantest
dancers in the Court."

On Howard's return to Plymouth on the 13th of June, he found a letter
from Walsingham, reproving him in the Queen's name for having gone so
far away, and for leaving England almost unprotected.

He was obliged to defend himself and his advisers, Drake, Hawkins,
Frobisher, and Fenner, against the lady's private view of
sea-tactics.  "I hope her Majestie will not think we went so rashly
to work, or without a choice care and respect of the safety of this
realm."  And then at grave length he painfully explained that he was
more likely to miss the enemy near home than off the coast of Spain,
as they must needs pass Cape Finisterre on their way from Lisbon, but
after that they might go eastwards towards the Netherlands, or coast
the west of Ireland, or seize the Isle of Wight--and thus humbly he
vails his bonnet to the imperious Mistress of the Sea: "But I muste
and will obeye, and am glad there be suche in London as are hable to
judge what is fitter for us to doe than we here."

Let us hope that the Queen and Burghley were able to note the bitter
sarcasm; for we can imagine how Drake and Hawkins and Frobisher
discussed the matter, not without "old swearing."

It was at the end of May that the Invincible Armada sailed from the
Tagus for Corunna, there to take on board the land forces and stores.
Cardinal Albert of Austria gave it his solemn blessing before it
departed, and the Spaniards were full of confidence and enthusiasm.

Its total tonnage was about 60,000, its fighting force 50,000; while
the English tonnage was 30,000, and the mariners and fighting men
some 16,000.

Howard sailed in the _Ark Royal_, Sir Francis Drake in the _Revenge_
as vice-admiral, Sir John Hawkins in the _Victory_ as rear-admiral,
while Lord Henry Seymour in the _Rainbow_, with four Queen's ships
and some Dutch vessels, watched the narrow seas.

The English admirals were united by good feeling and patriotism; no
jealousy disturbed their counsels.  Drake, in a letter to Burghley,
writes: "I find my Lord Admiral so well affected for all honourable
service in this action as it doth assure all his followers of good
success and hope of victory."

The storm which had driven back the English fleet from the Spanish
coast dispersed or dismasted many of the enemy.  One sunk and three
were captured by their own galley-slaves under a Welshman, David
Gwynne; he had been a galley-slave eleven years, and encouraged the
rest to rise and strike for liberty.  After killing the Spaniards on
board, he took the three galleys to a French port.  The Armada had to
put back to Corunna to refit, and spent a month or more in harbour.

Then the news was carried to Court that the Spanish fleet was so
broken they would not attempt any invasion this year.  Some of our
ships were ordered to the Irish coast, the men at Plymouth were
allowed ashore, some were even discharged, while the officers amused
themselves with revels, dancing, bowls, and making merry.

The Queen and Burghley were again keeping a tight hand on the slender
finances, and Walsingham had to write to Lord Howard, bidding him
send back to London four of the tallest ships-royal.  This made the
Lord High Admiral write a strong letter to the Queen on June 23rd, in
which he breaks out boldly, "For the love of Jesus Christ, madame,
awake thoroughly, and see the villainous traitors around you and
against your Majestie and your realm: draw your forces round about
you like a mighty Prince, to defend you.  Truly, madame, if you do
so, there is no cause to fear; if you do not, there will be danger."

The safety of England was surely in great part due to this nobleman's
brave conduct in standing up against the rigid measures of Lord
Burghley.  He even offered to pay the cost of the four ships which he
retained, if they were not wanted in battle.

Meanwhile conflicting reports kept coming into Plymouth respecting
the Spanish fleet; sometimes it was said they were at sea, at other
times they were reported to be still in harbour.  Lord Howard's
scouts were of course on the watch for their first appearance.

On the 17th of July the Lord Admiral had to write to the Lord High
Treasurer for a supply of money: "Our Companies grow into great
neede.  I have sent herein enclosed an estimate thereof, praying your
Lordship that there may be some care had, that we may be furnished
with moneye, withoute the which we are not hable to contynewe our
forces togeather."

On the 19th of July the Spanish fleet steered across the Channel from
France to the Lizard; but they mistook it for the Ram's-head, just
west of Plymouth Sound, and night being at hand they tacked off to
sea, intending in the morning to attempt to surprise the ships in
Plymouth.  For they had heard that the crews were off their vessels,
all making merry in the town.  Had they sailed in that night they
might have done much damage, and anticipated the Japanese surprise at
Port Arthur.

But a Cornish pirate, named Thomas Fleming, had caught sight of the
Armada off the Lizard, and made all sail to Plymouth with the fateful
news--

  "At sunrise she escaped their van, by God's especial grace;
  And the tall _Pinta_, till the noon, had held her close in chase."


It was deemed so important that he got as a reward a free pardon and
a pension for life.  There is a tradition that Howard, Drake, and
Frobisher, with other officers, were playing a match at bowls on the
Hoe when a seaman came running up with Fleming's news.

"We must go on board at once," was the thought of all.

"No, no," laughed Drake, with a wave of the hand; then shouted in his
cheery manner, "Come, let us play out our match.  There will be
plenty of time to win the game and beat the Spaniards too."

It sounds at first like a bit of bravado, but no doubt Sir Francis
had a fine knowledge of the effect of brave words upon sailors; that
story was told at once from ship to ship, and the rogues laughed, and
swore that Drake was the man to singe the Spaniard's beard, as he had
done before at Cadiz.  King Philip might well set a big price on
Drake's head, for his men feared Drake worse than the devil.

Whistles were blown, orders shouted, ropes riven.  The wind was
blowing pretty stiffly into the harbour and the ships were warped out
with difficulty; boat-loads of men came splashing up to their ships'
side, fresh from the bear-pit and the tavern.  They were soon busy,
hauling and sweating and laughing merrily at the thought of the fun
which was coming, for which they had waited so long on shore.  All
hands worked with a will--"With singular diligence and industry and
with admirable alacrity of the seamen, whom the Lord Admiral
encouraged at their halser-work, towing at a cable with his own
hands....  I dare boldly say," says Fuller, "that he drew more,
though not by his person, by his presence and example, than any ten
in the place."

Lord Howard hauled himself out that night in the teeth of the wind
with only six ships.  Early next morning, July 20th, some
four-and-twenty came out, and with these he stood out to meet the
enemy, resolved to check their progress at all hazards.

Soon after daybreak sixty-seven vessels entered Plymouth Road; by
nine o'clock they were in the open channel, waiting for the enemy.

Howard had to wait all day; for the Spanish fleet did not come in
sight till three o'clock in the afternoon.

One gentleman in the English fleet, named Dodington, occupied part of
his time in writing a hasty despatch to the Privy Council:--


"Right Ho.  Heare is a ffleete at this instant cominge in upon us,
semid at north-west, by all likelywode it should be the enymy: hast
makes me--I can write no more.  I beseech your L. to pardon me, and
so I referr all to your Ho. most depyst considerationes.

    "Your Ho. most humble to comand
          "ED. DODINGTON.

  "ffrom the ffleete at Plymouth."


The covering address of this letter is curious; the little gallows
expresses _haste_.

[Illustration: FOR HER MA|ties| SPETIALL SERVISE]

  +------------------------------------------------------------+
  |                                                            |
  |               FOR HER MAties SPETIALL SERVISE              |
  |  ---------                                                 |
  |   |  |  |     To THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE LORDS OF          |
  |   |  o  |     HER MAts MOST HO. PREVY CUNSELL,             |
  |   |     |     _hast post hast, for lyfe hast! for lyfe!_   |
  |                                                            |
  +------------------------------------------------------------+


When it was about three o'clock in the afternoon of the 20th, the
English saw approaching them a huge fleet--ships with lofty turrets
like castles, like a half-moon in front, the wings of which were
spread out about the length of seven miles.  They were coming on very
slowly, though with full sails, for their blunt bows churned up the
resisting wave.

Lord Howard did not attempt to stay them, as the wind was against
him, but he let them ride lazily by in all their pomp and show.

The Spaniards, seeing that the English were ready for them, and were
not to be caught napping, turned west again and anchored in the bay
of Looe, a few miles from Plymouth Sound.

Next morning, Sunday, the 21st of July, the Spaniards weighed anchor
early, with the idea of sailing east and seizing a harbour in the
Isle of Wight, and then of going on to the Hague to take on board the
Prince of Parma and his men.

Lord Howard let the Armada pass Plymouth, keeping his sixty ships in
the haven.  When about nine o'clock on this Sunday morning the Armada
had all passed eastward, Howard weighed anchor and hoisted sail.  "We
durst not adventure to put in amongst them, their fleet being so
strong," he wrote in his first report.

But he sent after them his swift pinnace, the _Disdain_, which fired
the first shot; then came fire, smoke, and echoing cannon, for Howard
in the _Ark Royal_ followed the _Disdain_, thundering furiously upon
a big galley which he thought was the admiral's flagship, but which
proved to be the Spanish vice-admiral's, Alphonso de Leyva.
Meanwhile Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher were playing fiercely upon
the rear division under Juan de Recaldé.

We can imagine how anxiously Howard and Drake watched the effect of
this first attack, and how they noted that the high galleons and
galleasses were sending their shot plunging into the whitened sea
right over the low hulls of barque and pinnace, while the English
shot told again and again.

The wind was favouring the English, whose ships darted about from
side to side with incredible rapidity round the slowly moving,
stately Spaniards.

"Their great ships," says Hakluyt, "were powerful to defend, but not
to offend; to stand, but not to move; and therefore far unfit to
fight in narrow seas.  Their enemies were nimble and ready at all
sides to annoy them, and as apt to escape harm themselves by being
low built and easily shot over."

So the Spaniards gathered their ships together in close order in form
of a half-moon, keeping the smaller vessels in the centre.

This unequal fight lasted six hours.  As Hawkins said, "We had some
small fight with them that Sunday afternoon."

By three o'clock the great and "invincible Armada" was in utter
confusion, and Nature now said to the English, "It is supper-time, my
lads."

So they rested a while--some eating and drinking, some devoutly
saying their prayers with thankful soul, and a few writing hasty
letters.  Even the Lord High Admiral could not find time to write at
length to Walsingham.  "I will not trouble you with any long letter;
we are at present otherwise occupied than with writing.  Sir, the
captains in her Majesty's ships have behaved themselves most bravely
and like men hitherto, and I doubt not will continue to their great
commendation.  There shall nothing be either neglected or unhazarded
that may work the Spaniards' overthrow.  And so, commending our good
success to your godly prayers, I bid you hearty farewell."  Then
Howard adds in a postscript in his direct manner: "Sir, for the love
of God and our country, let us have with some speed, some great shot
sent us of all bigness; for this service will continue long,--and
some powder in it."

Meanwhile the Duke of Medina Sidonia was very sharp with his gunners,
whom he ordered on his flagship for a lecture on gunnery.  "Fools!
what was the good of firing so high, and hitting only the sea!"
Perhaps the gunners had not the means of depressing the muzzles of
their guns.  Anyhow, one master-gunner went back to his ship very
sulky indeed.  He was a Dutchman, and it was said his wife had been
insulted by a Spanish officer.  He resolved to take his revenge out
in powder.  He laid a train of powder to the ship's magazine, fired
it and jumped overboard; two hundred men were blown into the air.
Spanish boats were sent to get the money and valuables out of her,
and order was given to sink her.  But somehow she got adrift, and was
boarded by Lord Thomas Howard and Captain Hawkins, who found in her
about fifty groaning men, horribly burnt.  The stench was so
disgusting that they had to quit her at once, and the Admiral ordered
a small barque to tow her into Weymouth.  The "scorched Spaniards"
were gazed upon by the wondering townsfolk, and a quantity of
gunpowder, which by luck had not exploded, was rescued and came in
very useful to Howard in the days following.

How Don Pedro de Valdez by collision lost his mainmast, got left
behind and was captured, has been told in the chapter on Martin
Frobisher.

But the same night Lord Howard had a narrow escape of being taken;
for in the dark he followed a lantern which he supposed was carried
by Drake's ship.  But Drake, in his eager pursuit, had forgotten the
order to hang out a lantern, and fortunately only two vessels, the
_Bear_ and the _Mary Rose_, followed Howard, the others lay to, as
they could see no light.  In the morning Howard found he was in the
midst of the Armada, but very coolly dropped astern and quietly
joined his own fleet.

On Tuesday, the 23rd of July, at five o'clock A.M., the fleets were a
little past Portland, when the wind changed from north-west to
north-east; this caused some confusion, and some volunteer ships were
surrounded by Don Alphonso de Leyva's squadron.  A fierce and long
fight ensued, which lasted all day.  "This was the most furious and
bloody skirmish of all," wrote the Dutch chronicler, "in which the
Lord Admiral of England continued fighting amidst his enemy's fleet."

All Tuesday, too, fresh ships came up to reinforce the English; on
Saturday Howard's force numbered sixty sail, by Tuesday afternoon
they had been increased to a hundred.

After the long fight on Tuesday there was a lack of gunpowder and
balls, and the Spaniards on Wednesday only fired fitfully at
intervals.

Wednesday afternoon was utilised for a council of war.  The English
fleet was redistributed into five squadrons, and from each squadron
were selected small, fast vessels to make sudden night-attacks.  Lord
Howard's cautious circumspection and cool courage had won the respect
of the greater seamen, like Drake and Frobisher; his way of asking
advice and taking it when given proved how sensible he was.  At this
council several of his younger officers, with more heat than
discretion, earnestly entreated him to let them lay aboard the enemy.
Howard refused their request, not with a hasty and peremptory "No,"
but with calm statement of his reasons.  He pointed out the enormous
size of the Spanish ships compared with his own, their lofty turrets
fore and aft, from which they could hurl missiles, even fragments of
rock, and might annihilate those who fought beneath them; he reminded
his officers of the large numbers of regular troops with which they
were filled, and said they must save themselves for the crisis, when
the Duke of Parma's flotilla should join the Armada.

Both fleets were becalmed most of Wednesday, but the Spaniards kept
very good order, and the larger galleons protected the smaller.

On Thursday, the 25th of July, there was sharp fighting off the Isle
of Wight.  The _Santa Anna_ and a Portuguese galleon were singled out
by Frobisher for attack.  Don Alphonso with a large force hurried up
to relieve them, and it would have gone hard with Frobisher had not
Lord Charles Howard in his _Ark Royal_ and Lord Thomas Howard in the
_Golden Lion_ come to the rescue.  They cut up the rigging of the
Spanish flagship with chain-shot, and then got out of reach before
they could suffer much damage.  "These two ships, the _Ark_ and the
_Golden Lion_, declared this day to each fleet that they had most
diligent and faithful gunners.  The galleasses, in whose puissance
the greatest hope of the Spanish fleet was founded, were never seen
to fight any more--such was their entertainment that day."

On Friday Lord Howard knighted Frobisher, Hawkins, and some others
for their valiant conduct on the previous day.

The two fleets moved slowly and quietly along the Sussex shore as far
as Dungeness; thence they turned and steered across towards Calais.

Those who looked on from the shore might well imagine that the great
ships of the Armada were undefeated, for it was mostly in their masts
and rigging that they had suffered harm.  On Sunday evening the
Spaniards anchored off Calais, and the Lord Admiral followed and
coolly dropped anchor within cannon-shot of his enemy.

A few miles off Calais Howard had been overtaken by Seymour's force
of some twenty ships, with Sir William Winter second in command; so
that his entire force was now about a hundred and forty ships, many
of them quite small craft.  Many of the men on board were mere
landsmen, and knew not which way to turn, or how to set a sail.  "If
you had seen the simple service done by the merchants' and coast
ships," wrote Winter to Walsingham, "you would have said we had been
little holpen by them, otherwise than that they did make a show."

Sunday, the 28th of July, was a sunny day, and the French shore was
full of holiday folk who had come in market carts from town and
village to see the grand spectacle of the great Spanish floating
castles.

Though they were not noisily fighting there was much business being
done--messengers were hurrying to the shore for despatches, and
hurrying back to the galleons with news that the Prince of Parma was
making all possible preparations for debarkation at Dunkirk, but
could not be ready for a dozen hours or so.  Parma was a great
general, but he could not work miracles on sea.  His flat-bottomed
boats were leaky; his provisions were not on board; his men did not
like the look of the sea; the sailors were there on compulsion, and
kept deserting in crowds; the Dutch fleet was waiting for him, and if
he sailed, it would be to expose his army to certain destruction.

But the Armada had reached Calais unbroken and apparently invincible;
for the Spanish ships sat on the water like huge castles, their bulks
being so planked with great beams that balls and bullets might strike
and stick, but never pass through; so that the English cannon could
do little damage, except only in playing on their masts and
tackle--besides, their enormous height made any attempt to board them
impossible.

Those English officers who thought on these things might well wonder
how the Spaniards were ever to be beaten off from the Thames and
London.  Howard must have been consulting and wondering how the great
battle was to be won.  Some say that the Queen herself suggested
fire-ships, others say that the device was Winter's, who had it from
Gianibelli, an Italian who had practised it with great success in
defending Antwerp from Parma three years before.  As has been told
before, six of the oldest vessels were filled with combustibles and
smeared with pitch, and convoyed to the Armada at midnight.

It was a rough sea after a three days' calm, the rain fell in
torrents, and the wind blew from the south-west, so that when the
flaring hulks came careering with deadly detonations amongst the
wooden walls of Spain, no wonder if a panic seized them, and they
scurried before the wind to the mouth of the Scheldt--all but the
Neapolitan galleass, the _Capitana_, which lost her rudder, bumped on
the Calais sands and was taken.  For Howard had sent his long-boat
and a pinnace to seize her.

"We had a pretty skirmish for half-an-hour"--a hundred English armed
with muskets and swords against seven hundred Spaniards and forty
guns.  "They seemed safe in their ship, while we in our open pinnaces
and far under them had nothing to shroud and cover us."

The captain, Don Hugo de Moncada, smiled a sarcastic smile when asked
to surrender.  In a few minutes a bullet had struck him in the
forehead, and he fell dead upon the deck.

On this the crew threw themselves into the sea, and the English
enjoyed an hour and a half of plunder; fifty thousand ducats
(£10,000) rewarded them well, but the ship was claimed by the
Governor of Calais.

While the Lord Admiral stayed to watch the capture of the
_Capitana_--not quite an admiral's duty, one would suppose--a very
great fight was going on off Gravelines, where the Flemish shoals and
the stormy sea together helped the English pursuers.  Many great
galleons were wrecked or taken, while no English ship was seriously
damaged.

Lord Howard hurried up in time to see the end of the fight, and
wrote, "Their force is wonderful great and strong, but we pluck their
feathers by little and little."  Burghley's want of resources spared
the enemy a final defeat, for ammunition was exhausted, and the
Spaniards limped lamely away.  "Tho' our powder and shot was well
near all spent," wrote Howard, "we set on a brag countenance and gave
them chase."

They followed northwards up to Friday, the 2nd of August, when, being
midway between the Firth of Forth and the Skager-Rak, Howard
signalled to stop.  For they had to refresh the ships with victuals,
as well as powder and shot; so some light pinnaces only were sent to
dog the Armada to the Isles of Scotland.  On their way south again
the English were scattered by the storm, which was driving the
Spaniards on the rocks; but they assembled in Margate Road on the 9th
of August.

A medal was struck to commemorate the defeat of the Armada.  On it
were depicted fire-ships pursuing a fleet, with the motto, "Dux
femina fecit" ("The leader who did this was a woman").

We may have our doubts on this point; certainly the fire-ships did
much damage, but it was the winds of heaven that finished the fight.
"Afflavit Deus, et dissipantur" was more true to the facts--"God has
blown on them and they are scattered," a more humble record of the
victory.

The Queen was so excited by the wonderful escape from invasion that
she wished to send off at once an expedition to the Azores, in order
to catch the trading ships on their way back from the Indies, and so
replenish the exhausted treasury.

Lord Howard consulted with Drake and Frobisher, but all held the
daring scheme to be impracticable.  The crews had not yet received
their money due from before the Armada fight; many seamen and
soldiers were in rags and half famished, in spite of all that
indignant admirals had written.  "Upon your letter," Howard writes to
Walsingham on the 27th of August, "I presently sent for Sir Francis
Drake and showed him the desire that her Majesty had for intercepting
of the King's treasure from the Indies.  So we considered it, and
neither of us find any ships here in the fleet anyways able to go
such a voyage before they have been aground, which cannot be done in
any place but at Chatham, and it will be fourteen days before they
can be grounded."  Then with a touch of scorn for the ignorance that
prompted such a desperate scheme for vessels just come from a long
sea-fight, he adds, "Belike it is thought that the West Indian
islands be but hereby! it is not thought how the year is spent.  I
thought it good, therefore, to send with all speed Sir Francis Drake,
although he be not very well, to inform you rightly of all.  He is a
man of judgment and acquainted with it, and will tell you what must
be done for such a journey."

If Sir Francis Walsingham had turned up a file of old letters, he
must have found a recent letter from the Lord High Admiral, written
only four days before this, in which Howard writes with reference to
the Armada returning from the north to renew the fight:--

"Sir, God knowethe what we shall dow if we have no men: many of our
shypse ar so wekly maned that they have not maryners to way ther
ankers.  Well, we must dow what we chane (can).  I hope in God that
he will make us stronge anufe for them, for all men are of good
corage heer."

After re-reading this, Walsingham must surely have doubted his own
judgment.  We may notice that the spelling of those times varied with
the mood of the writer, and it also gives us an insight into the
manner of pronouncing words.  When all men spell on the same dead
level, there is nothing to be learnt from it.  Drake must have spoken
"a bit of his own mind" at Court, for we hear no more of any
expedition to the Azores, but of an expedition under Drake to Spain.
However, it was not until 1596 that the Lord Admiral again hoisted
his flag; it was the year in which the British Navy lost by death
three of its most eminent seamen--Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins.

Philip had been steadily gaining ground in Brittany and began to
think of another attempt at invasion.  In February 1594 he wrote to
his Viceroy in the Netherlands, instructing him to destroy
Elizabeth's shipping at home.  "Two or three thousand soldiers might
be landed at Rochester, who might burn or sink all the unarmed
vessels they could find there, and then sail off again before the
people of the country could collect in sufficient numbers to do them
any damage."  Later in the year 1594 a raid of Spaniards from
Brittany upon Penzance burnt and plundered that town; in 1596 a
second raid was made upon the same district.  On the 10th of April
Spain seized Calais, and stirred the brave Virgin Queen to wrath.

By the 3rd of June a fleet of nearly one hundred and fifty vessels
was ready to sail from Plymouth, of which seventeen were Queen's
ships and eighteen Netherlanders.

Lord Admiral Howard had the chief command at sea; the young Earl of
Essex was given the command of the land forces.  Lord Thomas Howard,
a cousin of Lord Charles, and Sir Walter Raleigh had each a squadron.
The entire force was 17,000 strong, the largest force sent from
England since the days of the Crusades.  As military rank in those
days was settled according to rank in the peerage and not by standing
in the army or navy, this young Earl had precedence in the
commission, because the Lord Admiral was only a baron.  On the 18th
of June they learnt from an Irish vessel, that had just left Cadiz,
that the port was full of men-of-war and galleons richly laden.

On the 20th they anchored quietly in the harbour to the amazement of
all, and now the Earl of Essex set up a claim to the honour of
leading in.  But Lord Howard of Effingham stoutly resisted it, for he
knew what a rash and impetuous firebrand the Earl was.  "No, my lord,
it belongs to me as a seaman to arrange all this; besides, I must
acquaint you privately that I have been strictly charged by her
Majesty to prevent you from exposing yourself to unnecessary danger."

The whole council backed up the Lord High Admiral, and the Earl
sulked in a boyish manner: he was to be taken care of like a child!

On the 21st of June they fought from 5 A.M. until 1 P.M.; several
vessels were taken and spoiled.  The _San Felipe_, the glory of Spain
for her size, was blown up to save her from falling into English
hands.  But the gunpowder exploded before her soldiers and sailors
had had time to leave.

Raleigh wrote an account of it: "Tumbling into the sea came heaps of
soldiers, as thick as if coals had been poured out of a sack--some
drowned, some sticking in the mud ... many, half-burnt, leaped into
the water; others hung by ropes' ends to the ship's side, under water
even to the lips ... and withal so huge a fire and such tearing of
the ordnance in the great _Felipe_, as, if any man had a desire to
see hell itself, it was there most vividly figured."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: THE BLOWING-UP OF THE "SAN FELIPE"]

During the attack on Cadiz the _San Felipe_, the glory of Spain, was
set on fire to prevent its falling into the hands of the English, but
a premature explosion of the powder magazine wrought terrible havoc
amongst the Spanish soldiers, hundreds being mutilated, burnt, or
drowned.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Earl of Essex with a body of 800 men landed about a league from
Cadiz, and he and Lord Howard met in the market-place.

The city had surrendered, and promised 600,000 ducats as ransom for
the inhabitants.  Lord Howard wrote with pride to the Queen's
Council: "No aged or cold blood touched, no woman defiled; but all
the ladies, nuns, and children, with great care embarked and sent to
St. Mary's Port with all their apparel and rich things about them."

Even Philip II. was forced to admit that the world had never seen
more chivalrous humanity among victors, and Queen Elizabeth in her
letter of thanks to Howard and Essex, wrote: "You have made me
famous, dreadful, and renowned; not more for your victory than for
your courage; nor more for either than for such plentiful liquor of
mercy, which may well match the better of the two."

On the 23rd of October in the following year, 1597, the Lord High
Admiral was created Earl of Nottingham for saving his country twice
from invasion.

In 1599 he was made Lieutenant-General of all England; in 1601 he was
instrumental in crushing the insurrection of Essex.  He attended the
death-bed of his Queen, being the first cousin of Queen Anne Boleyn;
Howard had also married a Carey, the grand-daughter of the Queen's
aunt, Mary Boleyn, sister of Queen Anne.  He was at this time in
great affliction for the death of this lady, and had retired from the
Court to grieve in solitude; for the Queen, like her father, hated
the sight of mourning.  But now she had sent for her faithful Lord
Admiral, and he came and knelt by her cushions and fed her with broth
with a spoon, and begged her to go to bed, yet she still refused.  At
last she bade all go away but Howard; then in piteous accents she
murmured, "My lord, I am tied by a chain of iron about my neck;" but
he knew not if she spoke this in frenzy.  We will end this account of
the Lord High Admiral by a gayer scene.

It was the year 1608; James I. and Queen Anne of Denmark were
spending November at Winchester Palace.  They played games from
twilight till supper-time; they danced, and the Queen noticed that
the old admiral, now over sixty-seven, seemed mighty fond of Lady
Margaret Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Murray, a blooming girl of
nineteen.  Anne told the King, and his Majesty at once made himself
very busy in merrily promoting the marriage of the old veteran with
his pretty cousin.  They were soon married, and, before he died, the
Earl of Nottingham had the pleasure of seeing two more children, one
of whom succeeded his half-brother in the earldom.  His remaining
years were spent at Haling House in Surrey, in honourable ease and
retirement; he died in his eighty-eighth year, loved and respected by
all who knew him.  "He was a nobleman," says Camden, "whose courage
no danger could daunt, whose fidelity no temptation could corrupt."



CHAPTER VII

SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE, THE HERO OF FLORES

Richard, the son of Sir Roger Grenville, was born about the year
1540, in the west of England, of a family descended from Rollo of
Normandy.  In his youth he showed the same restless, daring
disposition which characterised him all through life.  For he was
barely twenty-six when he obtained the Queen's permission to serve in
Hungary against the Turks, and it is reported that he was on board
the Christian fleet in the famous battle of Lepanto, 1566, won by Don
John of Austria, and the crowning mercy that saved Europe from
Mohammedan rule; so that the Pope, on hearing the news of the
victory, exclaimed, "There was a man sent from God, and his name was
John."

On his return, being a cousin of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter
Raleigh, the Queen took notice of him and sent him to Ireland, to
serve under Sir Henry Sidney, who was so well satisfied with his
energy and courage that he recommended the Queen to appoint him
Sheriff of the city of Cork.

In 1571 Richard Grenville was elected one of the members for the
county of Cornwall, and was knighted on becoming High Sheriff of that
county.

His acquaintance with Gilbert in Ireland had set his ambition on
discovering new lands in Cathay or America; so when in 1584 Raleigh
obtained a patent to discover and occupy heathen lands not actually
possessed by any Christian prince, Sir Richard Grenville volunteered
for the voyage, and was made commander of the squadron that was to
plant a first colony in Virginia--an idea of Raleigh's.

A Hollander, John Huighen van Linschoten, gives a full account of Sir
Richard's character, as far as he knew it from personal experience.

This Sir Richard Grenville, he says, was a great and a rich gentleman
in England and had great yearly revenues of his own inheritance; but
he was a man very unquiet in his mind and greatly affected to war;
inasmuch as of his own motion he offered his services to the Queen.
He had performed many valiant acts, and was greatly feared in these
islands and known of every man, but of nature very severe, so that
his own people hated him for his fierceness and spake very hardly of
him.  "He was of so hard a complexion that, as he continued among the
Spanish captains while they were at dinner or supper with him, he
would carouse three or four glasses of wine, and in a braverie would
take the glasses between his teeth and crush them in pieces and
swallow them down, so that often-times the blood ran out of his mouth
without any harme at all unto him."

Raleigh would have liked to go on the Virginia voyage himself, but
had to be content with sending Grenville as Admiral of the Fleet, and
Ralph Lane to be Governor of the proposed colony.

The latter was a Northamptonshire man, second cousin to Queen
Katherine Parr, about ten years older than Grenville, and one of
Leicester's band of equerries to the Queen.

They sailed in April, 1585, from Plymouth with seven vessels, the
largest being of 140 tons burthen.  Thomas Cavendish was one of their
number.  Sailing by way of the Canaries to the West Indian Islands,
they anchored in Mosquito Bay, in the island of Puerto Rico, within
falcon-shot of the shore.

Sir Richard landed and gave orders for a fort to be built in an angle
between the river and the sea, backed by woods.  There he remained
some days, felling the timber and building a pinnace, the Spaniards
looking on from afar.

After some days a party of twenty horsemen showed themselves on the
opposite bank of the river, carrying a flag of truce; two from either
side met on the sands and discussed politely and courteously.  When
the Spaniards expressed some surprise at the English having built a
fort in Spanish territory, they were told that it was only to procure
water and food, which if they could not get by fair means, it was
their resolution to win by the sword.

Upon this discreet answer the Spaniards made "large promises of all
courtesy."

On the morrow, the pinnace being finished, Sir Richard marched some
four miles up country, awaiting the Spaniards' performance of their
promise to bring victuals.  As they did not come up in time--what
Spaniard ever does?--Sir Richard swore a little, called them perjured
caitiffs, and fired the woods and his fort.  Setting sail, he took
next evening a Spanish frigate, which the Spaniards forsook at the
sight of his squadron.  The next night he captured another "with good
and rich freight, and divers persons of account in her," whom he
ransomed for good round sums.

One of these prizes was sent to Roxo Bay, where Ralph Lane built a
fort, while the others busied themselves in stealing a shipload of
salt from the Spaniards.  After this they sailed for Hispaniola and
anchored at Isabella.

The Spanish Governor came to the seaside to meet Grenville, each
being very polite and very suspicious of the other; but polite
demeanour prevailed.  The English provided two banqueting houses,
covered with green boughs--one for the gentlemen, the other for the
servants; a sumptuous feast was brought in, served all on plate,
while the drums and trumpets played lively music, wherewith the
Spaniards were vastly delighted.

In return, the Spaniards sent for a great herd of white bulls from
the mountains, and lent to each gentleman and captain a horse ready
saddled, and then singled three of the strongest of the herd to be
hunted.

The pastime grew very pleasant and merry, as there were many
onlookers who applauded when one turned a bull in his course.  Within
the three hours that they were riding up and down they killed two
beasts from the saddle; the third having taken to the sea was there
shot with a musket.

Sir Thomas More, had Henry the Eighth spared his valuable life, would
not have approved such sport; but he was alone in thinking on mercy
to animals.

After the sport many rare gifts were exchanged; but Sir Richard said,
when he regained his ship, "I always mistrust Spanish politeness.
Had we not been so strong we might have met with no better treatment
than Hawkins received at St. Juan de Ulloa."

On the 7th of June they sailed away and reached Virginia at the end
of the month.  But Sir Richard was not thinking so much of colonising
as of exploring.  He spent seven weeks in coasting about the islands
of North Carolina; he made an eight days' expedition inland,
receiving kindness from the simple natives, and not always behaving
to them very considerately.  For instance, we read in the report of
one of his company: "One of our boats was sent to demand a silver cup
which one of the savages had stolen from us, and, not receiving it
according to his promise, we burnt and spoilt their corn and town,
all the people being fled."

It is clear that Grenville did not know how to deal with Red Indians.
But he also quarrelled with Lane and Thomas Cavendish, and they were
glad when he left them on the 28th of August for England, promising
to come again soon.  On the 8th of September Lane vented some of his
bitterness towards Grenville by writing to Walsingham thus: "Sir
Richard Grenville, our General, hath demeaned himself, from the first
day of his entry into government until the day of his departure, far
otherwise than my hope of him, though very agreeable to the
expectations and predictions of sundry wise and godly persons of his
own country that knew him better than myself."  He then goes on to
relate how Sir Richard nearly brought him to trial for his life, only
for Lane having ventured to give advice in a public council.  He goes
on bitterly enough: "I have had so much experience of his government
as I am humbly to desire your honour and the rest of my honourablest
friends to give me their favours to be freed from that place where
Sir Richard Grenville is to carry any authority in chief.  The Lord
hath miraculously blessed this action that, in the time of his being
amongst us, even through his intolerable pride and insatiable
ambition, it hath not at three several times taken a final overthrow."

We cannot help noticing how difficult a matter it was for some of the
Elizabethan heroes to express their thoughts in direct and pithy
language.  But it is evident that Lane hated Grenville--what
Grenville thought of Lane we can only guess; but Lane's way of
managing his colony hardly reveals an ability great enough to warrant
his attack upon his superior.  He wrote another letter in which he
praised all he saw and smelt in Virginia: "We have not yet found, in
all our search, one stinking weed growing in this land: a matter, in
all our opinions here, very strange.  The climate is so wholesome,
yet somewhat tending to heat, as that we have not had one sick since
we entered into the country; but sundry that came sick are recovered
of long diseases, especially of rheums."

Lane fixed upon the fertile island of Roanoke, or Plymouth, as the
residence of his hundred colonists, built a fort and made
entrenchments, but sowed no seed and made no prudent preparations for
the future; he seemed to be content to live on what the Indians
brought them.  But he spent most of his time in exploring and looking
for valuables.  In a four-oared barge holding fifteen men he tracked
the coast northwards as far as Chesapeake Bay, which he preferred to
Roanoke.  "For pleasantness of seat, for temperature of climate, for
fertility of soil, and for the commodity of the sea, besides
multitudes of bears--being an excellent good victual--with great
woods of sassafras and walnut trees, it is not to be excelled by any
other whatsoever."

Lane, in conversation with an Indian chief, heard of a native king
who possessed beautiful pearls, white and round and large; this made
him eager to leave his colony and explore: this greed was soon to be
the cause of his failure.  Shortly after, Lane was told that at the
head of the Roanoke River was a tribe of Indians who had stores of
copper and gold; this determined him to seek it out at once.  He
rowed for three days up the river, finding that the natives fled at
his approach, taking with them all their corn, so that his food began
to fail.  They had in the boat two mastiffs, and they resolved to go
on a little farther, and if need were, they could kill the mastiffs
and live upon their "pottage," flavoured with sassafras leaves.  So
they went up the river farther, and at last heard some savages call
"Manteo," an Indian servant they had.  "Whereof we all being very
glad, hoping of some friendly conference, and making him answer them,
they presently began a song, as we thought in token of welcome."
Alas! it only meant war, and at once a volley of arrows came sticking
into one of the boats.  The English landed, and the Indians fled into
the woods.  No supper! no food! they were now come to the dogs'
pottage.  So they resolved to row down again, and having the stream
with them accomplished in one day what it had taken four days to do
up-stream.

But on rejoining his colony Lane found that the Indians, once so
friendly, had become subtle enemies.  The colonists, many of whom
were rough, bad characters, had treated the Indians as slaves, and
the slaves had resisted, to their loss and damage.  Lane had left
trusty guards to take charge of "the wild men of his own nation"; but
the guards joined the rest in cruel handling of the natives.  The
result was that the news spread from tribe to tribe that these white
men were devils, not born of women, who had come to waste their corn
and slay their people.

When Lane went away, the Indians thought he was dead; now he had come
back, they believed he had risen from the grave.  It was hardly worth
while, they thought, trying to kill people who could rise again and
fight! their best plan was to retreat far into the woods.  This would
have been fatal to the colony, for the Indians alone knew how to make
weirs for fish, and they had all the seed-corn.

We can see how Shakespeare must have heard tales of the Indians, or
read Sir Walter's "Virginia."


                      "When thou camst here first,
  Thou strok'dst me, and made much of me, would'st teach me how
  To name the bigger light, and how the less,
  That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee,
  And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,
  The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile;--
  Cursed be I that did so!"
                                                  --_Tempest._


At length, in May 1586, the Indians could brook no more such wrongs;
they stole into Port Ferdinando, broke up the fish-weirs and wooden
huts, and crossed over to the mainland.  In June a battle
ensued--guns against bows and arrows--the Indians were out-matched
and fled.  Their king, being shot through with a pistol, lay on the
ground for dead; but suddenly started up and ran away as though he
had not been touched.  But he was shot again, fell and was killed.
"I met my man," says Lane, "returning out of the woods with
Pemisapan's head in his hand."

The colony was now in despair--a few oysters were found or they would
have been starved.  One prophet amongst them vowed that "the hand of
God had come upon them for the cruelty and outrages committed by some
of them on the natives."  Then came Drake with three-and-twenty ships
out of the misty deep, and at once Ralph Lane saw "the very hand of
God stretched out to save them."

On the 19th of June they embarked on Drake's ship and returned to
Portsmouth.  But they carried with them that wonderful herb uppowoc,
or tobacco, which all Europe has now learnt to suck after the manner
of the Red Indians, which Edmund Spenser in his "Faerie Queen," writ
a few years after, called "divine."  Of course Lane blamed Sir
Richard Grenville for his failure, since Grenville had promised to
return in the spring with fresh colonists and supplies; but he did
not arrive until a fortnight after Lane's departure with Drake.

We have given this short sketch of the doings of the colony in
Virginia, partly that the reader may judge where the fault lay.  It
was not Sir Richard's, and it was not wholly Lane's; it was the ill
choice of unworthy colonists that really wrecked the scheme; it was
their gross ill-treatment of the natives that ruined the settlement.
But if Lane had stayed with his own men, instead of hunting for
pearls and copper, he might have kept them in better order.  But as
it happened, the real savages were some few of those English
settlers, the off-scouring of England's gaols, and the ill-conduct of
the few made the Indians suspicious of all.

Grenville, when he left Virginia for Plymouth, took the opportunity
of having a little fight with a richly laden Spaniard of 300 tons
burthen, and arrived home rich.  He had been unable to fulfil his
promise to return in the spring, because Raleigh had a difficulty in
raising money for the three ships and their outfit.  When Grenville
did reach Roanoke, he found all deserted and left in confusion, as if
the colonists had been hunted away by a mighty army.

After scouring the country round and making inquiries of the Indians,
Grenville left fifteen men on the island with provisions for two
years, and set sail for England; but he did not omit to fill his
coffers by an attack upon Spanish towns in the Azores, where he
seized considerable store of booty.

Perhaps he was not only working for himself, but was thinking of his
cousin Walter, who had already spent some forty thousand pounds on
these two Virginian expeditions.  These prizes did much to recoup him
for his great expenses.

For the next five years we have little news of Sir Richard's doings,
except that he swept the sea of pirates other than his own
countrymen.  But in 1591 he was sent out as vice-admiral with seven
Queen's ships under Lord Thomas Howard, to intercept the Spanish
fleet from the West Indies, which had wintered in Havannah the
preceding year by royal order, lest it should fall into the hands of
Hawkins and Frobisher.  For Philip chose rather to hazard the
perishing of ships, men, and goods than that they should become the
prize of the English.  He was also preparing a large naval force to
protect and convoy his treasure; but as it happened the Earl of
Cumberland was then off the coast of Spain, and learning their
designs sent word to Lord Thomas.

The latter had left Plymouth early in March and made for the Azores;
there they waited five months for the West Indian treasure-ships in
vain.  For Philip had heard of the expedition of Howard and
Grenville, and had ordered the further detention of his ships at
Havannah, until his fleet could go from Spain to defeat the English,
and convoy the treasure safely home.

This was to be the greatest fleet sent out of Spanish ports since the
Armada; it comprised over fifty sail, Portuguese, Biscayan, and
Andalusian galleys, ten Dutch boats seized near Lisbon, and other
smaller craft.

Lord Thomas Howard had six of her Majesty's ships, six victuallers of
London, the barque _Raleigh_, and two or three pinnaces.  They were
riding at anchor near Flores, one of the westerly islands of the
Azores, on an afternoon on the last day of August, when a ship hove
in sight, speeding along under full sail.

Captain Middleton reported himself, and announced that he had kept
company with a large Spanish fleet three days before; he had crowded
on all sail and hastened to bring the news.

As he spoke a cry was raised, "Sail-ho!" and there on the horizon
they saw an unwelcome sight--a large force of Spanish war vessels.

It was unwelcome, not only because of their own small numbers, but
also because many of the ships' companies were on shore in the
island; some providing ballast for their ships, others filling in
water and securing provisions.  "By reason whereof," says Sir Walter
Raleigh, "our ships being all pestered and romaging everything out of
order, very light for want of ballast, and that which was most to our
disadvantage, the one halfe part of the men of every shippe being
sicke and utterly unserviceable; for in the _Revenge_ there were
ninety diseased: in the _Bonaventure_ not so many in health as could
handle her main-saile.  The rest, for the most part, were in little
better state."

The island had shrouded the approach of the Spaniards since they were
first seen, and now the enemy hove in sight again full near, and our
ships had scarce time to weigh their anchors, but some of them were
driven to slip their cables and set sail.

Sir Richard was the last that weighed anchor, for he had waited to
recover his men that were upon the island, who otherwise would have
been lost--"Choosing," says Sir Richard Hawkins, "rather to sacrifice
his life, and to pass all danger whatsoever, than to fail in his
obligation, by gathering together those who were ashore; though with
the hazard of his ship and company."

Raleigh and Hawkins agree in giving this high motive.

Sir William Monson says: "When the Lord Thomas warily, and like a
discreet general, weighed anchor and made signs to the rest of his
fleet to do the like, with a purpose to get the wind of them, Sir
Richard Grenville, being a stubborn man, and imagining this fleet to
come from the Indies, and not to be the Armada of which they had been
informed, would by no means be persuaded by his master, or company,
to cut his cable and follow his admiral; nay, so headlong and rash he
was, that he offered violence to those that advised him so to do.
But the old saying, that a wilful man is the cause of his own woe,
could not be more truly verified than in him; for when the Armada
approached, and he beheld the greatness of the ships, he began to see
and repent of his folly, and when it was too late, would have freed
himself of them, but in vain."

Severe criticism like this, imputing low motives, is in most cases
overdone.  How does Monson know that Grenville mistook the fleet for
treasure-ships? it is a mere surmise, for which there is no evidence.
Again, where does Sir Richard seem to repent of his folly?  We have
Sir Walter Raleigh's statement to the contrary; he says:--

"The Lord Thomas with the rest very hardly recovered the wind, which
Sir Richard not being able to do, was persuaded by the master and
others to cut his main-sail, and cast about, and to trust to the
sailing of his ship; for the squadron of Seville were on his
weather-bow.  But Sir Richard utterly refused to turn from the
enemie, alledging that he would rather choose to die, than to
dishonour himself, his country and her Majesty's ship: persuading his
company that he would pass through the two squadrons in spite of
them, and enforce those of Seville to give way."

Here we have the true motives in the mind of this proud seaman.
First, he would not, for any fear of Spain, leave his men behind to
be tortured by the Inquisition.  Secondly, his pride in his country
and his Queen forbade him to fly, however numerous the foe.

No doubt he was a stubborn man--he meant to do what he thought right,
and also what he thought within his power to accomplish.  He did not
foresee the accident which rendered his ship helpless, for boldly he
sailed right into the crowd of Spanish galleys; the foremost of them
"sprang their luff" and fell under his lee.  As he sailed in and out,
exchanging broadsides and avoiding collisions, "the great _San
Felipe_, being in the wind of him and coming towards him, becalmed
his sails in such sort that the ship could neither make way nor feel
the helm; so huge and high-carged was the Spanish ship, being of 1500
tons."

This it was that prevented him from forcing his way through the
Armada.  Raleigh says, no doubt the other course--sailing away from
the foe--had been the better: "Notwithstanding, out of the greatness
of his mind, he could not be persuaded."  So the _San Felipe_ and
some others closed upon the unmoving _Revenge_; she could not stir
upon the water, being becalmed.  Amongst others that lay close to
board her was the admiral of the Biscayans, a very large and strong
ship; she carried three tier of guns on a side, and eleven pieces in
every tier.  She shot eight forth right out of her chase, besides
those of her stern ports.

While the _Revenge_ was entangled with this ship, four other vessels
tried to board her, two on her larboard, and two on her starboard
side.

The fight began at three in the afternoon and it did not end till
dawn next morning, Grenville and his men fighting as Englishmen have
seldom fought before or since.  The great _San Felipe_ received the
lower tier of the _Revenge_, discharged with cross-bar shot into her
bowels.  She soon shifted herself from the _Revenge_ with all
diligence, "utterly misliking her first entertainment."

The Spanish ships were filled with soldiers, from two hundred in the
smaller to eight hundred in the largest; in the _Revenge_ there were
only mariners, a few servants of the officers, and some gentlemen
volunteers.

Ever and again attempts were made to board the _Revenge_, but always
the Spaniards were beaten back in their own ships with yell and blow.

At first the _George Noble_ of London stayed close by under the lee
of the _Revenge_, having some shot through her.  Her captain asked
Sir Richard what orders he had for him, being but one of the
victuallers and of small force: "Go, save thyself and thy crew,
friend; leave me, I pray thee, to my fortune."

As the fight went on hour after hour, ever one ship coming on and
going away hurt, while two others were ready to take its place, many
of the crew of the _Revenge_ were slain or hurt, and towards
nightfall one of the great galleons of the Armada and the admiral of
the hulks were both sunk, while the decks of other vessels were
crowded with groaning wounded.

Sir Richard, though sore wounded himself, never forsook the upper
deck.  His eyes were everywhere, directing and encouraging and
bidding his men think of the gracious Queen and their homes in fair
England: "We are fighting for honour, lads, and our country and this
good ship!"

An hour before midnight, Raleigh tells us, Sir Richard was shot in
the body with a musket as he was dressing; anon he was shot also in
the head shortly after, and withal his chirurgeon was wounded to
death, as he stooped over him.

From three of the clock in the previous afternoon, fifteen several
great galleons had assailed her, as well as many small barques.  So
ill did they like their treatment that ere the morning dawned they
began to desire some terms of surrender to be offered.  The men in
the _Revenge_, too, as the day waxed and the light grew stronger,
began to mark how their wounded increased and their fighting men grew
scanty.  They glanced out over the bulwarks and saw none but enemies
baying them round, save one small ship, the _Pilgrim_, commanded by
Jacob Whiddon, who hovered round all night to see what success should
fall out; but in the dawning, being seen of the Spaniards, the
_Pilgrim_ was hunted away like a hare from a field of wheat amongst
many ravenous hounds, all giving tongue and sending their fiery
breath towards her; but she was a fast sailer, and by God's blessing
escaped their clutches.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE AND THE "REVENGE"]

Off Flores there took place the pluckiest fight ever recorded in
Naval history.  The little English ship, manned by only a hundred
able men, was beset by a powerful Armada containing many thousands of
soldiers; the fight lasted from 3 p.m. until the following morning,
and not until all the powder was gone, every spar shot away, and most
of the crew, including Sir Richard, disabled, did she surrender.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

In the beginning of the fight the little _Revenge_ had only one
hundred men free from sickness and able to fight, four-score and ten
sick men lay in the hold upon the ballast.  These hundred men had had
to sustain the volleys, boarding, and hand-to-hand encounters for
sixteen hours on end, whereas the Spaniards were well supplied with
fresh men brought from every squadron; arms and powder they had at
will, and the comfort of knowing they had strong friends near.  The
English saw no hope before them--only honourable death, if so be;
their ship's masts were all beaten overboard, all her tackle cut
asunder, her upper works altogether razed, so that she was well-nigh
brought even with the water, and could not stir except as she was
moved by tide and wave.  All her powder was now spent to the last
barrel, all her pikes broken, forty of her best men slain, and most
of the rest sorely hurt.  For they had borne eight hundred charges of
heavy artillery and rounds of small shot without number, and at last
began to stare at one another as men desperate who have lost their
last chance of life.

The Armada were now floating all round the _Revenge_, not too near,
for they suspected danger from her still.

Then Sir Richard sent for the master-gunner, whom he knew to be a
most resolute man, and bade him split and sink the ship.

  "And Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
    'We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
      As may never be fought again!
      We have won great glory, my men,
      And a day less or more, at sea or ashore,--
        We die--does it matter when?
  Sink me the ship, Master Gunner, sink her, split her in twain!
  Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"
                                                    --TENNYSON.


So Sir Richard sought to persuade the company, or as many as he could
induce, to yield themselves unto God, and to the mercy of none else.
The master-gunner readily consented, and so did divers others; but
the captain and the master were of another opinion, and besought Sir
Richard to have care of them, for many of them might live yet to
serve their prince and country.  They reminded him that the ship had
six foot of water in her hold, three shot under water, which were so
weakly stopped that with the first working of the sea she must needs
sink; and she was, besides, so crushed and bruised that she could
never be removed out of the place.

As the matter was thus in dispute, and as Sir Richard, where he lay,
still refused to hearken to any reason, the master was convoyed
aboard the General Don Alphonso Baçan, who promised that all their
lives should be saved, the crew should be sent to England, and the
better sort should pay such reasonable ransom as their estate would
bear, and in the meantime might be free from galley or prison.  The
Don agreed to this so much the rather as he desired to get possession
of Sir Richard, whom for his notable valour he greatly honoured and
admired.

On this message being delivered, the crew naturally wished to accept
the terms and drew back from the master-gunner, who, in a frenzy of
grief for his admiral's dishonour, as he thought, drew his sword and
would have slain himself on the spot, had not his friends withheld
him from it by force and locked him into his cabin.

Then Don Alphonso asked Sir Richard to come out of the _Revenge_, the
ship being marvellous unsavoury, filled with blood and dead bodies
and wounded men, like any slaughter-house.  To which Sir Richard
replied that the Spaniard might do with his body what he list, for he
esteemed it not.  As they bore him out of the ship, he swooned; when
he recovered, he was on the Spaniard's deck, and looking about him
said, "I desire you, gentlemen, to pray for me."

The Spanish admiral used Sir Richard with all humanity and tended him
well, highly commending his valour and worthiness; but the English
hero died on the third day and was buried at sea with all honour.

As he lay surrounded by Spanish hidalgos, who were trying to comfort
him in his agony, the dying man half raised himself and said:

"Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for
that I have ended my life as a good soldier ought to do, who has
fought for his country and his Queen, for honour and religion.
Wherefore my soul joyfully departeth out of this body, leaving behind
it an everlasting fame, as a true soldier who hath done his duty as
he was bound to do.  But the other of my company have done as
traitors and dogs, for which they shall be reproached all their
lives."

Lord Thomas Howard did not deserve this condemnation, for he wished
to attempt a rescue, but his men refused to follow.

A few days after the fight a great storm from the north-west
scattered the fleet, and fourteen Spanish ships went down, together
with the _Revenge_, off St. Michael's Isle.  It seemed to the English
that Heaven was on the side of the _Revenge_, for 10,000 Spaniards
perished in that storm.

Sir Richard Hawkins, correcting Raleigh's account, wrote that there
were on board the _Revenge_ "above 260 men, as by the pay-book
appeareth--all which may worthily be written in our chronicles in
letters of gold, in memory for all posterities, some to beware,
others to imitate, the true valour of our nation in these ages."



CHAPTER VIII

  JOHN DAVIS, THE HERO OF THE ARCTIC
  AND PACIFIC

John Davis was born near the Gilberts' home about 1550, on the left
bank of the Dart, not far from Dartmouth.  His father was a yeoman
owning a small farm in Sandridge, being part of the parish of Stoke
Gabriel.  The little inlet or harbour is called Stoke Creek, at the
head of which stands the old church; in this are kept the records of
the marriage of John Davis.  The lordly manor-house of the Pomeroys
seemed to look down from its height upon winding river and grove of
oaks--the playing-ground of so many heroes--the three Gilberts,
Davis, and Walter Raleigh.  The boys had only to run down over two
pastures and they were at the Cove, overhung with drooping boughs and
trailing with dog-roses and honeysuckle.  The village of Dittisham,
with its plum and apple orchards, its drying nets and rocking-boats,
meets the gaze as you look across the lake-like reach of the river....

Greenaway Court, the Gilberts' home, stood up among the woods to the
south, and no doubt Adrian Gilbert and the Carew boys and Raleigh
must often have raced in their skiffs, or listened to seamen's
stories of the doings of John Hawkins in the West Indies.  There was
another house not far from Dittisham, where Davis as a boy may well
have visited, the home of Sir John Fulford, who had two sons of the
same age as the younger Gilberts, and four daughters, of whom Faith
in after years became the wife of John Davis.  John was of course not
socially the equal of the others, but his exploits and fame levelled
all distinctions as he grew older; and when he was a boy, no doubt he
was a brave, modest fellow, good enough to play with his superiors.

Whether John Davis went to the new grammar-school at Totnes we do not
know, but it is clear that he was sent to sea at an early age, and
studied deeply the science of his profession; for by the time he was
twenty-eight he was known to merchants as a captain of great skill
and experience.

John returned home in 1579, passing six years at Sandridge, and no
doubt enjoying many a sail up the river with Miss Faith Fulford and
her sisters.

We can see by the Parish Register that John married Faith on
September 29, 1582; they had a pleasant neighbour in Adrian Gilbert,
who had married the widow of Andrew Fulford, and was living in the
Pomeroy manor-house.  Adrian was now a doctor of medicine and an able
mathematician, deeply interested in geographical discovery and the
science of minerals.

There was a learned geographer, Dr. Dee, living at Mortlake, to whom
Adrian one day introduced John Davis; after that they often met and
discussed the North-west Passage and other problems of the day.  One
day in 1585 Secretary Walsingham called in and heard their arguments:
a route to the Indies which should be clear of all claims on the part
of the Spanish and Portuguese interested the minister.

Having won Walsingham's interest, the two Devon scientists next tried
to persuade the merchants of London to join them; then they rode all
the way to Exeter and Dartmouth to induce wealthy merchants there to
subscribe.  Raleigh was at this time high in Court favour; he had
been knighted the year before, and was growing rich upon the Queen's
gifts.  He induced her Majesty to grant a charter to himself, Adrian
Gilbert, and John Davis, "for the search and discovery of the
North-west Passage to China."  Raleigh was at this time very busy
with his Virginia colony, but he found time to help his old
school-friends.

The expedition, preparing in 1585, consisted of two small ships, the
_Sunshine_ of London of 50 tons, and the _Moonshine_ of Dartmouth of
35 tons.  Davis commanded the _Sunshine_, with a crew of eleven
seamen, four musicians, a carpenter and a boy, and four officers;
they sailed out of Dartmouth harbour on the 7th of June 1585.  Davis
was now in his thirty-sixth year, and one of the best seamen of his
day.  Though only the son of a yeoman farmer, he had made many
valuable friends, such as Dr. Dee, the Gilberts, Raleigh, Walsingham,
the Earl of Warwick, and Mr. Sanderson, a rich city merchant; the
Earl of Cumberland and Lord Lumley had sought his acquaintance.  What
is more, Davis was beloved by the men under his command, for he was
ever thoughtful of their welfare both before he sailed and after he
returned home; for his kindness proceeded from the heart.

In these scientific days of Arctic discovery we have learnt what sort
of food and clothing is best for our explorers; in those days all was
in the experimental stage.  Their provisions consisted of cod and
salt-meat, bread and grease, butter and cheese and beer.

As they were obliged to anchor for twelve days off the Scilly Isles,
Davis took the opportunity of making a survey of all the islands, the
rocks and havens.  When they got out into the Atlantic they had some
sport trying to harpoon porpoises, the flesh of which they thought as
good as mutton.  Whales too were seen in much larger numbers than are
found now; for like many other interesting and valuable species,
whales have been recklessly destroyed through the greed of man.

On the 19th of July, in a dense mist, they heard "a mighty great
roaring"; Captain Davis had a boat lowered and rowed to find out the
cause thereof.  He found that the ships were close to some pack-ice,
the large fragments of which were grinding together.  Next day was
clear, and they saw the snow-clad mountains of Greenland, but could
not land for the ice; here they saw many seals and white birds.  They
rounded the southern point of Greenland, and were in the channel that
lies between Greenland and Labrador.  Finding a fiord some miles up
the coast he named it Gilbert Sound, after his friend and his
first-born child.  It was near this spot that they heard the Eskimos
shouting, so Davis took a boat and four musicians, as it was known
the natives loved music.  In a short time perfect confidence was
established and they began to barter, kayaks or boats and native
clothing being in some demand.  Later they managed to kill a Polar
bear, which came in useful, as the men were clamouring for better
food.

They next sailed west, and explored Cumberland Gulf.  On landing they
heard dogs barking, and when they came up very gently, "we thought
they came to prey upon us and therefore we shot two; but about the
neck of one of them we found a leathern collar, whereupon we thought
them to be tame dogs."  After this a strong north-west wind blew, and
as it was near the end of August they resolved to return to England,
and arrived at Dartmouth on the 30th of September.

Adrian Gilbert gave his friend Davis a warm welcome home, and of
course wife and child made home more homelike.  But not many days
after his arrival the explorer wrote to Walsingham, "The North-west
Passage is a matter nothing doubtful, but at any tyme almost to be
passed, the sea navigable, voyd of yse, the ayre tolerable, and the
waters very depe."

We notice that the spelling of all words of Latin origin is good; it
is the English word that varies most from our spelling.  Anyway, he
is far superior in education to the Earl of Cumberland.

Davis also pointed out in his letter how good an opening there was in
the lands he had discovered for trade in oil and furs.

A hasty visit to London resulted in many merchants subscribing for a
second voyage, and the _Mermaid_, the _Sunshine_, _Moonshine_, and
_North Star_, a small pinnace, were chartered for it.  They sailed
from Dartmouth on the 7th of May 1586, and coasted along the south
shore of Ireland; then Captain Pope in the _Sunshine_, with the
_North Star_ as a tender, was despatched to search for a passage
northward between Greenland and Iceland, while Davis went as far as
the southern end of Greenland, But the pack-ice made it impossible to
land, so naming the cape "Farewell" he again entered Davis Straits.
On reaching Gilbert Sound he met so violent a gale that he was
obliged to take shelter among the islands which fringe the shore.

Davis writes: "We sent our boats to search for shoal water, where we
might anchor, and as the boat went sounding and searching, the
natives having espied them, came in their canoes towards them with
shouts and cries; but after they had espied in the boat some of our
company that were the year before here with us, they presently rowed
to the boat, took hold on the oar, and hung about the boat with such
comfortable joy as would require a long discourse to be uttered."

Davis, seeing their confidence, went ashore and distributed twenty
knives: "They offered skins to me for reward, but I made signs that
they were not sold, but given them of courtesie."  The next day, as
the crew were setting up a new pinnace, more than a hundred canoes
came round, bringing seal-skins and other furs for barter.

Davis and a party went inland, finding a plateau of grass and moss,
and many ravens and small birds.  In July, after more exploring, in
which the natives kept him company, Davis organised athletic games,
leaping and wrestling--"In this we found them strong and nimble, for
they cast some of our men that were good wrestlers."

The people were of good stature, with small hands and feet, broad
faces, small deep-set eyes, wide mouths, and beardless; they wore
images and believed in enchantments.  But other failings soon
appeared, for they were "marvellous thievish," began to cut the
cables, cut away the _Moonshine's_ boat from her stern, stole oars, a
caliver, a boar-spear and swords.  Davis was for forbearance, but his
men were angry, and complained heavily, "said that my lenitie and
friendly using of them gave them stomacke to mischiefe."  Still Davis
went on giving presents, but at sundown the Eskimos began throwing
stones into the _Moonshine_, which caused a pursuit and some shots.
At last they captured one of the thieves, and another followed with
lamentation as far as the ship.  "At length the fellow aboard us
spake four or five words unto the other and clapped his two hands
upon his face, whereupon the other doing the like, departed as we
supposed with heavy cheer.  We judged the covering of the face with
his hands and bowing of his body down, signified his death."  But it
was not quite so bad as that, for they gave the captive a new suit of
frieze, of which he was very joyful; he became sociable, trimmed up
his darts and fishing tools, and would set his hand to a rope's end
upon occasion.

They soon came upon a mountain of ice and could not get on; the men
grew sick and feeble and begged Davis to return, so he sailed
south-east and found land free from snow.  When they came to lat.
67°, they found numbers of gulls and mews, and caught a hundred cod
in half-an-hour.  Landing, they found a black bear, pheasants,
partridges, wild ducks, and geese, and killed some with bow and arrow.

On the 6th of September Davis sent some young sailors ashore to fetch
fish, but they were suddenly assailed in a wood, two being slain by
arrows.  Immediately after, a tremendous storm almost drove them on
the rocks among these "cannibals."  "But when hope was past, the
mighty mercy of God gave us succour and sent us a fair lee, so as we
recovered our anchor again and now moored our ship, where we saw that
God manifestly delivered us; for the strains of one of our cables
were broken, and we only rode by an old junk."

They reached home in October, bringing five hundred sealskins and
other furs.  The _Sunshine_ and _North Star_ made the east coast of
Greenland by July 7th, but found pack-ice, so they sailed round and
north to Gilbert Sound, where the crews played football with the
Eskimos.  The _North Star_ was lost in a gale, and the _Sunshine_
came home alone on the 6th of October.

So they had explored a vast extent of unknown coast, and entered many
fiords.  They had not found the Northwest Passage, but had found
Hudson Strait, and concluded correctly that the "north parts of
America are all islands."

Had they taken plenty of salt and fishing-tackle they might have
brought home a large cargo of fish, but they brought home the
knowledge that a great trade was possible in the far North.  Though
Davis, on going west to his own county, tried to persuade the
merchants that another voyage might be more successful, he did not
succeed in rousing their sympathies so far as to give more
subscriptions.

But on going home he found another little son, Arthur, and with his
wife and old friend, Adrian Gilbert, enjoyed a pleasant autumn.

In the winter the restless adventurer rode up to London with Gilbert,
and they visited the merchant-prince, William Sanderson, who gained
for Davis enough help to fit out a third voyage to the Arctic.  In
our days rich men have so much scientific spirit that they--some of
them--will consent to subscribe for Arctic and Antarctic voyages for
purely scientific purposes.  In the great Queen's days they looked
for some return in hard cash, or furs, or stones and metal of value.
But Davis's old shipmates loved him and were eager to volunteer
again, and some were natives of the villages round Stoke Gabriel.

On the 19th of May 1587, the _Sunshine_, _Elizabeth_, and _Ellen_
started from Dartmouth, the former to fish and make profit.  But when
they reached Gilbert Sound Davis resolved to send the two other ships
to the fishery, while he in the _Ellen_, a pinnace of 20 tons, went
north.  In estimating the exploits of these men, we must remember how
ill they were fitted out compared with modern explorers.  At the very
first the pilot of the _Ellen_ came to report a leak, and it was
debated whether they should risk their lives in exploring.

But when Davis addressed his little crew and said, "My boys, it will
be far better that we should end our lives with credit than return in
disgrace," they one and all agreed to go on with their captain.

They went along the west coast of Greenland, calling it the London
Coast, and by the 30th of June had reached lat. 72'12°, the most
northerly point Davis ever reached.  Here an island with a cliff 850
feet high was named "Sanderson his hope"; along the narrow, dark
ledges of this giant rock nestled myriads of white guillemots,
screaming and circling as busily they fed their young.

The sea was clear of ice, save that the Dreadnoughts of the North,
towering icebergs, reflected the sunshine in strange fantastic ways,
and floated proudly down to warmer waters.  Beyond them lay "a great
sea, free, large, very salt and blue, and of an unsearchable depth."

But on the 2nd of July they met "the Middle Pack," a hundred miles
long or more, and eight feet thick.  The _Ellen_ tried to find a
passage through in vain, so they drifted west till they sighted the
western coast of Davis Strait.  Davis took many observations which
were useful to succeeding explorers; he says in his log: "We fell
into a mighty race, where an island of ice was carried by the force
of the current as fast as our bark could sail.  We saw the sea
falling down into the gulf with a mighty overfall, roaring, with
divers circular motions like whirlpools."

They were to meet the fishing-vessels off the Labrador coast; but
these had gone home without waiting for Davis; and as they were being
sought, the _Ellen_ ran upon a rock and sprung a leak.  This was
mended with difficulty in a gale; then, with little fuel and less
water, Davis headed for home.  "Being forsaken and left in this
distress," he says, "referring myself to the merciful providence of
God, I shaped my course for England, and unhoped for of any, God
alone relieving me, I arrived at Dartmouth."

The log of his third voyage is the only one that has been left, but
we have no means of knowing if the fishing was successful.

When Davis came home all England was talking of a Spanish invasion,
and the Queen had no time to think of him and his discoveries.  On
reaching home he found a third little son awaiting him, named John,
after his father.

Though London and Greenwich and Exeter neglected Davis for a time,
yet he had done good work in discovering, or mapping afresh many
coasts and seas; he examined rocks and fiords, made notes on the
vegetation and fauna and on the habits and thoughts of the Eskimo
tribes; he also explored the coast of Labrador and called attention
to the lucrative trade in whales, seal, and fish which might be
established.

When the Armada came, John Davis was appointed to the command of a
vessel of 20 tons, the _Black Dog_, to act as a tender to the Lord
Admiral, with a crew of ten men and an armament of three guns.  Here
Davis was of use to the flagship as a pilot, for no one had taken
more intelligent interest in surveying the coast and marking shoals
than he.  We need not go again through the events of the long fight,
but it was in the fight off the Isle of Wight that Davis saw the
fiercest action, when Admiral Oquendo in his flagship, of 900 tons,
rammed the stern of the English flagship, the _Ark Royal_, and
unshipped her rudder.

After ten days of severe work Davis returned to Plymouth, and was at
home when his fourth child was born, named Philip!  Another memorial
of the Armada times was a work on navigation, written by Davis and
dedicated to Lord Howard of Effingham.

The next employment Davis found was to join the Earl of Cumberland's
squadron in the _Drake_ off the Azores, where he probably met Edward
Wright, an eminent mathematician and cosmographer, who had gone to
sea to observe the practical working of problems in nautical
astronomy.  Davis himself had invented an instrument for observing
the stars, so these two had much to discuss in common.

It was on this voyage that the English crews suffered so much from
want of water, which was very scarce on the islands.  The natives on
Graciosa, on being asked for water, replied that they would rather
give two tons of wine than one of water.  They came home with
thirteen prizes, and the money Davis received as his share enabled
him to go on an expedition more to his taste; for he loved peaceful
knowledge better than fighting.  His scheme was to go through
Magellan's Straits, to navigate the South Sea, and discover the
North-west Passage from the western side.

Magellan, a Portuguese navigator, had only discovered the strait
called by his name seventy years before; it was in 1520 that Magellan
first sailed in and found very deep water.  As he passed along,
winding to and fro, he saw so many fires at night lighting up the
woods and rocks on the southern side of the strait, that he named the
land "Tierra del Fuego." A snowy peak far to the south he named
"Campana de Roldan," "Roldan's bell"; they were short of provisions,
and the crew murmured and wished to return, but Magellan, a stern
disciplinarian and feared by his men, swore they should eat the
chafing-mats on the rigging rather than return.  After thirty-seven
days of sailing through winding reaches that seemed to lead nowhere,
and that stretched a hundred leagues and more, they came out into the
South Pacific; then boldly striking across the ocean to the islands
of the far East, Magellan met his fate at the hands of ruthless
savages.

In 1522 Sebastian del Cano, a Basque born on the shores of the Bay of
Biscay, returned to Seville after having been the first to sail round
the world.  In 1525 he sailed again from Corunna and passed through
the Straits of Magellan, but died at sea shortly after.

The Spanish Governor of Chili, de Mendoza, fitted out two vessels in
1557 and sent Ladrilleros to explore the straits; this he did under
most appalling hardships; most of his crew died of hunger and cold,
and he brought his ship back to Chili with only two survivors to help
him.  There were Spanish heroes in those days as now.  Then came
Drake, sailing from Plymouth in November 1577 in the _Golden Hind_,
and finding Magellan's account of the straits true as to the good
harbours, many islands, and plenty of fresh water, but meeting many
violent gales and storms.  He was only sixteen days in the straits,
and then sailed far up the western coast of America up to the 48th
degree, where the hills were covered with snow in June--he was the
second to sail round the globe.  From Drake's voyage it was, perhaps,
that Davis believed in the possibility of going northwards till he
found an opening on the north-west coast.

In 1586 Cavendish started with three vessels and passed through the
Straits of Magellan and completed the third navigation of the globe.

Chudleigh, another Devon man, was fired by these exploits to do
likewise, and sailed in 1589 with three ships through the Magellan
Straits, where he died.  Prince says: "He did not live long enough to
accomplish his generous designs, dying young; although he lived long
enough to exhaust a vast estate."

All these voyages Davis must have carefully studied with his friends,
Sir Walter Raleigh and Adrian Gilbert; the latter of whom joined with
him in the ownership of a ship, the _Dainty_, and the former helped
by ideas, plans, and subscriptions.

John Davis did not go on this quest to get riches, but solely to get
knowledge; many men thought him a fool, and jeered when he came back
disappointed, but the best men knew his high ambition to be the
worthiest.  Perhaps his wife grudged the large stake which he was
risking in this adventure; she and her boys seemed to come only
second in his thoughts.

Cavendish went as general on board the _Leicester_, and owned the
_Desire_, the ship in which he had sailed round the world; but
Cavendish cared mostly for rich prizes.

John Jones, an old and beloved shipmate, accompanied Davis in the
_Desire_, 120 tons, and proved a friend in need.  The _Dainty_ was
commanded by Captain Cotton, a friend of the Devon group.

The few weeks that Davis spent at home in the summer of 1591 were his
last happy days at Sandridge; but he cheered up his wife with
thoughts of great discoveries and fame and royal favour.

In February a severe storm separated the fleet off the river Plate
and Buenos Ayres, and as Cavendish had not appointed any spot for
meeting, they were some time before they discovered one another in
Port Desire.  When they did meet, Davis found the _Roebuck_ seriously
damaged, and heard that the _Dainty_, his own ship, had deserted and
gone home.  This was the first bitter disappointment, for it was in
the _Dainty_ that Davis had intended to go on with his explorations
northward.

There were some who suggested that Cavendish wished to knock on the
head Davis's nonsense about Arctic exploring, and they asserted that
Cavendish had told the crew of the _Dainty_ that he wanted them to go
into the river Plate, but that afterwards they might return home with
all his heart.

Cavendish abandoned his ship, the _Leicester_, because he complained
that "he was matched with the most abject-minded and mutinous company
that ever was carried out of England by man living, for they never
ceased to mutiny against him."  So he remained on board the _Desire_
as the guest of Captain Davis.

Port Desire, a good many miles north of the Straits of Magellan, was
a very dreary spot to rest in; steep white cliffs stained by running
water stretched for two miles across the bay; the soil inland was
poor, and water was scarce.  The only thing the sailors could find
was a sweet-smelling herb which protected them from scurvy.  Nine
miles to the south was Penguin Island, the home of many seals.

On the 20th of March they started again, and reached the straits on
the 8th of April.  At first the view is desolate and bare, but as you
pass the two narrows and enter the long reach, which runs north and
south for a hundred miles, the hills become thickly wooded with
winter's bark and an evergreen beech, most of them draped in moss and
set deep in arbutus and berberis.  High mountains capped with snow
stand up to the south, while humming-birds skimmed the trailing
fuchsias.

As they reached the dark frowning rock called Cape Froward, a wintry
gale met them, snowstorms burst upon them, and their only food was
mussels and limpets; they had to anchor for shelter in a little bay
for more than a month.

Anthony Knivet, one of the crew of the _Leicester_, thus described
the intense cold: "When I came on board with wet feet and began
pulling off my stockings, the toes came off with them: 'tis true! and
a shipmate of mine, Harris by name, lost his nose entirely; for, as
he was going to blow it with his fingers, he cast it incontinently
into the fire."

Cavendish now wanted to go back, but Davis assured him the snowstorms
would end, and all would be well, if only they would persevere.
"Then we will go back to the Brazilian coast," said Cavendish, "and
obtain supplies."

So they sailed back through the straits, Cavendish having returned to
his own ship.  At Cape Famine Cavendish landed all the sick from the
_Leicester_, and left them to starve from damp, cold, and hunger.

For the second time Cavendish disappeared in the night without making
any signal; this time he landed his sick on a hot beach under a
tropical sun, and there abandoned them.

Cavendish sailed for England, but died on the way.

In his will he accused Davis of deserting him; but the facts seem to
put the blame for desertion on his own shoulders; or it is possible
that each of these men was waiting for the other, each believing that
the other had deserted him.  And our verdict on Cavendish should be
modified by the state of his health, which was evidently broken by
anxiety and fear of mutiny, as well as by the terrible sufferings
caused by rough seasons.

In a letter to his executor, which Cavendish wrote before his death,
he says: "Consider whether a heart made of flesh be able to endure so
many misfortunes, all falling upon me without intermission.  I thank
my God that, in ending of me, He hath pleased to rid me of all
further trouble and mishaps."

Davis waited for nine weeks in Port Desire for Cavendish; his own
plight was sorry, for his sails were worn-out, his cables chafed and
untrustworthy, and he had lost a boat and oars.  However, he resolved
to send the pinnace in search of Cavendish, but two men on board the
_Desire_, named Charles Parker and Edward Smith, persuaded the crew
that Davis intended to maroon them; they even formed a plot to murder
their captain.  This plot was revealed by the boatswain, and Davis,
instead of hanging the two men, as most captains would have done,
called his crew together, took them into his confidence, and
explained his purpose; he forgave the mutineers, and gave up the idea
of sending the pinnace away.

Then he employed his men on shore very busily in making nails and
bolts, rigging and sails; some he sent to collect limpets from the
rocks, while others salted down hogsheads of seal-flesh at Penguin
Island, with salt collected from sea-water left in shallow pans and
evaporated in the sun.

On the 6th of August they sailed for the straits again, but a storm
drove him away among certain islands never before discovered.  These
must have been the Falkland Islands, barren hills and rocky shores
covered with seaweed and wild birds.

On the 18th they again passed the Cape of Virgins at the entrance to
the straits, and sailed easily through till they came to the "sea
reach."  Here they stayed fourteen days, suffering from the cold and
want of food; for the seal-flesh had become uneatable.  Then they
sailed into the Pacific on the 13th of September, but were driven
back by a furious storm and lost one of their cables, so that Davis
now had only one anchor left.  It was so deep close to shore that
sometimes he could moor his ship to the trees.  When for the third
time he was about to enter the Pacific, some of his men showed signs
of mutiny, so Davis wrote out a speech and requested the master to
repeat it to the crew.  In this speech these words occur: "Because I
see in reason that the limits of our time are now drawing to an end,
I do in Christian charity exhort you, first, to forgive me in
whatsoever I have been grievous to you; secondly, that you will
rather pray for our General (Cavendish) than use hard speeches of him
... lastly, let us forgive one another, and be reconciled as children
in love and charity.  So shall we, in leaving this life, live with
our glorious Redeemer, or, abiding in this life, find favour with
God."  The men were pacified for a time, and agreed to continue the
voyage; but, as before, a gale sprang up and seas broke over the
_Desire_ and the black pinnace, till the latter got under the lee of
the larger ship.

"Captain Davis, sir, we have taken many grievous seas aboard; I can't
hardly tell what shift to make next," shouted the captain of the
pinnace.

Davis shouted back, "Trust in God--keep under our lee, friend."

Next day the black pinnace suddenly broached to and went down with
all hands.

"The 10th of October," writes Janes in his diary, "being very near
the shore, the weather dark, the storm furious, and most of our men
having given over to travail, we yielded ourselves to death without
further hope of succour.  Our captain sitting in the gallery, very
pensive, I came and brought him some rosa solis (hot grog) to comfort
him; for he was so cold, he was scarce able to move a joint.  After
he had drunk and was comforted in heart, he began, for the ease of
his conscience, to make a large repetition of his fore-passed time,
and with many grievous sighs he ended in these words: 'Oh most
gracious God, with whose power the mightiest things among men are
matters of no moment, I most humbly beseech Thee that the intolerable
burden of my sins may, through the blood of Jesus Christ, be taken
from me: end our days with speed, or show us some merciful sign of
Thy love and our preservation.'"  Hardly had the captain's prayer
been uttered, than the sun shone out from a rift in the clouds, as if
a very token of help.  Davis jumped up, took a meridian altitude, and
shaped a course for the straits.  Every man felt relieved and even
cheery at the sudden change in the weather.  Next day they sighted
the tall headland at the west end of the straits.

"I doubt, captain, whether we can weather Cape Pillar after all,"
said the master.

"There is no remedy, man," replied Davis; "either we must double it,
or before noon we must die; therefore loose your sails and let us put
it to God's mercy."

So the _Desire_ was close-hauled and steered for the entrance; but
when she was half a mile from the point, the vessel was so near the
shore that the backwash, or counter-surf, jumped up against the
ship's side.  The wind and sea were raging beyond measure, and the
black rock frowned above them.

As a last resource, seeing that the ship was rapidly drifting to
leeward, on to the jagged teeth of the rocks, the master eased off
the mainsheet; the _Desire_ gathered way, leapt forward as she felt
the wind coming aft (some flaw had struck back off the cliff), and in
a few strokes of the pulse she had weathered the Cape.

Now they turned down the strait, and had the wind behind them;
without a rag of sail they sped before the storm, and in six hours
had been driven twenty-five leagues as if by magic.  Then the ship
being brought to inside a wooded cove, and moored securely to some
trees, the exhausted crew flung themselves down and enjoyed a long,
deep sleep.

How had Davis managed to pilot his ship in these unknown waters?
Why, he tells us he had made a map in his mind's eye when he had
passed through before in fair weather; and his men trusted him home,
and swore Captain Davis could pilot his ship "even in the hell-dark
night."  When they arrived at Penguin Island, nine miles south of
Port Desire, they sent boats ashore; the men found the penguins so
closely packed on the little island that they could not move without
treading on them.

It so happened that the two mutineers, Parker and Smith, were ordered
to stay on Penguin Island and collect birds, but they refused to
obey; for they believed that their captain was going to maroon them
there out of revenge for their ill conduct.  Davis called the crew
together and made them a speech, thus addressing the ringleaders:
"Parker and Smith, I understand that you are doubtful of your
security, through the perverseness of your own guilty consciences.
It is an extreme grief to me that you should judge me bloodthirsty,
in whom you have seen nothing but kind conversation....  All the
company knoweth that in this place you practised to the utmost of
your powers to murder me and the master, without cause, as God
knoweth; which evil we did remit you....  Now be void of these
suspicions; for I call God to witness that revenge is no part of my
thought."

Very few captains would have shown such leniency and patience as
Davis did; and when a few days after Parker and Smith fell victims to
an attack of savages, all the crew looked upon it as a judgment from
heaven.

The fresh food of penguins and young seals, together with the herb
which the sailors called "scurvy-grass," soon effected an improvement
in health.

On the 22nd of December the _Desire_ sailed for home, carrying, as
they believed, provisions for six months.  It was in a melancholy and
desponding spirit that Davis looked forward to returning.  There
would be no enthusiastic welcome for a seaman who came with no prizes
and no discovery of gold.  Who cared for his log-book and surveys of
strait and island? only the initiated few, the scientific sailors.
He was coming home a ruined man, having lost more than a thousand
pounds in this venture.  But as yet he did not know one half of his
misfortunes and disgrace.

His great faith in the goodness of God was to be still more sorely
tried.

In January they landed at Placentia, an island off the Brazilian
coast, and worked hard for many days, making new casks for water and
gathering roots and herbs.

On the night of February 5th Davis and several of the crew dreamed of
murder; they were all talking of it excitedly on deck when their
captain said, "Boys, when you land this morning, see ye go armed."

About noon, as the working party were resting in the shade, or
bathing in the quiet pools, there was a sudden whoop--an Indian
yell--and a body of Portuguese and Indians rushed upon them and
killed all but two, who escaped to the ship.

Davis rowed to the spot with an armed crew, but found only the dead
bodies of his men, and saw in the distance two pinnaces making for
Rio de Janeiro.

Now there were only twenty-seven men left out of seventy-six who
started from England; but more trouble was yet in store for the
survivors.

As they sailed over the hot ocean the penguin-flesh, which had been
badly cured with insufficient salt, made them ill; loathsome worms an
inch long were found in the meat.  "This worm," says Janes, "did so
mightily increase and devour our victuals that there was no hope how
we should avoid famine.  There was nothing the worms did not
devour--iron only excepted--our clothes, hats, boots, shirts, and
stockings; as for the ship, they did eat the timbers, so that we
greatly feared they would undo us by eating through the ship's side.
The more we laboured to kill them, the more they increased upon us,
so that at last we could not sleep for them, for they would eat our
flesh like mosquitoes."

Then the scurvy broke out again, bodies began to swell and minds to
give way.  Davis went from one to another, bidding them bear God's
chastisement in patience; but it must have wounded his kind heart to
see how many of the crew suffered and died.  At last there were only
sixteen left alive, and of these eleven were unable to move, but lay
moaning on the deck.

Captain Cotton and Mr. Janes, Davis, and a boy and one sailor--these
alone had health to work the ship, and took turns at the helm; as for
the sails, they were mostly blown away, and needed little managing.

It must have been a weary time, and they wondered if they would ever
see land before their food and water gave out.

But they sighted Ireland at last, and ran the old ship on shore near
Berehaven on the 11th of June 1593.  From Berehaven Captain Davis
sailed in a fishing-boat to Padstow in Cornwall--thinking, no doubt,
of wife and children, and the silver Dart, and the comforts of a
happy home, ruined man though he was.

As he drew near the familiar groves and fields, was it fancy?  or did
his neighbours shrink from his approach?  Could they have heard the
news of his ill success, and were they ashamed of him already?

"Ah! there is Adrian, old friend and true! he will welcome me home!"

"John--John Davis! how thou art changed, lad!  Hast heard the heavy
news?"

"No--surely my dear wife be not taken by the pestilence?"

"Better an she were, John.  A scoundrel named Milburne has been here
while you were on the seas, and has run away with her--robbed you of
your beloved Faith."

The shock was so great, the explorer could not speak for some
minutes.  Then, in a faltering voice: "The children, Adrian? be they
in the old home?"

"Yea, lad, under the care of a good soul.  God help you, John!"

The two friends grasped hands, and Davis said low to himself:

"Robbed me of my Faith!  Dear Lord in heaven, I have yet faith--faith
in Thee; and that shall be my last anchor, blow what gales there may
in a naughty night!"

So the brave, God-fearing seaman tried to take comfort in his heavy
hour, tried to laugh and be merry with his boys, and tried to make
excuses for the woman who had deserted him for a handsome coiner of
false money.

But the neighbours shook their heads as they saw him pace along the
river in the gloaming, with downcast eyes and slow stride.  "I doubt
Master John will never command another ship!"--that was the general
opinion.

Captain Davis was recovering health and good spirits at Sandridge
when, one afternoon in March 1594, the postman came, blowing his
horn, and delivered him a letter from his good friend, Sir Walter
Raleigh, from Sherborne Castle.  A letter in those days asked some
careful reading, handwriting was so varied and spelling so abnormal.
So John sat in an arbour from which he could look over the shining
reaches of the Dart, and straightened out the paper.

What was this strange news?  "A warrant is out against thee, John,
for some illegal practices which a man named Milburne has accused
thee of.  I would thou shouldst hasten up to London, calling here on
thy way."

Illegal practices!  John Davis knew nought of any such; but he packed
his travelling satchel, and ordered his man to bring round the bay
gelding.

In vain! he had hardly ridden a hundred yards when a pursuivant
intercepted him and carried him in custody to Dartmouth.

The charge was investigated by the best gentlemen in Devon: it did
not take long to prove the accusation false.  The chairman shook
hands with Captain Davis, and made a complimentary speech: "He was
sure they all recognised the diligence, fidelity, and intelligence of
their distinguished neighbour in the Queen's service.  They had heard
from others of his loyalty to his leader in the late voyage, of his
great kindness to his men, and of a moral courage shown in the last
few months under circumstances which might have overwhelmed a weaker
man.  This it was to be a hero indeed, and the men of Devon were
passing proud of so excellent a friend and neighbour."

We can imagine how the tortured seaman went home with gratitude in
his heart, first to God, and then to his kind acquaintance.  Once
more he could meet Judith Havard, the lady who was in charge of his
children, without a sense of shame.  And if he had lost all the money
he had saved up, yet he still had the little home and farm at
Sandridge, and leisure to read and write.

Yes, he would write a treatise on the art of navigation!  So two
years sped swiftly and happily by, while he wrote "The Seaman's
Secrets," dedicated to Lord Howard of Effingham.  His charts were
valued by British pilots for many years.  He possessed deep
scientific knowledge, with unrivalled experience as a seaman, and in
these quiet hours of study he was saving many a life in the future.

But he had not yet given up the dream of his youth, the discovery of
the North-west Passage, and he addressed an appeal to the Privy
Council on the subject.  In this he reminds the lords of the
achievements of his countrymen.  "John Hawkins was the first to
attempt a voyage to the West Indies, for before he made the attempt
it was a matter doubtful, and reported the extremest limit of danger,
to sail upon those coasts; ... such is the slowness of our nation,
for the most part of us rather joy at home like epicures, to sit and
carp at other men's hazard, ourselves not daring to give any attempt."

The writer hoped that his eloquent appeal might stir the blood of
courtiers; but no reply came, and he bowed his head to another
disappointment.

However, his three sons were growing up, and money must be found
somehow; for his wife was dead, and all depended on him alone.  So in
1595 John Davis went again to sea, captain of a ship trading to
Rochelle; and then he served under Essex before Cadiz, and in a
voyage to the Azores.

In the winter of 1598 Davis offered himself as pilot to the Dutch
expedition to the East Indies, and was gladly accepted.  At Table Bay
in South Africa he noted the Kaffirs as a strong and active race--"In
speaking they cluck with the tongue like a brood-hen."  Wherever he
went, he made notes of the exports and imports of each port, as well
as writing on the tides, shoals, and rocks.  On his return to England
the new East India Company was fitting out its first fleet under
James Lancaster, and Davis was asked to go as chief pilot.  He was to
receive £500 if the voyage yielded two for one, £1000 if three for
one, and £2000 if five for one.  His experience with the Dutch
enabled him to give valuable advice in selecting the cargo for
Eastern markets.

On the 2nd of April 1601 the fleet sailed from Tor Bay--this was one
of the most momentous events in British history, the birth of an
Indian Empire.

The crews suffered terribly from scurvy before they reached the Cape:
the _Red Dragon_ alone, on which Davis was embarked, escaped this
disease, as Captain Lancaster, at Davis's suggestion, had given three
spoonfuls of lime-juice to each man every morning.  A five months'
voyage without green food was always fatal to many, and in this case
had carried off 105 men before the fleet came into Table Bay.

Seven weeks in tents made the sick all sound again.  Davis advised
Captain Lancaster how to avoid giving offence to the Kaffirs, and a
brisk trade took place without any quarrels.  It was the same at
Madagascar; and when they reached the Coral Islands, and the
intricate navigation made sailing dangerous, the services of the
chief pilot were invaluable.  For Davis was always now ahead in the
pinnace, sounding and directing the ships, and so they all got safely
through without mishap.

At Acken the king received Lancaster, and gave leave for the building
of a factory and for permanent trading.  Pepper and spices were taken
on board, and after some adventures they brought home a cargo which
more than satisfied the Company, and Lancaster was knighted for a
success which was greatly due to the experience, energy, and care of
the chief pilot.

There are some men who do great work quietly and without fuss, who,
either from accident, or want of push, fail to receive public
recognition.

However, Davis probably did not care for Court life and ambition; he
preferred to be with his boys, sailing down to Dartmouth, or up to
Totnes.  His friend Adrian Gilbert was dead now, and Sir Walter
Raleigh was beginning to fall under a cloud, seeing that James of
Scotland had succeeded to Elizabeth.

For a year and three months Davis remained at home, then the sea
began to call him again; but before he went he prepared a second
edition of his "Seaman's Secrets," and he gave his troth to Judith
Havard.

"When I come home from my next voyage, God helping, we will wed."

It was a wistful look that Judith gave her lover as he went forth to
join Sir Edward Michelborne at Cowes for a third voyage to the East
Indies.  Davis had made his will, giving Judith, "my espoused love,"
a fourth part of his worldly goods.  They never saw him again, for in
December 1603 Sir Edward rescued some Japanese pirates off the Malay
peninsula, who formed a plot to kill the English and seize their
ships.

Davis had been directed by Michelborne to disarm the Japanese, but
deceived by their apparent gentleness and humility, he neglected to
do so; they repaid his generosity by giving him seven mortal wounds,
and were with difficulty subdued after four hours' desperate fighting.

It was an unworthy end to the most scientific and the most
God-fearing of all Elizabethan heroes!  Davis had been devoted to his
profession, and no love of gain entered into his thoughts.  His
charts of the English Channel, the Scilly Isles, the Arctic coasts,
and the Straits of Magellan were of great use and value for many
years.  As he wrote, "it was not in respect of his pains, but of his
love," that he wished to be judged.  He cared tenderly for those
under his charge, and he was beloved by his men.  He laboured more to
save men's lives than to destroy them: such a virtue did not in those
times seem to merit any official distinction, but we hope we are
wiser now.

Davis, of course, had his weakness.  He could face storm and frozen
seas, perils of the ocean and the forest; but he was too kind and
easy, too good-natured and forgiving when he had to deal with rogues
and ruffians.

He was too long away from home and wife and children, and so he lost
his wife's faith and devotion.  But this disappointment and sorrow he
met in a manly way, and forced himself to forget his troubles in his
literary work for the welfare of others.

His friend and biographer, John Janes, had served under Davis in two
Arctic expeditions and in the Magellan Straits voyage, and ever found
him a true and loyal captain as well as a learned and genial
companion.

Davis did not obtain the glory won by Drake, or the fame won by
Humphrey Gilbert, or the honours heaped upon Sir Walter Raleigh; but
the light that shines upon good deeds bravely done will assuredly
grow clearer and brighter over the life of John Davis, as time sifts
the trivial from the eternal good.



CHAPTER IX

FRANCIS DRAKE, THE SCOURGE OF SPAIN

Francis Drake had a kinsman at Plymouth who had been the first
Englishman to sail to the Brazils--William Hawkins, father of John, a
rich merchant and shipowner.  Drake's father, Edmund, had been a
sailor in his youth, and was settled near Tavistock when Francis was
a child; he was a strong "Reformation man," and his preaching had
made him enemies, so that he had to fly and take shelter in an old
ship at Chatham, where his friends obtained for him the post of
Reader of Prayers to the Royal Navy.  Thus little Francis drank in at
a very early age the sights and sounds of the sea, while his mind was
nursed on denunciations of Rome and hatred of religious tyranny.  A
man with twelve children must plant them out early, and Francis was
apprenticed as a boy to the skipper of a small craft that traded to
Holland.  As a boy he thus was brought into contact with Flemings
flying from persecution, and the horrors of the Inquisition were his
daily subject of talk.  The rough usage of those days built him up
into a sturdy, thick-set, rollicking youngster; he must have shown a
rare spirit even then, for his master liked him so well that at his
death he left Francis the vessel on which he served.

In 1564 Spain closed her ports to the English, so Drake sold his ship
and entered the service of his kinsmen, John and William Hawkins.

John had just returned from his first slaving voyage, and was being
lionised in London on account of the enormous profits of his
expedition.

Francis Drake sailed to Biscay under William, and at St. Sebastian
met some Plymouth sailors who had just emerged half-dead from the
dungeons of the Inquisition.  Thus little by little the "Scourge of
the Spanish Main" was being moulded by sights and sounds of cruelty
to fight against Philip.

Then he sailed under Fenner to the West Indies and saw some sharp
conflicts, was treacherously attacked, and came home empty-handed.

Again, in 1567, he sailed as pilot under John Hawkins to Guinea, took
a prize, _The Grace of God_, and was made its captain.

It is very strange how history repeats itself, for Las Casas, the
apostle to the Indians, was even then urging the employment of
negroes to take the place of the Indians in South America, who died
too quickly in their forced service: just as the Chinese were
recently brought over to the Rand to save the lives of the Kaffirs.
So John Hawkins had good authority for his kidnapping of African
slaves, and may have thought he was doing good, not evil.

How the voyage prospered has been told in an earlier chapter.

But it sent home Hawkins and Drake in a temper that boded ill for
Philip, if ever opportunity should make a great revenge a possibility.

Drake no sooner arrived at Plymouth than he was bidden by William
Hawkins to ride post-haste to London to inform the Council of his
ill-treatment.  It was another argument in favour of war with Spain.

Drake took service in the Queen's Navy, and sailed under Sir William
Winter to Rochelle, to convoy English merchantmen to the Baltic.

That summer he came home on leave and married Mary Newman, who was
living at St. Bordeaux, close to Plymouth.

But his domestic happiness was soon broken off by his being ordered
to sail with the _Dragon_ and the _Swan_ to the Spanish Indies.  He
was only to use his senses and find out where Spain was most
vulnerable.

In the following year Drake sailed again with the _Swan_ only; he
made a few prizes, and treated his captives so humanely and
generously that his name was at first not a word of terror, but
associated with kindness.

However, he had come home with such a poor opinion of Spanish prowess
that he conceived the idea of sailing to the Gulf of Darien and
seizing the treasure-house and all its spoils.

On May 24, 1572, Drake sailed out of Plymouth Sound on board the
_Pasha_, of 70 tons, with his brother John in command of the _Swan_,
of 25 tons.  His brother Joseph was there too, and John Oxenham and
other volunteers; the crews numbered but seventy-three in all, and
the project was to seize the port of Nombre de Dios, and carry off
the gold and silver bars.

On July 12th he arrived at a tiny land-locked bay, where he had
formerly been, and had concealed his stores--Port Pheasant, as he had
styled it.

On landing they found a warning inscribed on a plate of lead and
fastened to a huge tree: "Captain Drake, if you fortune to come into
the port, make haste away, for the Spaniards have betrayed this place
and taken away all that you left.--Your loving friend, JOHN GARRETT."

But Drake had intended to set up three pinnaces here, which he had
brought over in pieces; so he cleared and entrenched a spot in the
wood and set to work with his carpenters.  As they laboured and
hammered and sang, suddenly a little squadron sailed in, a ship, a
caravel, and a shallop.

They were getting ready to defend themselves, when a hearty English
"hail" rang out, "Who are you?"  "Captain James Ranse, with Sir
Edward Horsey's fleet."

"What! old Ned Horsey, the pirate!  Come along and have a drink, sir!"

The frank, blue-eyed Drake laughed heartily and clapped on the back
some of the newcomers, who had served under him the year before.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: DRAKE CAPTURES NOMBRE DE DIOS]

Drake and his men rushed up the main street, some with firearms,
others with bows and arrows, and carrying flaming pikes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The upshot was that these thirty-eight men agreed to join Drake in
his mad project; for there was a magnetic power in this born leader
of men, as in all great leaders; they could not help believing in him
and loving him for his very rashness and devilry--Drake, the Robin
Hood of the ocean.

When the pinnaces were put together they stole along the coast,
seized and questioned some negroes whom they found, and heard that
all the country from Panama to Nombre de Dios was held by a savage,
black people, a mixed race of African escaped slaves intermarried
with Indian women, and forming a tribe of splendid giants, formidable
to their late masters, the Spaniards, and terribly cruel.  But, owing
to their recent outrages, the people of Nombre de Dios had sent to
Panama for help, and Drake's surprise did not look feasible.

However, with seventy-three men armed, some of them with bows and
arrows and gear for holding blazing tow, Drake crept along near the
shore in the dark.

As they landed under the shore battery they heard the city waking to
a panic, for they dreaded an attack of the half-breeds: first came a
confused murmur, then women's shrieks, then shouts of command and the
tuck of drums.  Drake and his men rushed up the main street, meeting
at the Plaza a splutter of gun-shots and then a long roar of
musketry.  In the midst of the fray John Drake and Oxenham broke in
upon the Spaniards' flank, who turned and fled, pursued by flaming
pikes and arrows.  On entering the governor's house Drake saw a great
pile of silver bars shining from floor to ceiling--a pile seventy
feet in length.

"Not one bar to be touched, lads," shouted Drake, "till the fighting
be done."

As they hurried back to the streets a tropical storm burst on them,
and they had to take cover in a long shed.  As they tried to repair
the damage done to matchlock and bowstring, Drake marked the signs of
fatigue and fear, and shouted: "Lads, I have brought you to the mouth
of the treasure-house of the world.  Blame nobody but yourselves if
ye go away empty."

As Drake stepped forward to lead the way to the treasury door, he
suddenly rolled over speechless in the sand.  As they stooped to lift
him, they noted a pool of blood, and a wound in his leg which he had
hidden for some time.  They carried him to the pinnace and rowed back
to the ships, the sun just rising to see Drake's great failure, which
had so nearly succeeded.

Next day a Spanish general rode round to the bay where Drake's ships
lay, and asked if this was indeed the chivalrous "El Draque" who
never drowned his prisoners?

"Yes," laughed Drake, "but go tell your governor that before I
depart, if God lend me life and leave, I mean to reap some of your
harvest which you get out of the earth, and send into Spain to
trouble all the world."

In ten days' time Drake swooped down upon Cartagena, cut out a rich
ship, and carried it in triumph out to sea; then the Spaniards lost
sight of him and his.  But Drake was only hiding in a pretty little
bay, resting his men and feeding them with game and fish and fruit.
A negro friend, Diego, put him in communication with the Maroons, as
the mixed race was called, and they showed him how to seize the
treasure as it was borne on mules across the isthmus.  They had to
wait till the dry season, so Drake kept his men cheery and well by
games and daring cutting out of vessels; yet withal he displayed much
caution and far-sighted skill in all he did, so that there were no
laments, no thought of mutiny or discontent.

In December his brother John was killed while attacking a Spanish
frigate full of musketeers: it caused Drake and many others great
sorrow, for he had been a brave and trusty comrade.

In January 1573 a fever came and struck down half the company: Joseph
Drake expired in his brother's arms, and soon after the Maroon scouts
ran up to tell the English that the Spanish fleet had come for the
treasure.

Only eighteen men were fit to go upon Drake's new adventure, and
these with thirty Maroons plunged into the forest track.  The Maroons
were splendid scouts and hunters, and insisted on carrying all the
burdens.  On the fourth day they had reached the summit of the range,
where stood up a giant of the forest; into this Drake climbed and saw
before him the golden Pacific, behind him rolled the silver Atlantic.
With strange feelings of wonder, piety, and ambition the great
sea-rover gazed upon the unknown waters of the west, and prayed the
Almighty to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship
in that sea.

Then he climbed down and told the men of his prayer; thereat John
Oxenham vowed a great vow, "Unless the captain doth beat me from his
company, I will follow him, by God's grace so I will!"

He knew not how his prayer was to be in part heard, but instead of
coming home with hands full of gold, he was to be taken and executed
at Lima.

Meanwhile Drake's party went on, and lay in ambush a league outside
the gates of Panama.  A spy brought word that two large mule-trains
laden with silver were in the market-place, making ready to start;
while with them was to ride the treasurer of Lima, with eight
mule-loads of gold and one of jewels.

They pulled their shirts over their clothes as for a night-attack,
and lay in two companies some fifty yards apart.

What a momentous hour that was, as they waited for the tinkle of the
mule-bells in the long grass!  they had been bidden to lie quiet if
any traveller came riding towards Panama.  One such did come, and one
fool, half-drunk, fired at him, sending him at a gallop to tell his
friends that El Draque had sprung up again.

The astute treasurer bided in the city and sent on the silver only.

So when the tinkle grew loud and Drake stood up and blew his whistle,
and the men sprang upon the mules and ripped open the bags--only
silver was found.  Soon they heard the tramp of armed men coming from
Panama; there was no time to lose, they must abandon the loot and
escape--that miserable drunkard had spoilt all.  They made for Venta
Cruz, and charged like madmen into the little town.

There was a hospital there, full of sick ladies and young mothers;
these poor creatures believed they would all be burnt to death, and
screamed aloud for mercy.

"Have I not ordered that no woman shall be touched?" said Drake.

"Yea, sir, but they will not believe it is true."

Then the dreaded rover, El Draque himself, entered the great ward of
the hospital, and spoke words of comfort to the ladies; and when they
saw the kind and merry light in his frank blue eyes, they were quite
content.

Drake and his men were away before the soldiers came from Panama.
Whither he went they knew not; but in the next fortnight two or three
Spanish frigates reported having been boarded by a polite pirate, who
insisted on relieving them of most of their gold.  A panic set in,
and the gold ships were afraid to stir.

On the last night of March, as the mule-trains, laden with silver and
gold, were drawing near to Nombre de Dios, there was a sudden yell
from the Maroons, "Yo Peho!" and a crashing of firearms.  The mules
knelt down, and Drake's men rifled the packs, and were away before
the alarm could be given.

One day before this, a Huguenot privateer came across an English ship
and begged for help.  "Come on board and tell your story," signalled
the English captain.

The Frenchman came and told a tale which startled all who understood.
It was just the latest news from Paris--nothing else but the St.
Bartholomew massacre!

"Just God!" cried Francis Drake, "may I do something to crush this
tyranny!"

There and then the Huguenot and the sea-rover made a compact to work
together.  The Frenchmen were with Drake when he made his attack on
the mule-train, and helped to carry the silver bars to the
river-mouth, where the pinnaces were to meet them.  Drenched by a
rain-storm they looked for the pinnaces; but, instead, saw seven
Spanish vessels rowing towards Nombre de Dios.  What was the good of
their staggering under a weight of treasure if they had no means of
carrying it home!  They sat down and looked at one another in blank
despair.

But Francis Drake alone was laughing--positively laughing--though his
fate was apparently sealed; torture and a hideous prison, and a
shameful death.

The Frenchmen gazed upon him with open-mouthed wonder.  Who was this
short, well-set seaman, with broad chest and long brown hair, with
full beard tapering, brown to russet, with full blue eyes and fair
complexion, that he should exercise so strange an influence over his
men?

For already, when Drake came to them, and in a few cheery words
heartened them, they smiled the smile of hope, and were ready to do
his bidding.

"Now, boys, cheer up!  See ye not how God hath sent a heavy storm to
help us?  What are those things drifting down with the current? are
they not big trees sent to help us home, boys?  Come, let us make a
raft; we will reach our ships long before the lazy Spaniards have
made up their minds how to catch us.  This is no time to fear, but
rather to haste, and prevent that which is feared.  The raft, boys,
the raft! quick! to stay the tree-trunks."

In a very short time they had caught and harnessed the drifting
trunks--one Englishman and two Frenchmen joined Drake upon the raft.
They had a biscuit-bag for a sail and a slender tree for a rudder,
and as they pushed off into the stream, Drake waved his hat and
shouted cheerily:

"If it please God that I shall ever set foot aboard my frigate in
safety, I will by one means or another get you all aboard, in despite
of all the Spaniards in the Indies."

As they reached the bar, every wave came surging up to their arm-pits
as they sat and held on like grim death.  Then when they lost the
current and tried to row with extemporised oars, the hot sun and the
salt sea parched them, and the toil for six long hours wearied them,
till hope sank very low.

Then all of a sudden Drake stopped rowing and shaded his eyes with
his hand: "See, lads! there be our pinnaces bearing straight for
us--all fear is over now; we are saved by the mercy of God."

But the pinnaces had not seen the raft, and soon disappeared behind a
headland, making for their night's quarters.

There was a great surf raging along the shore, but Drake steered the
raft straight through it; so, soused and bruised and tumbled, they
came merrily ashore.

The crews stood up to receive four shipwrecked, ragged
strangers--heathen perhaps!  But when one of them hailed them in the
tones they knew so well, they were horrified!  Their great captain
reduced to this scant following!

Then came explanations, and when they pleaded the storm which had
swept the pinnaces away, Drake forgave them, and pulling a quoit of
gold from his bosom he said, "Give thanks to God, our voyage is made!"

So it was; for they soon picked up the others and all the booty, and
Drake made sail for home, running in close at Cartagena with the flag
of St. George waving a mad defiance at his mast-head, and all his
silken pennants and floating ensigns bidding the Spaniards a farewell
in pure devilry of mocking fun.

But before they left the coast they had to set ashore their Maroon
friends.  Pedro, their chief, had taken a fancy to Drake's sword, and
Drake gave it to him gladly; then Pedro desired him to accept four
wedges of gold, which he did with all courtesy, and the allies parted
in great good-humour.

The voyage home was so prosperous that in twenty-three days they
sailed from Cape Florida to the Scilly Isles.  It was Sunday, August
9, 1573, when they sailed into Plymouth harbour, making the echoes
speak to the thunder of their salute.  Folk were in church at the
time, and to the dismay of the preacher the congregation jumped up
and ran out to see what was toward, so that "there remained few or no
people with the preacher."

"'Tis Master Francis Drake come home at last!"  All Plymouth went
down to the water's edge to greet their special hero--Drake of Devon!

But Francis Drake had not arrived at a happy moment for himself.
Alva had been offering good terms, and the Queen was surrounded just
then by friends of Spain.  Drake's position was one of danger; he
might possibly be given up to Philip as a mere pirate who had not the
Queen's sanction.  So he took his ship round to Queenstown and hid in
"Drake's Pool."

Time went on, and still politics made his life dangerous; so Drake
with a letter of introduction from Hawkins joined Essex in Ireland.
It was a very cruel and heartless war, even against women and
children; and from what we have seen of Drake's chivalry to women, it
must have been most loathsome to his great soul.  However, when he
returned to London things had changed; this time the Queen was very
angry with Philip, and she sent Walsingham to seek out Drake.  The
Queen was very gracious, and said she wanted Drake to help her
against the King of Spain.  How his heart must have leapt up with a
new hope; but the wind of policy veered again, and nothing came of
the interview at first.  Still, it was something to have been
introduced to the Queen by Sir Christopher Hatton; and when that lady
gave Drake a sword and said, "We do account that he which striketh at
thee, Drake, striketh at us," he must have felt a proud man.

A man so frank and open as Francis Drake was, must have found it
difficult to follow the shifts and turns of policy.  The Queen would
not openly give her sanction to a new expedition, but she secretly
aided the enterprise; and Sir John Hawkins and many others subscribed.

Drake was to sail in the _Pelican_, 100 tons; Captain Winter in the
_Elizabeth_, of 80.  There were also the _Marygold_, the _Loan_, and
the _Christopher_, a pinnace, of 35 tons.  The crews, officers and
gentlemen, amounted to some two hundred.

They sailed from Plymouth on the 15th of November 1577, but a
terrible storm off Falmouth obliged them to put back.  They started
afresh on the 13th of December, and were to meet at Mogadore, on the
coast of Barbary.  It seems that Burghley did not approve of Drake's
bold venture, and had sent Thomas Doughtie, with secret orders to do
what he could to limit the risks and scope of the expedition.
Doughtie was a personal friend of Drake, and it was some time before
Sir Francis found out what Doughtie was doing--such as tampering with
the men and trying to lessen Drake's influence.  When they were near
the equator, Drake, being very careful of his men's health, let every
man's blood with his own hands.

In February they made the coast of Brazil, without losing touch of
one another.  Here they landed and saw "great store of large and
mighty deer."  They also found places for drying the flesh of the
nandu, or American ostrich, whose thighs were as large as "reasonable
legs of mutton."  Further south they stored seal-flesh, having slain
over two hundred in the space of an hour!  The natives whom they saw
were naked, saving only that they wore the skin of some beast about
their waist.  They carried bows an ell long, and two arrows, and were
painted white on one side and black on the other.

They were a tall, merry race; delighted in the sound of the trumpet,
and danced with the sailors.  One of them, seeing the men take their
morning draught, took a glass of strong Canary wine and tossed it
off; but it immediately went to his head, and he fell on his back.
However, the savage took such a liking to the draught that he used to
come down from the hills every morning, bellowing "Wine! wine!"

A few days later there was a scuffle at Port Julian with the natives,
and Robert Winter was killed.  But a greater tragedy was impending.

Sixty years before, Magellan had crushed a mutiny on this spot, and
the old fir-posts that formed the gallows still stood out on the
windy headland.

For some months now Drake had been harassed by mutinous conduct, and
all the evidence pointed to his old friend Doughtie being at the
bottom of it.  One day Drake, in a sudden burst of wrath, had ordered
Doughtie to be chained to the mast.  Yet, as the ships rode south
into the cold winds, the crews murmured more savagely.  Doughtie and
his friends were demoralising Captain John Winter's ship.  Something
must be done, and done quickly, if the expedition was not to fail.

On the last day of June the crews were ordered ashore.  There, hard
by Magellan's gallows, an English jury or court-martial, with Winter
as president, was set to try Doughtie for treason and mutiny.  The
court, after much wrangling, found the prisoner "Not guilty."  But
Doughtie in the midst of the trial had boasted that he had betrayed
the Queen's secret to Burghley.  Thereat Drake took his men down to
the shore and told them all how the Queen's consent had been
privately given, and how Doughtie had done his best to overthrow
their enterprise.

"They that think this man worthy of death," he shouted, "let them
with me hold up their hands."  As he spoke almost every man's hand
went up.

"Thomas Doughtie, seeing no remedy but patience for himself, desired
before his death to receive the communion, which he did at the hands
of Master Fletcher, our minister, and our general himself accompanied
him in that holy action."  Then in quiet sort, after taking leave of
all the company, Doughtie laid his head on the block and ended his
life.  Then Drake addressed his men.  He forgave John Doughtie, but
said all discords must cease, and the gentleman must haul and draw
with the mariner.  From that moment discipline was established, and
there were no more quarrels.

The _Pelican_, the _Elizabeth_, and the _Marygold_, the only ships
that remained, now set sail, and on August 20, 1578, hove to before
the Straits of Magellan.  It was here that Drake changed the name of
his ship to the _Golden Hind_, perhaps in compliment to his friend
Sir Christopher Hatton, who bore it in his arms.

So rapid was the passage through the Straits that in a fortnight they
had reached the Pacific.  Drake's intention was to steer north and
get out of the nipping cold, but a gale from the north-east came on
and lasted three weeks, when the _Marygold_ went down, and Winter,
after waiting a month for Drake within the Straits, went home.  Drake
in the _Golden Hind_ was swept south of Cape Horn, "where the
Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meet in a large and free scope."

Drake went ashore, and leaning over a promontory, amused himself by
thinking that he had been further south than any man living.

After anchoring for some time in southern islands, Drake sailed
north, and finding an Indian pilot, steered for Valparaiso.

In the harbour lay a Spanish ship waiting for a wind to carry them to
Panama with their cargo of gold and wine of Chili.  When the lazy
crew saw a sail appearing, they made ready to welcome the newcomers
with a pipe of wine, and beat a drum as a merry salute.

No foreign ship had ever been seen on those western coasts; they had
no thought of danger, when a boat drew alongside, and Thomas Moon
clambered up and shouted, "Abaxo perro!" ("Down! you dog!"), and
began to lay about him lustily.

The eight Spaniards and three negroes on board were soon safely
secured under hatches; then they rifled the little town, and took the
prize out to sea for more leisurely search: 1770 jars of Chili wine
and 60,000 pieces of gold and some pearls rewarded their efforts.
Drake now wished to sack Lima and find Winter.  Meanwhile he tarried
in a hidden bay for a month, and refreshed his men in a delightful
climate.

Then they proceeded slowly along the coast.  One day while looking
for water they came upon a Spaniard lying asleep with thirteen bars
of silver by his side.  "Excuse us, sir, but we could not really
allow you to burden yourself with all this."  Several merry raids of
this sort kept the men jolly and in good temper.  Leisurely though
the _Golden Hind_ was sailing northwards, no news had come to Lima of
the English rover being on the sea.

A Portuguese piloted Drake into the harbour of Callao after
nightfall, "sailing in between all the ships that lay there,
seventeen in number."  These they rifled, and heard that a ship, the
_Cacafuego_, laden with silver, had just sailed.  As they were
getting ready to follow, a ship from Panama entered the harbour and
anchored close by the _Golden Hind_.  A custom-house boat put off and
hailed them, and a Spaniard was in the act of mounting the steps when
he saw a big gun mouthing at him.  He was over the side in a moment
and in his boat crying the alarm!  The Panama vessel cut her cable
and put to sea, but the _Golden Hind_ followed in pursuit and soon
caught her.

In the next few days, as they were following the _Cacafuego_, they
made a few prizes, which pleased the men vastly; and after crossing
the line on 24th February, saw the _Cacafuego_ about four leagues
ahead of them.

The Spanish captain slowed down for a chat, as he supposed; but when
Drake hailed them to strike, they refused.  "So with a great piece he
shot her mast overboard, and having wounded the master with an arrow,
the ship yielded."

Four days they lay beside her transferring the cargo--gold, silver,
and precious stones--so that the _Golden Hind_ was now ballasted with
silver.

The whole value was estimated at 360,000 pieces of gold.  Drake gave
the captain a letter of safe conduct in case he should meet his other
ships.

"Master Wynter, if it pleaseth God that you should chance to meet
with this ship of Señor Juan de Anton, I pray you use him well,
according to my word and promise given unto them; and if you want
anything that is in this ship, I pray you pay them double the value
of it, which I will satisfy again; command your men not to do her any
hurt....  I desire 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 danger, and bring us to our
desired haven: to whom be all honour, glory, and praise, for ever and
ever.  Amen.--Your sorrowful captain, whose heart is heavy for you,
FRANCIS DRAKE."

We are told that Robin Hood liked to attend mass every morning, but
even he does not astonish us by his piety so much as this "great
dragon" of the seas.  No doubt it was all genuine, and he believed he
was only doing his duty when he robbed King Philip's ships, and
thereby weakened his power for persecuting those who did not agree
with him in his religious views.

"They that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

Francis Drake felt himself commissioned by a greater than Queen
Elizabeth.  "I am the man I have promised to be, beseeching God, the
Saviour of all the world, to have us in His keeping "--so he writes
in his letter to Winter.

The question now before them was how to get home.  The whole west
coast of America was now alarmed, and the Spaniards would stop him if
he tried to return by the Straits as he came.  So Drake called the
ship's company together and took them into counsel.  He desired to
sail north and find a way home by the North-west Passage; for he,
too, was possessed by that chimerical idea.

"All of us," writes one of his company, "willingly hearkened and
consented to our general's advice; which was, first, to seek out some
convenient place to trim our ship, and store ourselves with wood and
water and such provisions as we could get; thenceforward to hasten on
our intended journey for the discovery of the said passage, through
which we might with joy return to our longed homes."

On 16th March they made the coast of Nicaragua and effected some
captures.  Swooping down upon the little port of Guatuleo, they found
the judges sitting in court, and as a merry change for them, the
whole court, judges and counsel and prisoners, were carried off to
the _Golden Hind_, where, amid hearty laughter, the chief judge was
bidden to write an order for all the inhabitants to leave the town
for twenty-four hours.  Then Drake and his men went ashore and
replenished their cupboards from the Spanish storehouses.  The next
capture was a vessel containing two Chinese pilots, who had all the
secret charts for sailing across the Pacific.

We may well believe that Drake, as he pored over these in his little
cabin, may have thought to himself, "Why should not we go home that
way, and thus have sailed round the globe?"

On 3rd June they had reached latitude 42° N., and were feeling the
cold extremely.  A storm was blowing as they reached Vancouver
Island, and here they turned back, and after turning south ten
degrees put into a fair and good bay, where the white cliffs reminded
them of home, probably near San Francisco.

The natives came round in their canoes, and one threw a small rush
basket full of tabah, or tobacco, into the ship's boat.

Tents were put up on the shore and fortified by stones, but the red
folk who assembled seemed to be worshipping the strangers as gods.
Presents were exchanged, but their women "tormented themselves
lamentably, tearing chest and bosom with their nails, and dashing
themselves on the ground till they were covered with blood."  Drake
at once ordered all his crew to prayers.  The natives seemed to
half-understand the ceremony, and chanted a solemn "Oh!" at every
pause.

Next day the great chief came with his retinue in feathered cloaks
and painted faces.  The red men sang and the women danced, until the
chief advanced and put his coronet on Drake's head.  These people
lived in circular dens hollowed in the ground; they slept upon rushes
round a central fire.  The men were nearly naked; the women wore a
garment of bulrushes round the waist and a deer-skin over the
shoulders.

When at the end of July the _Golden Hind_ weighed anchor, loud
lamentations went up and fires were lit on the hilltops as a last
sacrifice to the divine strangers.  For sixty-eight days they sailed
west and saw no land; then they came to islands where the natives
pilfered; then they made the Philippines, and in November the
Moluccas.  Drake anchored at a small island near Celebes, east of
Borneo, and spent four weeks in cleaning and repairing his ship.
Here they saw bats as big as hens, and land-crabs, "very good and
restoring meat," which had a habit of climbing up into trees when
pursued.

As they sailed west they got entangled among islands and shoals, and
on the 9th of January 1579 they sailed full tilt upon a rocky shoal
and stuck fast.

Boats were got out to find a place for an anchor upon which they
might haul, but at the distance of a boat's length they found deep
water and no bottom.  The ship remained on the shoal all that night.
First they tried every shift they could think of, but the
treasure-laden vessel refused to budge.  Then Drake, seeing all was
hopeless, and that not only the treasure, but all their lives, were
likely to be lost, summoned the men to prayers.  In solemn
preparation for death they took the Sacrament together.

Then, when the ship seemed fast beyond their strength to move her,
Drake, with the same instinct that prompted Cromwell after him to
say, "Trust in God, but keep your powder dry," gave orders to throw
overboard eight guns.

They went splash into the six feet of water by the side, and the ship
took no notice at all; so Drake, with a sigh, cried, "Throw out three
tons of cloves--sugar--spices--anything;" till the sea was like a
caudle all around.  And the _Golden Hind_ still rested quietly on the
shelving rock, with only six feet of water on one side, whereas it
needed thirteen to float her.  The wind blew freshly and kept her
upright as the tide went down.  The crew began to look curiously at
one another, and to wonder what would happen when all their food was
consumed.

At the lowest of the tide the wind suddenly fell, and the ship losing
this support, fell over sideways towards the deep water.

So they were to be drowned after all, for she must fill now.

No; there was a harsh scraping sound heard.  Could it be possible?
Yes; her keel was slipping down the slope very gently and mercifully.

What a shout these sea-worn mariners raised; how they thanked God for
this salvation; for the relief had come at low tide, when all their
efforts seemed to be useless.  Surely it was a miracle--an answer to
their captain's prayers.  On reaching Java, Drake was informed that
there were large ships not far off--Portuguese settlements were
rather too near to be safe; so he steered for the Cape of Good Hope,
which his men thought "a most stately thing, and the fairest cape
they had seen in the whole circumference of the earth."

As the _Golden Hind_ sailed along by Sierra Leone and towards Europe,
the great sea rover must have felt that the prayer he had breathed
within the mammoth tree on Darien six years before was at last
fulfilled.

He had sailed the South Sea and crossed the Pacific and made the
compass of the round world in the _Golden Hind_ within three years.

As they reckoned, when nearing Plymouth Sound, it was Monday,
September 25, 1580, but within an hour they learnt that they had
arrived on Sunday.

No one expected them; no one at first realised what vessel it was
that came silently to anchorage, heavy and slow from the barnacles
and weeds; for the news had come home that Drake had been hanged by
the Spaniards.  But only in August last, Mendoza, the Spanish
ambassador, had come to Burghley with a wild tale sent him by the
Viceroy of Mexico, that El Draque had been ravaging the Pacific, and
playing the pirate amongst King Philip's ships.  The Queen pretended
she knew nothing about it, and pacified the ambassador by seeming to
agree with him that Drake was a very naughty man indeed.  So, when
the _Golden Hind_ dropped her anchor, a few friends took boat and
told her captain how things were going at Court.

Drake's blue eyes at first looked steely.  Had he sailed round the
world and brought all this treasure home to be given over to Spain?

But a moment's thought brought a merry twinkle into those eyes, and
he gave a sharp order: "Up with the anchor, there!  Warp her out
behind St. Nicholas Island!"

If he must be treated as a pirate, then they must catch him if they
can.  "You will take my excuses to the Mayor, and tell him how gladly
I would land; but you have the plague, I hear, at Plymouth; our
constitutions are hardly strong enough to bear an attack of plague."

Meanwhile a messenger was sent by Drake post-haste to London, with
gifts for the Queen and Burghley; then a visit from Drake's wife and
some friends made the time pass pleasantly enough.  Yet it was
somewhat galling to the brave adventurer to have to wait a week for
tidings as to whether he was to lose his head for piracy, or win a
Queen's admiration for performing a great feat of seamanship.  At
last a summons to Court was brought to Plymouth.  Drake, of course,
obeyed the Queen's command, but he did not venture to London alone.
Many friends rode with him, and no doubt they enjoyed themselves, as
sailors will, on their long journey, especially when they came to
Sherborne Castle and Sir Walter Raleigh.  A long train of pack-horses
followed, laden with delicate attentions for royal ladies.  Just as
he was drawing near London, the news came that Philip had seized
Portugal and was posing as the master of the world.  Still more
startling news came that a Spanish force had landed in Ireland.  The
Council were half disposed to make peace on any terms, when Drake
came stalking in amongst the half-hearted courtiers.

The Queen saw him, heard the strange story of his madcap adventures,
caught the audacious spirit of her bravest seaman, and stood firm
against the timid proposers of peace.  Besides, she was simply
charmed by the lovely presents he offered her, and sent Drake back to
Plymouth with a private letter under her sign-manual, ordering him to
take ten thousand pounds worth of bullion for himself.  The rest was
sent up to the Tower, after the crew had received their share.  Then
Drake brought the _Golden Hind_ round and up the Thames for all the
town to gape and wonder at, while the crew swaggered about the
streets of Deptford like little princes; and so the news of the great
treasure flew from city to hamlet, and from hill to vale, increasing
with the miles it posted.

The Queen ordered that Drake's ship should be drawn up in a little
creek near Deptford, and there should be kept as a memorial for ever.

Then, the more to honour her champion, she went on board and partook
of a grand banquet under an awning on the main deck.  "Francis Drake,
kneel down."  The sword was lightly placed on his shoulder, and he
rose "Sir Francis."

The _Golden Hind_ remained at Deptford, as a show vessel that had
been round the world, until it dropped to pieces.  From one of its
planks a chair was made and presented to the University of Oxford.

Thus the politics of England were influenced by a seaman--a hero who
knew not fear, and who dared to say what he thought, even though it
was to his Queen.



CHAPTER X

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, THE QUEEN'S GREATEST SEAMAN

When people saw the Queen pacing up and down the paths with Sir
Francis Drake in Greenwich Gardens, and heard her laugh heartily as
she stopped with her hand to her side, they knew he was entertaining
her with stories of his mad adventures in the Pacific, bracing her to
resist Mendoza and King Philip, and putting tough spokes in many of
the wheels of his Holiness the Pope.

Twice had Mendoza asked for an audience, but no, Elizabeth had no
wish to talk about returning all those pretty jewels and the muckle
treasure, now safely stored in the strong-rooms at the Tower.

The little stout seaman, with the crisp brown hair and high, broad
forehead, the small ears, and grey-blue eyes lit with merriment, and
sometimes with fiery wrath, seemed to have won for a time his Queen's
full confidence.

The palace servants stared with awe at the bronzed and bearded face,
and the loose seaman's shirt belted at the waist and the scarlet cap
braided with gold.  For they recognised in the wearer a king of
men--one who could make a nation of traders into great conquerors,
and who might, if only he were allowed, convert a small island into a
worldwide empire.

Drake was teaching the Queen and her ministers the uses of a strong
navy.  Elizabeth had always been proud of her royal ships, but she
was apt to treat them like her best china, and liked to see them
securely placed on some high shelf, where they would not be broken.
She had often written to her captains and admirals to be prudent and
take no risks--"Don't go too near any batteries--don't let my ships
catch fire--do be careful."

Now Drake was instructing her in the art and policy of taking risks.
And the Queen, as she looked down upon her jewelled dress, found
merry Sir Francis a very incarnate fiend to tempt her out of her
devious ways of caution and political jugglery--for a time, at least.

Now Terceira, one of the Azores, refused to recognise the Spanish
conquest, and Don Antonio, who had been hunted from the throne of
Portugal, was now in Paris and imploring help against Philip.

"Here, madam," we may fancy Drake saying, "is a splendid opening for
your honest seamen.  Terceira lies on the direct road of the fleets
coming home both from the East and West Indies.  Permit your humble
servant to seize this island as a base, and we will destroy the trade
of Spain, and thereby secure this island-realm from Spanish invasion."

Walsingham was on Drake's side.  Hawkins and Drake were preparing the
fleet, courtiers and merchants were subscribing, and brave young
noblemen were offering to serve on board.  Fenton and Yorke,
Frobisher's trusty lieutenants, had command of ships; Bingham,
Carleill, and many others were getting ready; Don Antonio had come
over secretly; and all had been arranged.

But the admirals waited in vain for the order to sail.  Was the Queen
losing heart, fearing the perilous risk? trying to make terms with
King Philip instead of fighting him?

Drake began to swear very loud, especially when he received a
scolding letter from the Queen, because he had spent two thousand
pounds more than the estimate.  Officers, having nothing to do, began
to be quarrelsome; many resigned their commissions; and at last the
expedition was broken up.

The Queen was waiting until she could get France on her side.  She
thought Drake's idea too risky, so she let him be chosen Mayor of
Plymouth, just to keep him busy with plans for defence.

Drake had a great sorrow this year, as well as a bitter
disappointment, for his wife fell ill and died.  To add to his
anxieties, King Philip had offered forty thousand pounds reward to
any who would kidnap and stab the British corsair.  John Doughtie,
the brother of that Thomas whom Drake had tried by court-martial for
treason, was approached; and out of revenge, though Drake had once
forgiven him his share in the treason, John embraced the opportunity
to get rich and rid himself of an enemy.

Unfortunately for him John Doughtie could not help boasting of what
he was going to do.  His arrest was obtained from the Council, and he
spent the remainder of his life in some discomfort and squalor in one
of her Majesty's prisons.

So the months went by, and Drake became member for Bossiney or
Tintagel, and made some fiery speeches at Westminster, where they
began to believe that an invasion was really possible--nay, if Drake
thought so, even probable.

In February 1585 he married Elizabeth Sydenham, a Somersetshire
heiress; but news came at the end of May that Philip had invited a
fleet of English corn-ships to relieve a famine in Spain, and then
had seized the ships.

This was too bad.  This was to imitate Drake a little too closely.

Everybody, from the Queen to the newest cabin-boy, felt that such an
outrage must be severely dealt with.

By the end of July Sir Francis received letters of marque to release
the corn-ships, and hoisted his flag in the _Elizabeth Bonaventure_,
with Frobisher for his vice-admiral and Carleill as
lieutenant-general with ten companies of soldiers under his command.
The squadron consisted of two battleships and eighteen cruisers, with
pinnaces and store-ships.  There were two thousand three hundred
soldiers and sailors, and it was no easy matter to get stores for so
many.  Before Drake could get away Sir Philip Sidney came down to
Plymouth with the intention of joining the expedition.

Drake remembered too well how unpleasant the presence of courtiers
had been on a former voyage, and he secretly sent off a messenger to
Court, asking if Sir Philip had the Queen's permission to join.

The Queen replied by ordering her naughty courtier back to Greenwich,
and Drake sailed for Finisterre, though still short of supplies.

Resolved to get water and provisions before he started on his long
voyage, he ran into Vigo Bay and anchored under the lee of the Bayona
Islands.

His officers were dismayed at their leader's effrontery.  Does he
wish to let all Spain know what he is about to do?

But Drake knew that this very insolence would paralyse the hearts of
the foe.  He ordered out the pinnaces and so frightened the governor
that he offered the English water and victuals; wine, fruit, and
sweetmeats were also sent, as if the Spaniards had been entertaining
their best friends.

A three days' storm compelled the ships to go up above Vigo, and
there many caravels laden with goods were taken by Carleill.

On 8th October Drake sailed for the Canaries, while the Spanish Court
was buzzing with rumours, and the Marquis of Santa Cruz advised his
master that a fleet should sail out in pursuit of the English, before
they sacked Madeira, the Canaries, and the Cape de Verde Islands, or
crossed the Atlantic and did worse.

However, the Spaniards, as is their custom, took a long time to get
ready, and Drake passed by the Canaries and pounced upon Santiago,
the chief town of the Cape de Verde Islands, where William Hawkins
had been treacherously attacked some years before.  They seized the
town easily and stayed there a fortnight, the inhabitants having fled
inland, and much they enjoyed the pleasant gardens and orchards.  All
might have gone well, and no great damage done, had not some
Spaniards seized and killed an English boy and shamefully treated his
body; for they found him lying dead, with his head severed and his
heart and bowels scattered about in savage manner.

This so enraged the men that they set fire to all the houses except
the hospital, and left in various places a paper declaring the reason
why they had so acted.

The English had not been many days at sea when a disease broke out,
and in a few days over two hundred men had died.  A hot burning, and
continual agues seized the sick, followed by decay of their wits and
strength for a long time.

In some there appeared small spots as of the plague; but in eighteen
days they came to the island of Dominica, inhabited by savage people
whose naked skins were painted tawny red; strong, well-made fellows,
who very kindly helped to carry fresh water from the river to the
boats.  They brought also, and exchanged for glass and beads, a great
store of tobacco and cassava bread, very white and savoury.

Thence the English went on to St. Christopher's, a desert island,
where they spent Christmas, refreshed the sick, and cleansed their
ships.

Then they sailed for Hispaniola and the city of St. Domingo, the
largest Spanish city in the New World, founded by Columbus in 1496.

Drake learned from a frigate that it was a barred harbour commanded
by a strong castle, but that there was a landing-place two miles to
the westward of it.

About 150 horsemen opposed them, but the English ran in so fast that
the Spaniards had only time to fire one volley and flee.  There was
no gold or silver, only copper money, but good store of fine clothes,
wine and oil.  The native Indians had all been killed by the cruelty
of the Spaniards, and the work in the mines was stopped.

Drake ordered the troops to entrench themselves in the Plaza, or
Square, and to occupy the chief batteries; so he held the city for a
month.

Two hundred and forty guns were taken and put on board the English
ships, and a ransom equal to fifty thousand pounds of our money was
exacted.  A great fleet of Spanish ships was burnt, and hundreds of
galley-slaves were set free, to their surprise and delight.

Thence Drake sailed for Cartagena on the mainland, the harbour of
which he knew as well as any local pilot.  The fleet entered about
three in the afternoon without meeting any resistance.  In the
evening Carleill landed about three miles west of the town; the idea
being that the land forces should advance at midnight along the
shore, while the fleet drew the attention of the Spaniards by a false
attack upon a fort in the inner haven.

Some hundred horsemen met the troops, but hastened back to give the
alarm.  Then the soldiers under Carleill came to the neck of the
peninsula on which the town was built.  On one side was the sea, on
the other a lake communicating with the harbour.  The narrow roadway
was fortified across with a stone wall and ditch, and the usual
passage was filled up with barrels full of earth, behind which were
placed six great guns, while two great galleys had been moored with
their prows to the shore, carrying eleven guns, to flank the
approach, and containing three hundred harquebusiers.  The barricade
of barrels was defended by some three hundred musketeers and pikemen.

The Spaniards fired in the dark down the causeway, but the English
were marching close to the water's edge on lower ground and got no
hurt.  Then they clambered up the sides of the neck and assaulted the
barricade.  "Down went the butts of earth, and pell-mell come our
swords and pikes together, after our shot had given their first
volley, even at the enemy's nose."

The English pikes were longer than those of the Spaniards, so the
latter soon gave way, and were followed with a rush into the town,
where other barricades erected at every street's end had to be
carried with yell and blow.

The Spaniards had stationed Indian archers in corners of advantage,
"with arrows most villainously empoisoned."  Some also were wounded
in the fort by small stakes having the point poisoned.  But when the
city was taken divers courtesies passed between the two nations, and
they met at feasts, so that the Governor and Bishop came to visit Sir
Francis on his ship, finding him very merry and polite.

Cartagena yielded rich loot for the men, and for the merchants and
courtiers who had taken shares a ransom of 110,000 ducats came in as
a comfortable bonus.

By the end of April they were off Cuba and in want of water.  After
search they found some rain-water newly fallen.  Here, we are told,
Sir Francis set a good example to the men by working himself in his
shirt sleeves.  We can see how conduct like this endeared him to his
men; for they said, "If the general can work with us in his shirt, we
may well do our best."

"Throughout the expedition," says Gates, "he had everywhere shown so
vigilant care and foresight in the good ordering of his fleet,
together with such wonderful travail of body, that doubtless had he
been the meanest person, as he was the chiefest, he had deserved the
first place of honour."

On reaching Florida they took Fort St. Augustine and a
treasure-chest; then they sailed north and sought Raleigh's colony in
Virginia, whom they brought home.  "And thus, God be thanked, both
they and wee in good safetie arrived at Portsmouth the 2nd of July
1586, to the great glory of God, and to no small honour to our
Prince, our Countrey, and our selves."

Some seven hundred and fifty men were lost on the voyage, most of
them from the calenture or hot ague.  Two hundred and forty guns of
brass and iron were taken and brought home.

Sir Francis wrote at once to Burghley reporting his return.  He
apologised for having missed the Plate fleet by only twelve hours'
sail--"The reason best known to God;" but affirmed he and his fleet
were ready to sail again whithersoever the Queen might direct.

But the Faerie Queen was much harassed just now and affrighted; for
the Babington plot to assassinate her had just been revealed, and it
was known that Philip was making ready to spring upon England from
Portugal and the Netherlands.  Mary Stuart was in prison, and France
for her sake was threatening war.  So the Queen pretended to disavow
the doings of Sir Francis and his men.  No peerage or pension for him
now, lest Philip should sail and invade her territory.

Drake understood the moods of his intriguing mistress, shrugged his
strong shoulders and played a match at bowls on the Hoe.

But, if England was backward in applauding the hero, his name and
exploits were being celebrated wherever the tyranny of Rome was
feared or hated.

The Reformation had been losing ground latterly, the Netherlands
still held out, but their strength of endurance was nearly spent.

Then came the startling news that the English Drake had again flouted
and crushed the maritime power of Spain.  Not only had he weakened
her for actual warfare, but her prestige was shaken by his exploits,
and the banks of Seville and Venice were on the verge of ruin.
Philip found himself unable to raise a loan of half a million ducats.

The sinews of war were cracked by this sea-rover, who was raising the
hopes of Protestant Europe once more, and winning the clamorous
applause of the west country openly, and of Burghley in private.

"This Drake is a fearful man to the King of Spain!" he could not help
confessing, though he wondered if England would not be obliged to
give him up to the wrath of Philip.  War was so expensive, to be
sure!  Then, to the delight of Elizabeth and the consternation of all
true Catholics, Philip wrote and accepted the Queen's timorous
excuses.

The King of Spain was not quite ready for war.  Drake's condign
punishment must be deferred for a season; there was a time for all
things.  Meanwhile Drake with Sir William Winter had been employed in
getting ships ready and watching the narrow seas.

As autumn waned and no Armada came, the Queen summoned the bold
sea-rover to Court, and once more she listened to his brave words,
feeling almost convinced that boldness in action was safer than a
crooked diplomacy.

Anyhow she sent Sir Francis over on a secret mission to the Low
Countries, where he was everywhere received almost with royal
honours, and had conferences with leaders in all the great Dutch
cities.

But in November Leicester returned to England, a confession of
failure, and in January the fort of Zutphen was betrayed to the
Spaniards.

Again the scene shifted and the characters changed; for when Drake
returned to England, Walsingham gave him the cheering news that the
Queen's eyes were at last opened.  He had shown her a paper taken
from the Pope's closet which proved that all Philip's preparations in
port and harbour and storehouse were intended solely for her
destruction and the religious education of her heretic realm.  Then
she flashed out in patriotic spirit and threw economy to the winds.

Sir Francis Drake was made her Majesty's Admiral-at-the-Seas, and
William Burrows, Comptroller of the Navy, esteemed to be the most
scientific sea officer in England, was selected as his Vice-Admiral.

The people cheered and sang and made ready to fight for hearth and
home.  One favourite stanza was that which had been nailed to the
sign of the Queen's Head Tavern at Deptford--

  "O Nature! to old England still
    Continue these mistakes;
  Still give us for our King such Queens,
    And for our Dux such Drakes."


Drake's commission was to prevent the joining together of the King of
Spain's ships out of their several ports, to keep victuals from them
and to follow any ships that should sail towards England or Ireland.

On the 2nd of April Sir Francis Drake wrote to Walsingham to say all
was ready for starting.  "I thank God I find no man but as all
members of one body, to stand for our gracious Queen and Country
against Anti-Christ and his members."

We always see that with Drake the motive for war was a religious
motive; it was to secure religious freedom of thought and put down
the Inquisition.

He ends thus: "The wind commands me away; our ship is under sail.
God grant we may so live in His fear, as the enemy may have cause to
say that God doth fight for her Majesty as well abroad as at home ...
let me beseech your Honour to pray unto God for us, that He will
direct us the right way."

Besides the _Elizabeth Bonaventure_, which Drake commanded, Captain
William Burrows as Vice-Admiral was in the _Golden Lion_, Fenner in
the _Dreadnought_, Bellingham in the _Rainbow_--these all Queen's
ships.

The _Merchant Royal_ was sent by the London citizens; the rest were
given by voluntary subscribers and private persons.  There were
twenty-three sail in all, and the soldiers and sailors numbered 2648.

But while Drake was busy at Plymouth making ready for the voyage,
paid emissaries of Philip and those who hated Walsingham and the
Reformation were busy with the Queen, frightening her with threats of
foreign interference; so that she absolutely turned round again and
issued an order that all warlike operations were to be confined to
the high seas.  Philip's ships being all snug in port, Drake's fleet
would have nothing to do, and no captures to win, if he merely sailed
up and down the coast.

Swiftly rode the Queen's messenger, spurring from Surrey to
Hampshire, from Dorset to Devon, with many a change and relay of
smoking steeds.

The messenger knew well the purport of the fateful order: "You shall
forbear to enter forcibly into any of the said King's ports or
havens, or to offer violence to any of his towns or shipping within
harbour, or to do any act of hostility upon the land."  The messenger
and his armed escort had been ordered to gallop in all haste, and
they entered Plymouth and dismounted before the Admiral of the Port.
"In the Queen's name! a despatch for Sir Francis Drake."

"For Drake?  When, sir, did you leave London?"

"On April the 9th, last Sunday, your honour."

"Why! see! the roadstead is empty!  The fleet sailed last Sunday
week!"

We can with difficulty realise how slowly news was carried in what we
call "the good old days," though horse-flesh was good, and little
time was spent on meals and beds.  The Queen was too late by a week,
and Drake was gone!

He had started on Sunday, 2nd April, and on Monday afternoon had
attached to his fleet two private vessels from the Isle of Wight and
a few other stray ships.

Three days of quick sailing brought him off Cape Finisterre, for he
lost no time, not wishing those traitors at home to stop him on the
way.

But a great storm arose and scattered his ships for a whole week or
more.  When they met again on the 16th he heard that the
_Dreadnought_ had been nearly wrecked and that a pinnace had been
lost.

But Drake had learnt from prisoners taken at sea that Cadiz harbour
was full of transports and store-ships, and he smiled a grim smile.

Signal was made--"Officers assemble for council of war."

Drake sat at the head of the table and Burrows sat opposite him.

It was usual for Sir Francis to ask very courteously for the advice
of his officers, and then--to take his own way!

On this occasion he made a slight change in his method.  He forgot to
ask Burrows or the others for their advice, and bluntly spake out:
"Gentlemen, I am going to attack the shipping in Cadiz harbour."

The vice-admiral was shocked, and for a moment paralysed, by the
outrage upon his reputation as a scientific tactician.

"Good God! did Sir Francis know what it meant to run into that
harbour close to the guns of the town batteries, with rocks and
shoals everywhere, and no entrance possible except by the help of the
port pilots!  Then there were the galleys to reckon with, the most
formidable war-ships in confined waters!  Surely the matter required
a fuller consideration."

Drake laughed aloud, and waving his hand to dismiss them to their
ships, said--

"I think my officers believe in me--and we enter Cadiz harbour this
very Wednesday at set of sun."

One of Drake's comrades, perhaps Fenner, describing the English
attack, wrote thus: "So soon as we were descried, two of their
galleys made towards us, and judging what we were, made haste into
shore again, not offering to shoot one shot at us.  Yet before they
could return, our admiral, with others of our fleet, shot them
through and slew ten of their men.  Presently there came forth from
the town ten other galleys and fought with us; but we applied them so
well with our great ordnance that two of them were fain to be hauled
up that night."

The sudden appearance of El Draque struck such consternation in the
harbour and city that ships cut their cables and sought shelter
through the Puntal passage leading to the inner harbour.  To meet the
galleys, which could only fire straight ahead, Drake steered with the
Queen's four battleships athwart their course and poured in heavy
broadsides before the galleys had got within effective range.  Two
new lessons the Spaniards were learning: first, how to make galleys
harmless, for they could not turn quick enough to bring their front
fire into action; secondly, how to fire effectively, for never before
had such gunnery been seen, and it was the result of Drake's long and
careful practice.  The galleys were raked from side to side and broke
away to the cover of the batteries, many in a sinking condition.

The city expected to be assaulted; the women and children were
hurried for safety into the fortress, twenty-seven poor creatures
being crushed to death in the confusion.  But the English did not
land; their business was to damage King Philip's navy as much as
possible; so they sailed on beyond the batteries and began
plundering, burning, and scuttling amongst the many ships that
remained.  Drake's letter to Walsingham calmly describes how "we
found sundry great ships, some laden, some half laden, and some ready
to be laden with the King's provisions for England.  I assure your
Honour the like preparation was never heard of, nor known, as the
King of Spain hath made, and daily maketh, to invade England.  His
provisions of bread and wines are so great as will suffice forty
thousand men a whole year, which if they be not impeached before they
join, will be very perilous."

As the darkness came down the crowds of soldiers and sailors that
thronged the quay and seaside streets saw the red fire spring up from
many a proud galleon, and in special the splendid warship of the
Marquis de Santa Cruz, valued the day before at 18,000 ducats.  A big
Genoese argosy of 1000 tons, freighted with rich stuffs and
thirty-six pieces of brass cannon, was sunk and the treasure wasted.

Then, tired out, the crews sank down and slept on the decks till
morning.  With the dawn poured in thousands of reinforcements, making
an attack on the town impracticable; but the spoiling, sinking, and
burning went on merrily, the galleys made feints and the big guns
boomed, "but they did us little hurt, saving that the master-gunner
of the _Golden Lion_ had his leg broke with a shot from the town."
Yet there were two hundred culverin shooting at the English fleet for
twenty-four hours!

The total amount of damage done by Drake seems to come to forty or
fifty ships destroyed, while the value of stores consumed was not
short of £150,000.  Amongst these were 4000 pipes of wine and 30,000
cwt. of wheat.  In addition to this Drake had revictualled his ships
with wine, oil, biscuit, and dried fruits, a very acceptable present
for hungry men.

So the great Armada would not sail for England yet awhile!  The Queen
and her ministers and people, great and small, might sleep securely;
for the only man in all England who could inspire his men to fight as
heroes, the greatest sea captain, perhaps, that England has ever
possessed, had disobeyed orders and angered his vice-admiral in order
to save his country.  One cannot but think that Nelson must have
studied with some care the life of Francis Drake: rules are made for
mediocrities by mediocrities: the genius must be allowed to have his
own way.

By noon on Thursday all was finished, and Drake kept looking aloft;
for the wind was contrary and he could not budge from the harbour.
He could see the interminable line of troops marching along the
isthmus into Cadiz; he could hear the buzz of voices and the song of
the soldiers.  Now was the time for the galleys, and they rowed out
fiercely; but the thunder of Drake's broadsides swept them back time
after time.  At midnight a land wind sprang up and Drake forced his
way out of the harbour and into the roadstead outside.  By two
o'clock every ship had cleared the batteries and was safe outside,
without losing a single man!

"When we were a little out we fell becalmed, and ten galleys followed
us and fought with us all Friday forenoon.  But, whether for lack of
powder and shot, or by reason of the heat of the day, I know not, or
some of them shot through, they lay aloof for three hours and never
after durst come within our shot."

Drake employed some of his leisure time in sending to the captain of
the galleys to ask if there were any English in the galleys as
slaves, and he would exchange some Spaniards for them.  A box of
sweetmeats came in reply, and a request that he would stay until the
next day for inquiries to be made.

"Damnably civil--and treacherous," thought Drake, "I will not assent
to their devilish practice.  We to wait for a big fleet to come, I
suppose, and they to eat us up!  No! no!"

So, finding a wind for his purpose, he put out to sea before night.

For ten days he hung about near Cape St. Vincent.  In the budget of
letters sent home at this period occur the words of an officer: "We
all remain in great love with our general, and in unity throughout
the fleet."

But this unfortunately was not quite correct; for hardly a week after
the Cadiz affair William Burrows, Vice-Admiral of the Fleet, wrote to
Drake thus: "I have found you always so wedded to your own opinion
and will that you rather disliked, and showed as though it were
offensive to you that any should give you advice in anything--at
least, I speak it of myself."  He went on to say that he had often
refrained from giving advice, which would have accorded more with the
instructions issued by the Queen; for he would have merely watched
the Spanish coast, and not have entered any harbour, as had been done
at Cadiz.

Drake replied by placing the vice-admiral under arrest for two days.
The culprit was astounded, but wrote a letter of apology, promising
obedience in the future.  It is probable that Drake may have fancied
that he had a second Doughtie to deal with, a paid traitor sent to
oppose him.  In Cadiz harbour he had noticed that Burrows seemed all
too careful of his ship, and this letter made his suspicions seem too
well founded.

But Burrows was really only a timid, conservative sea officer, honest
and dull, a talker and arguer, who could not see when his superior
had performed an extraordinary feat of daring.

An attack upon the town of Lagos failed at the end of April, and the
vice-admiral no doubt shook his head sagely and muttered, "I told you
so!"

The next day Drake attacked Sagres, half-way between Lagos and Cape
St. Vincent.  The English military officers declared that a hundred
determined men could hold it against all Drake's force; the
vice-admiral pronounced the scheme impracticable.  That settled it.
Drake at once said, "The castle commands the watering-place: I mean
to have it."

After the musketeers had exhausted their ammunition, Drake summoned
the garrison to surrender.  The Spanish captain laughed scornfully,
"Come up and take it."

Drake set his teeth and sent for faggots.  The men believed in him
and were doing their best.

"Pile them up against the outer gate, my men."

Again and again the attempt to fire the gate failed, for the
defenders issued out and knocked down the pile.  This went on for two
hours.

What was the vice-admiral doing?  Was he smiling in his superior
manner?  We know what the admiral was doing, and all his men knew.

There he was in his shirt sleeves--regardless of his dignity--his
arms laden with faggots, his face black with soot and streaming with
sweat, laughing, encouraging his mates.  "Now it burns!"  "A
cheer--what is it, lads?"

"The white flag of truce is hoisted, Sir Francis, instead of the
Spanish."

The commandant had sunk under his wounds, the garrison had
surrendered.  On hearing this--miraculous they thought it--the castle
and fort of St. Vincent also capitulated, and the English fleet could
water at ease.

Drake had laughingly promised he would "singe King Philip's beard,"
and now he wrote to Walsingham: "We have taken forty ships, barks and
caravels and divers other vessels more than a hundred ... the hoops
and pipe-staves were above 16,000 tons in weight, all which I
commanded to be consumed by fire--no small waste unto the King's
provisions."

In order to goad the Marquis of Santa Cruz into coming out to fight,
Drake lay off Cascaes in sight of Lisbon for three days, sending
messages to taunt him: "Sir Francis Drake will be happy to convey the
Spanish admiral to England, if at any time the Marquis should think
of sailing in that direction."

But Philip had given strict orders, "While Drake is on the coast, not
a man is to be moved."  A fine compliment for a king to pay a
hard-working seaman!  And how the English crews must have laughed and
rubbed their hands in glee as the merry taunt went round to the
forecastle; for it was intended to hearten them quite as much as to
irritate Santa Cruz.

And Drake had heard that a rich East India caravel was on its way
home to Spain, and he told his men he should go to the Azores and
pick it up.  That would fill their pockets and delight the
speculators in England.

They were all delighted to go with their gallant admiral, but they
had not been two days at sea when a great storm scattered his fleet.
In three days only three battleships and half-a-dozen pinnaces could
be seen; and the _Golden Lion_, Burrows' flag-ship, was missing.
Drake wrote home to Burghley on the 21st of May: "Burrows hath not
carried himself in this action so well as I wish he had done, for his
own sake; and his persisting hath committed a double offence, not
only against me, but it toucheth further."  Captain Marchant had been
put in charge of the _Lion_, but when they reached St. Michael's on
the 8th of June, Drake heard that the crew of Burrows' ship had
mutinied and gone home.

Then Drake in his anger, believing that Burrows was a traitor, called
a court-martial, the first we are told that was ever held in our
navy, and Burrows was found guilty of desertion and condemned, in his
absence, to death.

As Drake was spending his generous wrath on all traitors the next
morning, a sudden hail from aloft, and a cry of "Sail ahoy!" made him
forget his troubles; for it looked like the caravel he was waiting
for.

All sails were hoisted, and a pretty strong breeze carried the
_Elizabeth Bonaventure_ towards the stranger, who had out a Portugal
flag and red cross.

Drake showed no flag until he was within shot of her, when he hung
out flags, streamers, and pendants.  Then he hailed her with
cannon-shot most brusquely, shot her through divers times, and
received some answer in like sort.

Drake's fly-boat and a pinnace lay athwart her hawse and peppered her
with musket shot.  At them she threw shot and fireworks, doing little
hurt, for they flew over them into the sea.  Then, seeing the English
were making ready to board, six of her men being slain and many sore
wounded, they yielded.

It was the King of Spain's own ship from the East Indies, the _San
Felipe_, richly laden and carrying four hundred negroes whom they had
taken to make slaves in Spain and Portugal.  Drake put these into his
fly-boat and said they were free to sail whither they listed.  He
himself and his little fleet, guarding their prize very jealously,
made all sail for England, reaching Plymouth on the 26th of June.

Drake knew something of the ways of women.  He knew, when he brought
the _San Felipe_ into Plymouth harbour, that his Queen would forgive
his little delinquencies in the matter of the singeing of Philip's
beard.

It was the largest and richest prize ever seen in England.  The
spices, silks and taffetas, calicoes and carpets in the hold were
valued at £108,000, a sum sufficient to defray all the costs of the
expedition, with surplus profit for all adventurers.

Drake's return was welcomed with a national rejoicing; for the injury
to the prestige of Spain was more valuable even than the prize.
Further, it gave all Protestant Europe a braver spirit and a stronger
heart to resist the tyranny of Rome and Spain.  It was also a
revelation to English merchants, and was one of the causes which set
on foot the great East India Company and the empire that was to
follow.  Last, but not least, it implanted in the superstitious minds
of the South a great dread of El Draque, as the magician of the deep,
who had sold his soul to Satan, and could see all the fleets of his
foe in a magic mirror in his cabin, or raise a storm at his evil
pleasure.

As soon as he could, Drake hurried up to London to have an audience
with the Queen, but he found all in woe and trouble owing to the
execution of Queen Mary Stuart and the remorse of Elizabeth.

Drake, instead of being welcomed with smiles, was severely
reprimanded for grossly exceeding his instructions, and Burghley was
ordered to write despatches to assure Parma and Philip that Drake
would be held in deep disgrace.

How the frank, brave seaman must have shrugged his shoulders and
whistled, in disdain of all the diplomacy of courtiers!

However, he made a new friend in the young Earl of Essex, who was
beginning to be in great favour with the Queen, and who aided Drake
in his fresh projects to crush Spain, namely, by helping Don Antonio
to his throne.  But England was itself threatened from three quarters
and could hardly venture to send troops away, for the Armada was
collecting in Spain, Parma with thirty thousand trained soldiers was
waiting in Flanders, and the Scots were restless across the border.
However, in 1588 Philip found himself rich enough with the arrival of
new convoys to attempt the invasion of England.

Lord Howard of Effingham was made Lord High Admiral, with Hawkins and
Frobisher as flag officers.  Drake, as Lieutenant to the Lord High
Admiral, became President of the Naval Council of War, and hoisted
his flag in the _Revenge_, having several vessels belonging to his
own and his wife's relations attached to the thirty sail that formed
his division.  But the impatient hero had to wait for months doing
nothing, while his ships grew foul, and his crews diminished.  It was
not until May that the Court was convinced that the Armada was really
coming.

We need not follow the fortunes of Drake through the Armada fight,
for that has been done in previous chapters.  It is enough to say
that Lord Howard in many ways sought his advice, and that the
crowning victory of Gravelines was due to Drake.  After the Armada
had gone, he and Hawkins founded the "Chatham Chest" for disabled
seamen, and Drake had the honour of furnishing Plymouth with water.
But it was war that Drake ever yearned for, and in 1589 he and Sir
John Norris led an expedition to Portugal, and the troops were landed
in a bay near Corunna.  They took the town, but the troops drank too
freely of the wine, and were disorderly and cruel.  The palm of
courage should be given to a lady, Maria Pita, the wife of an
official, who took sword and buckler and defended a convent so
successfully that she was rewarded by her country with the full pay
of an ensign for life.  Many citizens were put to death and much
damage was done by fire, but the English lost many men through
sickness, and storms scattered the fleet.

Out of 12,500 men only 6000 returned, and the expedition was a
failure, for Antonio's party did not co-operate as they had promised.
Drake and Norris had taken and burnt two Spanish ports, had defeated
the King's army, had insulted the gates of Lisbon, and had captured
nearly a hundred sail; but for all that they were both brought before
a court-martial at home, and suffered loss of prestige.

As the months wore on rumours came of a second Armada assembling at
Ferrol, and Plymouth grew so panic-stricken that the inhabitants
began to desert their homes.  Drake, his wife and household, calmly
took up their residence in the town by the Dowgate, and the plague of
fear was stayed.  So his prestige was not quite destroyed.  But for
many long months Drake remained in disgrace at Court; those who knew
him in the west country upheld him as England's greatest admiral; but
Drake was ambitious, and when Hawkins and Frobisher were sent out and
he was overlooked, he could not but feel aggrieved in the stately
house, Buckland Abbey, which Sir Richard Grenville had sold him when
he took the _Revenge_ out on her last voyage.  At last, in the summer
of 1594, the Queen consented to provide two-thirds of the capital for
an expedition under Drake and Hawkins.

When the news arrived at Lisbon, Philip's recruits deserted by
hundreds, and Lisbon was well-nigh left desolate.  Sir Thomas
Baskerville, hero of many a hard fight in the Netherlands, commanded
the troops.

When they were ready to start, the Queen sent down orders to stay
them, and two months were wasted and food consumed in idleness.  In
August, Penzance was burnt by a rapid raid from Spain.  Then an order
came: "Cruise off the Spanish coast, then capture the Plate fleet,
and be home in six months."

The admirals protested, and the Queen was furious at their obstinacy
and "disloyalty."  They did not leave Plymouth until the 28th of
August 1595, and found the Grand Canary too strong to capture.  They
went on to the West Indies, and at Guadaloupe cleaned the ships, set
up the pinnaces, and landed the men for health's sake.

Poor old Sir John Hawkins, in his weariness and disappointment, had
had more than one quarrel with his old friend Sir Francis, and now
sickness grew upon him, and as Drake led the fleet off Puerto Rico,
Hawkins breathed his last.  That evening, as Drake sat at supper on
board the _Defiance_, a round shot came crashing into the cabin,
striking the stool from under the admiral as he sat, and killing Sir
Nicholas Clifford and Drake's bosom friend Master Brown.

Next day Drake tried to force his way into the harbour, but the
Spaniards had sunk a great galleon in the fairway, and Drake gave up
the attempt.

He sailed for La Hacha, burnt it, but spared the church and the house
of a lady who had begged his mercy.  On Christmas Day he sailed for
Nombre de Dios.  The town had been abandoned at his approach, and
nothing of value was left.  Drake remained in the harbour with his
fleet while Baskerville with 750 men started for Panama; but he found
the road protected by forts, and after losing many men, returned
hungry and dispirited.

On the 5th of January 1596 the fleet sailed for Escudo, west of
Nombre de Dios, and ten leagues from the mainland, where there was
good anchorage on sand, and the island was well supplied with wood
and water.

But the island, for all its loveliness and wealth of flower and
foliage, proved very sickly and the climate rainy.  Three of the
captains died here and the chief surgeon, and Drake began to keep his
cabin, being very ill with dysentery.

Disappointment and sorrow for the loss of friends had made him
sombre, and the cheery smile had faded, though he still tried to
cheer up his officers.  "God hath many things in store for us; and I
know many means to do her Majesty good service and to make us rich:
for we must have gold before we see England."  That haunting sense of
the ill welcome they would receive if they brought no gold or jewels
must have embittered his last moments.

He gave the order to weigh anchor, and the ships sped before a storm
to Puerto Bello; but the gallant admiral was lying in his cabin sick
unto death.  On the 25th of January, in the early dawn, he rose from
his bed in delirium, called aloud for his arms, raved about Spain and
the Inquisition and traitors who had poisoned him.  Kind hands led
him back to bed, and there he died within an hour.  On the morrow his
body, enclosed in a leaden coffin, was taken out to sea, and there in
sight of his first great victory he sank amid the thunder of cannon
from all the ships around, while the prayers of the English Church
burial service were solemnly recited.

In his will Drake left all his lands to the son of his brother,
Thomas.  His widow, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir George
Sydenham of Devon, afterwards married William Courtenay of Powderham
Castle.  He had no children, and nine of his eleven brothers also
died childless.  He had been twice returned to Parliament for
Bossiney or Tintagel, and for Plymouth.

"So Francis Drake be dead!" we may fancy a Devon friend bewailing,
when the fleet returned without their admiral; "ah, we may never see
his like again!  He had his faults, 'tis true; his temper was passing
quick, but he was a true friend, a pure bull-dog; tenacious both
ways, in hate and in love.  Eloquent and fond of proving it to his
crew; ambitious and somedeal vain, and so open to flattery; as he
grew older, he believed more stoutly in his own opinions, and would
hurt a fool's feelings by telling him home truths.  But for genius in
ocean warfare, I doubt if England has known half his worth--those
ninnies at Court did not; but we men of Devon loved him only just
this side of idolatry.  God keep his soul!"



CHAPTER XI

SIR RICHARD HAWKINS, SEAMAN AND GEOGRAPHER

Richard Hawkins was born in 1562, the son of Sir John, who bred his
son from an early age to the service of the sea, while his education
in geography, history, and mathematics was carefully and thoroughly
carried out.  He went to the West Indies with his uncle William in
1582, and was with Drake in 1585.  He served against the Armada as
captain of the _Swallow_, and afterwards was bitten by the prevailing
ambition to search the far-off shores of a new world.

So, with his father's counsel and help, he planned a voyage to Japan,
the Philippines and Moluccas, China and the East Indies by the way of
the Straits of Magellan and the Pacific.  At their own expense father
and son had a ship built on the Thames of about 400 tons.  "She was
pleasing to the eye," Richard says in his "Observations"; "profitable
for storage, good of sail and well-conditioned."

But Lady Hawkins craved the naming of the ship, and called it the
_Repentance_, for she said, "Repentance was the safest ship we could
sail in to purchase the haven of Heaven."  Richard much misliked the
name, as though it were of ill omen, and he says, "Well I know she
was no prophetess, though a religious and most virtuous lady: yet too
prophetical it fell out by God's secret judgments."  So he sold his
share to his father and was going to give up the enterprise.

But it so fell out that when the _Repentance_ was finished, and was
riding at anchor near Deptford, the Queen in her barge was passing by
on her way to Greenwich Palace, and having ever an eye for a good
ship, asked, "What ship is yon, and to whom does she belong?"

On hearing it was Sir John and Richard Hawkins' new vessel, she bade
her bargeman row round about her, viewed her critically from port to
stem, and disliked nothing in her but the name.  Then with a laugh
the Queen cried, "Sir John shall have me for her godmother; I will
christen the ship anew, and henceforth she shall be called the
_Dainty_."  So as the _Dainty_ she sailed forth and made many
prosperous voyages in the Queen's service, though with oft-repeated
mishaps to herself.

At last, Sir John resolved to sell her, because she brought so much
cost, trouble, and care to him.  Then Richard, whose forebodings
concerning her had been removed when the Queen named her anew, and
who had ever admired her and desired she should continue in the
family, repurchased the vessel from his father.  By-and-by, having
bought stores for his journey and collected a crew, he was preparing
to sail in her from Blackwall to Plymouth, there to join two other
ships of his own, one of 100 tons, the other a pinnace of 60.  As he
expected a visit of honour from the Lord High Admiral, Sir Robert
Cecil and Sir Walter Raleigh, she was detained some days in the
Thames.  But bad weather prevented this visit, and so Sir Richard
bade the captain and pilot take her down to Gravesend, while he took
a last farewell of his father.

He then followed down the river in his barge, and coming to Barking
he saw the _Dainty_ at anchor in the middle of the channel, and was
told that they had been in no small peril of losing both ship and
goods.  For as they sailed down with an E.N.E. wind, it suddenly
veered to the south, and forced them in doubling a point to tack and
luff up.  Just then the south wind freshened, and the ship heeled
over.  Being very deeply laden, and her ports being left open, the
water began to rush in.  But the crew gave little thought to this,
thinking themselves safe in the river, till the weight of the water
began to press down one side.  Then, when the danger was perceived,
and the sheets were flown, she could hardly be brought upright.  So,
when Sir Richard came aboard, he found a pretty mess below, and
preached a fine warning sermon to his officers on taking things too
easily even in a river!

When he turned to the men he found them collecting in knots and
whispering together.

"Well, lads, what is it now?"

"An' it please yer honour, we of the forecastle may not go no furder
in this ship, save she be lightened of her cargo," said the spokesman.

"Lightened! why, she be all right; there would ha' been no danger but
for your negligence!  Why weren't the lower ports shut and calked?"

"Howbeit, master, we be all afraid to go in her as she be!"

"Very well; an' ye be afeard, I will heave out some tons into a hoy,
lads."  Then to his officers he said, "Look ye! mariners be like a
stiff-necked horse who taketh the bridle between his teeth."

Thus, to content them, he engaged a hoy, into which he loaded eight
tons; but untoward weather pursued them all the way to Plymouth.

It took him a month to prepare for his voyage and gather his company
together; and when the crews were all hired, his friends were
employed two days, with the help of the justices of the town, in
searching all lodgings, taverns, and ale-houses before his people
could be got aboard; for some would ever be taking their leave and
never depart; some drank themselves so drunk, that, except they were
carried aboard, they could not walk one step; others feigned
themselves to be grievously sick; others to be indebted to their
host, and could not leave until they were ransomed; and others, to
benefit themselves by the earnest-money paid them in advance,
absented themselves from a wicked desire to make an unfair living by
deceiving one master after another.  There were some, too, who had
pawned a chest, or a sword, or two shirts, or a card and instruments
for sea.  Thus Sir Richard in his "Observations" rehearses the
grievances of a sea captain, and he adds: "In what sort they dealt
with me is notorious, and was such that if I had not been provident
to have had a third part more of men than I had need of, I had been
forced to go to sea unmanned, or to give over my voyage.  And many of
my company at sea vaunted how they had cosened and cheated the Earl
of Cumberland, Master Cavendish, and others, some of five pounds,
some of ten or more; and truly I think my voyage prospered the worse
for their lewd company."

Hawkins was against the custom of making imprests to the sailors, as
the money paid in advance was called.  "All who go to sea nowadays
are provided of food and house-room and all things necessary, and in
long voyages of apparel also; that nothing is to be spent during the
voyage."

Imprests to married men, made in the form of a monthly allowance to
their wives, he thought useful.

When he had drawn his three ships out into the Sound a storm broke
from the west, in which the _Dainty_ was hardly saved by cutting away
her mainmast, and the pinnace was sunk.  A kind friend pushed off
from the shore to warn him against proceeding further after such a
mischance.

"Be warned, my good Richard, for 'tis a presage of ill success this
bad beginning; and remember, though the Queen named your ship the
_Dainty_, yet she was first baptized _Repentance_; therefore, I would
forewarn you heartily."

"I thank you, sir; yet the hazard of my credit and the danger of
disreputation, if I took in hand that which I should not prosecute by
all means possible, are more powerful with me than your grave and
sage counsel.  The pinnace has been raised; I see the wind is now
fair, sir; can I prevail upon you to make one of our company?  If
not, my barge----"

"Oh! not on any account, friend Richard, not on any account, I
protest!"

The troublesome adviser was off quicker than he had come; and if it
had been Sir Francis Drake instead of Richard Hawkins, he would have
winced under the hearty laugh of that boisterous rover.

But Richard had a quieter way of gentle sarcasm, though both could be
very freezingly polite if the occasion called for it.  Sir Francis,
indeed, was thought by Spanish Dons to be the most courteous of
English seamen.

In ten days' time, with the help of his wife's father, Hawkins was
able to put all in as good state as before the storm.  "Once again,"
he says, "in God's name, I brought my ships out into the Sound and
began to take leave of my friends, and of my dearest friend, my
second self, my wife, whose unfeigned tears had wrought me into
irresolution, and sent some other in my room, had I not considered
that he that is in the dance must needs dance on, though he do but
hop, except he will be a laughing-stock to all."

On the afternoon of the 12th of June 1593, he says: "I looft near the
shore to give my farewell to all the inhabitants of the town, whereof
the most part were gathered together upon the Howe, to show their
grateful correspondency to the love and zeal which I, my father and
predecessors have ever borne to that place, as to our natural and
mother-town.  And first with my noise of trumpets, after with my
waytes, and then with my other music, I made the best signification I
could of a kind farewell.  This they answered with the waytes of the
town, and the ordnance on the shore, and with shouting of voices,
which with the fair evening and silence of the night, were heard a
great distance off."

We can see that Richard Hawkins had a greater gift of imagination and
of love of nature than his father John; in fact his "Observations" on
his voyage to the South Seas are well worth reading even in these
days of common travel.  When the three ships were near the equator,
his men began to fall sick of the scurvy, as was usual; for they had
no means in those days of counteracting the flesh food by stores of
canned fruit and vegetables.  "I wish," he writes, "some learned man
would write of this disease, for it is the plague of the sea and the
spoil of mariners; ... in twenty years, since I have used the sea, I
dare take upon me to give account of 10,000 men consumed by the
scurvy."

He had found by practical experience that sour oranges and lemons
were most profitable; the "oil of vitry," too, was beneficial, if one
took two drops of it mingled in a draught of water with a little
sugar.  Then he spoils his scientific accuracy by a general statement
which is on a par with the theory that nature abhors a vacuum.  "But
the principal of all is the air of the land, for the sea is natural
for fishes, and the land for men."

As the winds were contrary and the voyage was prolonged, the scurvy
grew so "fervent" that every day there died more or less; then the
men lost heart and begged he would carry them homeward.  But Hawkins
assured them that the speediest refreshing they could look for was
the coast of Brazil.

"If I were to put all my sick into one ship and send them home, it
would be only to make that vessel their grave.  Resolve, my lads, to
continue on our course till God shall please to look upon us with His
fatherly eyes of mercy."

A few days after this the _Dainty_ took fire, and it cost the crew
some hours of hard work to put it out.  When all was over, Hawkins
called the crew together, and said: "We have had a sharp trial, and
God hath given us the victory: I am sure ye shall all desire to
return thanks to the Almighty for this deliverance; for some of you
may hitherto have disregarded religious feelings, but ye have not
despised them in your very hearts.  Let us kneel and thank the good
God!"

After this solemn act of thanksgiving, Hawkins said: "Now, boys, in
order to show that we are verily thankful, let me with your general
consent take order to banish swearing out of the three ships."  And
they all agreed to do so.

But to make this matter more easy to accomplish he invented a plan
which is still, I believe, used in some young ladies' schools; though
not perhaps for the purpose of expelling rude swearing and seamen's
oaths.

In every ship he ordained there should be kept a ferula, or small
stick, which was to be given to the first who was taken with an oath.
This man could be rid of it only by taking another in the same
offence, when he was to give him a _palmada_, or stroke on the palm,
transferring to him the instrument of punishment.  Whoever had it in
his possession at the time of evening or morning prayer was to
receive three _palmadas_ from the captain or master, and still bear
it, till he could find another victim of the oath.  In a few days
both swearing and ferulas were out of use in all three ships.  "For
in vices custom is the principal sustenance; and for their
reformation it is little available to give good counsel, or make good
laws, except they be executed."

When at last there were left not more than four-and-twenty sound men
in the three ships, Hawkins steered for the nearest shore.  Anchoring
two leagues off the port of Santos, in Brazil, he sent his captain
and sixteen armed men with a flag of truce, "a piece of crimson
velvet and a bolt of fine holland," with divers other things, as a
present to the Governor, and a letter written in Latin saying that,
being bound to the East Indies for traffic, contrary winds had forced
him upon that coast, and begging to be allowed to exchange some
goods.  The officer commanding the garrison at the harbour-mouth
received them courteously, and detained them while the letter was
sent to the Governor some twelve miles up country.  As the boat did
not return to the _Dainty_ next day, Hawkins manned a pinnace and
made a show of strength "where was weakness and infirmity."

He anchored right opposite the village and waited for a reply.

Soon he saw a flag of truce and sent a boat for the Governor's letter.

The Portuguese Governor was courteous, but firm.  He said that in
consequence of the war between England and Spain he had received
orders not to suffer any English to trade within his jurisdiction,
nor even to land.  He craved pardon, therefore, and desired Hawkins
to quit the port within three days, or he must treat them as enemies.

Meanwhile, to the great joy of the sick sailors, the boat first sent
from the _Dainty_ had returned, bringing about three hundred oranges
and lemons which they had bought from the women of the country.  The
very sight of the fruit seemed to have given them more heart, though
when all was divided, it came to only three or four to each sick man.

Hawkins, however, could not get out of the harbour with the pinnace,
because the wind sufficed him not for thirty-six hours.

"In which time," he says, "I lived in a great perplexity, for that I
knew our own weakness and what they might do unto us if they knew the
facts.  Any man that putteth himself into an enemy's port hath need
of the eyes of Argus, and the wind in a bag, especially when the
enemy is strong and the tides of force; for with either ebb or flow
those who are on the shore may thrust upon him inconveniences,
inventions of fire, or with swimming and other devices may cut his
cables--a common practice in all hot countries.  The like may be
effected with rafts, canoes, boats or pinnaces, to annoy and assault
him; and if this had been practised against us, our ships must of
force have yielded, for they had none in them but sick men; but many
times opinion and fear preserveth the ships, and not the people in
them."

At length a breeze sprang up and Hawkins was able to sail out of port
and join his ships, sounding as he went, and was received with great
joy.

So they all set sail, and shortly after were nearly cast ashore; for
after a night's watch on deck in a fresh gale of wind, when the next
night drew on, Hawkins and the master of the _Dainty_, feeling need
of a good night's rest, set the watch and went to their hammocks, the
care of the steerage being entrusted to the mate.  But he, too, was
drowsy, and dozed off, letting the ship fall away towards the shore.
In an hour or little more the master, being sound asleep, suddenly
awoke in a hot fright and sat up trembling--he knew not why.  So he
awoke the boy who slept in the cabin with him.

"Boy, how goeth the watch?"

"Why, master, 'tis but an hour or so since you laid yourself down to
rest."

"Humph! my heart be so unquiet, I cannot by any means get to sleep."

Anon the master rose with a grunt, put on his night-gown (as a
dressing-gown was then called), and went up upon the deck.

He had not been there many minutes when, shading his eyes with his
hands, for the starlight puzzled him, he shouted, "Land on the port
bow!"

"I see no land, master," said the look-out, yawning sleepily.

"Then, what is yon--sandy and low!  And hark! thou canst hear the
surf abreaking!  Helm! hard a-starboard!" the master shouted, "and
quick! the sounding-line!"

The ship tacked and edged off just in time, for the seaman found
scant three fathoms water; and Hawkins ends his relation by these
words: "Hereby we saw evidently the miraculous mercy of our God, that
if He had not watched over us, as He doth continually over His,
doubtless we had perished without remedy: to whom be all glory and
praise everlastingly, world without end."

No doubt this deliverance heartened the ailing crew, for they knew
their commander to be a God-fearing man, and now they had tasted,
they believed, of the good results of sailing with one of God's
favoured children.

The next evil which met them was the want of water; for the sick of
the scurvy were attacked by an unquenchable thirst.  Then Sir
Richard's scientific knowledge served him in good stead.  For he
tells us: "With an invention I had in my ship I easily drew out of
the water of the sea sufficient quantity of fresh water to sustain my
people with little expense of fuel; for with four billets I stilled a
hogshead of water, and therewith dressed the meat for the sick and
whole; the water so distilled is found to be wholesome and
nourishing."

Thus a so-called modern discovery turns out to be more than three
hundred years old, and in those days the means of distilling were
hard to come by.  On arrival at St. Anne's Islets they set up tents
for the sick, and here found many young gannets in their nests and
plenty of stuff for salads, so that many quickly recovered.  But by
this time Hawkins had lost half his people by sickness, and therefore
he burnt one of his ships.

A month later he sailed away with a good bill of health, saving for
six who were not yet well.  A few days later they gave chase to a
Portuguese ship and overhauled her.  An old gentleman was on board
who was going out to be Governor of Angola, with his wife and
daughter and fifty soldiers.

The poor old Don moved Hawkins' compassion by his sad story, for all
his fortune lay in that vessel; so, after taking out of their prize
some meal and chests of sugar, they disarmed them and let them go.

Hawkins' men were delighted with the unlooked-for supply, the
Portuguese Governor and his people were astonished at the generosity
of the English captain, and they were all happy and praising God for
His bounty and grace.

But when the _Dainty_ and her consort were off La Plata, a storm came
on from the south which lasted forty-eight hours.  By sundown Hawkins
saw with amazement that Tharlton, the master of the pinnace, was
bearing off before the wind, without making any sign of distress.
The _Dainty_ followed, and as darkness fell carried a light, but no
answering light was put up by the pinnace.

Thus Tharlton kept his course for England, and shamelessly deserted
his commander.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: ANGLING FOR ALBATROSS]

When Hawkins' ship, the _Dainty_, was in the South Seas making her
way to the Straits of Magellan, the crew saw certain big fowl as
large as swans, and secured several by baiting fishing-lines with
pilchard.  They were not, however, captured without great difficulty,
for they buffeted the men with their powerful wings until they were
black and blue.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"I was worthy to be deceived," wrote Hawkins, "in that I trusted my
ship in the hands of a hypocrite, and a man which had left his
general before on the like occasion, and in the self-same place."
For Tharlton had deserted Cavendish in the night-time and sailed
home; and Hawkins laments that such offenders were seldom brought to
trial, because their superiors were often not able to wade through
with the burden of the suit, which in Spain is prosecuted by the
King's attorney.  They had noticed during the gale certain great
fowls as big as swans, and throwing out a fishing-line baited with
pilchard caught enough to feed the crew for that day.  These must
have been the albatross, for Hawkins relates how when they had hooked
one of these creatures and pulled him to the stern of the ship, two
mariners went down by the ladders of the poop and seized on his neck
and wings; but such were the blows he gave them with his pinions,
that both left their hold of him, being beaten black and blue.

The _Dainty_ was now all alone, and on the 19th of February 1594
entered the Straits of Magellan.  At the Penguin Islands they stored
the ship with these birds, salted like beef in casks.  The hunting of
them proved a great source of amusement to the crew; as each, armed
with a cudgel, advanced and drove the silly things into a ring.
Whenever one chanced to break out, divers of the men would run and
try to head it round; but the ground was so undermined with their
burrows that ofttimes it failed unawares, and as they ran you could
see first one man and then another fall and sink up to his armpits in
the earth; while another, leaping to avoid one hole, would disappear
into another amidst the uproarious laughter of the rest.  Indeed, so
funny an appearance did they make, that many could run no more, but
stopped to hold their sides for laughter.  And Sir Richard concludes
thus: "After the first slaughter, on seeing us on the shore, the
penguins shunned us and tried to recover the sea; yea, many times,
seeing themselves persecuted, they would tumble down from such high
rocks as it seemed impossible to escape with life.  Yet as soon as
they came to the beach, presently we should see them run into the
sea, as though they had no hurt; but in getting them once within the
ring close together few escaped--and ordinarily there was no drove
which yielded us not a thousand or more."

In another part of the island was a colony of ducks, which had made
their nests of earth and water fetched in their beaks.  These were so
closely set that "the greatest mathematician could not devise to
place one more than there was, leaving only one pathway for a fowl to
pass betwixt ... and all the nests and passages were so smooth and
clean, as if they had been newly swept and washed."

Before Hawkins left the western end of the Straits, finding the
boards beginning to open from the great heat of the line, he calked
the ship within board and without above the decks, from post to
stern: the manner of sheathing the hull which his father, Sir John,
had invented, preserved the keel from the attack of worms.  One
accident caused some anxiety, when the _Dainty_ struck on a rock
amidships and hung there, having deep water both ahead and astern.
Not till the flood came could they warp her off, somewhat strained
and damaged.

Of five anchors brought from England, Hawkins had now lost two, and
two others were disabled, and as bitter weather came on, with sleet
and snow, the men craved to return to Brazil and winter there; but
Hawkins, having Fenton's fortune in mind and that of Cavendish,
resolved to go on and rather lose his life than listen to their
counsel.

But he amused his men ashore with sports and games, one day with the
west country sport of hurling, in which the bachelors played against
the married; another day with wrestling or shooting, or stalking
ursine seals as they lay sleeping on the shore in the sun; for their
skins were useful as clothes, their moustaches as toothpicks, and
their fat as oil.  But these seals, like the baboons of South Africa,
had the habit of posting sentinels, who wakened the herd with cries
of alarm; and when the sailors ran to get between the seals and the
sea, thinking to head them off, the plucky creatures made straight
for them, and not a man that withstood them escaped being overthrown.
Then, after the seals had gained the water, "they did, as it were,
scorn us, defy us, and dance before us."

On the 28th of March the _Dainty_ entered the South Pacific, though
the men murmured and grumbled and prophesied dire consequences.

On Easter Eve they anchored under the island of Mocha, where Drake
had suffered from the treachery of the Indians; so, great precautions
were taken while exchanging goods with them.  The Indians, however,
had to be chastised for stealing, and would not sell any hens or
llamas of their own breeding.

Hawkins wished not to discover himself upon the coast till he should
have passed Lima; but his men, greedy of spoil, urged him to enter
the port of Valparaiso, where they took four vessels in which were
only stores of no value, which the owners were allowed to ransom for
a small price.  Afterwards a fifth ship came in and was taken.  In
this they found some gold, which put the crew in a good humour.  New
anchors also were procured, and "a shift of cotton sails, far better
in that sea where they have little rain and few storms, than any of
our double sails; yet with the wet they grow so stiff that they
cannot be handled."

Hawkins generously restored all apparel and goods belonging to the
captain who had negotiated the ransom, and his generosity was
rewarded later on.

He remained eight days in port, during which time he and the master
of the _Dainty_, Hugh Cornish, took little rest, for they had only
seventy-five men to guard five ships, and the Governor of Chili was
lying in ambush near the shore with three hundred horse and foot.
But, worse than the enemy, Hawkins feared the wine for his sailors,
which overthrew many of his men--"a foul fault too common among
seamen, and deserving rigorous punishment"; and he declares that if
he had thousands of men, he would not carry with him a man known to
put his felicity in that vice.

As they neared the coast of Peru his men demanded their third of the
gold that had been taken.  To this Hawkins replied--

"It will not be easy, men, to divide the bars fairly, and if divided
they may easily be stolen.  Many of you, besides, will play away your
portions and return home as beggarly as ye came out."

The men consented to have the gold and silver deposited in chests
with three keys to each, of which the general was to have one, the
master another, and the third was to be given to a man nominated by
themselves.

The suspicions of the men were founded on their experience with bad
commanders who often defrauded the men, kept back their pay upon
pretended cavils, or forced them to sell their shares at low
prices--"usage which is accursed by the just God who forbiddeth wages
to be withheld."

The commander's humanity in sparing enemy's ships, instead of burning
them, as Drake had done, led to his overthrow; for the news of his
coming was sent by sea and land to the Viceroy of Peru, who at once
rose from his sick-bed and gave orders to man three ships in order to
chase "the English pirate."  In eight days three galleons were ready
for sea, mounted with twenty brass guns; but as Hawkins was reported
off Arica with three ships, two of them being prizes, the guards on
shore were strengthened and the squadron of pursuit was reinforced by
three more vessels.

When, in the middle of May, they found Hawkins, he had only a pinnace
with the _Dainty_, having burnt the other prize.  As the sun rose,
the wind freshened from the west and caused a chopping sea, by which
the admiral of the Spaniards snapt his mainmast asunder, while the
vice-admiral split his mainsail, and the rear-admiral cracked his
mainyard asunder, being ahead of the _Dainty_.  These accidents were
lucky for Hawkins, as the Spanish ships had been gaining before and
getting to windward.  Thus he managed to sail right between the
admiral and the vice-admiral, and in a few hours was clear of all his
enemies, who shortly put back to Callao.

They arrived in port after the storm in a sorry state, but the people
of Callao and Lima, whose expectation of seeing the English brought
back prisoners was high, burst out into a frenzy of scornful anger at
their unfortunate countrymen; the women especially reviled them for
cowards when they landed, and some of the lower class stuck daggers
and pistols in their bosoms and strutted about, taunting the
"poltroons," and demanding to be allowed to embark themselves against
the English pirate.

This treatment so hurt the sailors and soldiers that they vowed they
would follow Hawkins even to England rather than return again
dishonoured.

So hasty preparations were made, and many boats were staved in on the
stony beach in their hurry to pass to and fro and refit the galleons;
for the Viceroy himself went into the water to set an example to his
men.

Meanwhile Hawkins had held on his course and captured a ship fifty
leagues north of Lima; this he burnt, after taking out what
provisions he needed, put the crew ashore, except a pilot and a
Greek, who begged to be taken on board because they had broken the
law.

After this they gave chase to a tall ship which outsailed them.  Two
other vessels got away in the same fashion, which made the English
sailors swear at the _Dainty_ for being a slow sailer, "a very bad
quality for such a ship."

On the 10th of June Hawkins put into the bay of Atacames, about 260
leagues from Lima, and supposing the ship free from any more pursuit,
he stopped to take in wood and water and to repair the pinnace.

Eight days elapsed and they were about to sail, when a ship was seen
in the offing.  Instantly the love of plunder broke out, and Hawkins
had to allow the pinnace to give chase, appointing Cape San Francisco
as the place of rendezvous.  However, two days went by and no pinnace
came, so Hawkins returned to the bay and met her turning in without a
mainmast.  Two days more were lost in repairing the damage, and when
the _Dainty_ and her pinnace at last began to weigh anchor, a man
from the masthead said he could descry two large ships and a small
barque steering in towards them.

"The fleet bound for Panama, laden with treasure!  Cut sail and meet
them."  So shouted the sailors, and ran about in an excited manner.

"No, no," replied Hawkins; "no shipping will stir on this coast as
long as we are known to be here.  Besides, my men, if they be
merchantmen, let us wait here for them--they are standing in directly
towards us; here we have the weather-gage of them.  But if they are
sent to fight us, we can prepare our ship for the attack better by
remaining where we are."

It was done as John Davis would have done it, by gentle appeal to the
reason of the men: very different would have been the treatment of
Drake, whose men feared him too much to argue with him.

On the _Dainty_ the crew were almost insolent in their waywardness;
breaking out into reproaches at their commander's want of spirit,
some vaunting and bragging what they would do, or wishing they had
never left their own country, if they were to refuse such a fight as
this.

"To mend the matter," says Hawkins, "the gunner assured me that with
the first tire of shot he would lay one of them in the suds, and the
pinnace should take the other to task.  One promised that he would
cut down their mainyard, another that he would take their flag.  To
some I turned the deaf ear; with others I dissembled, soothing and
animating them to do that which they promised....  In all these
divisions and opinions, our master, Hugh Cornish (who was a most
sufficient man for government and valour, and well saw the errors of
the multitude), used his office as became him, and so did all those
of the best understanding."

Yet, in spite of this, Hawkins let the captain go with the pinnace to
discover what they were, but on no account to engage with the ships.
So the pinnace went, and the mad sailors leaned over the bulwarks,
and gaped foolishly when they saw her suddenly go about; but the
Spaniards began to chase her, "gunning at her all the way."

The _Dainty_ then stood out of the bay to meet them that there might
be sea-room to fight, but the wind fell, and the _Dainty_ was forced
to leeward; then the Spanish admiral came down upon her, as she
hailed the foe, first with noise of trumpets, then with waytes, and
after with artillery.

The Spaniards were much stronger both in guns and men, but this might
have been of no avail against English seamanship, had not the chief
gunner shamefully neglected his duty.

For "they came shoving aboard of us upon our lee-quarter, contrary to
our expectation and the custom of men-of-war; and doubtless, had our
gunner been the man he was reputed to be, she had received great hurt
by that manner of boarding; but, contrary to all expectation, our
stern pieces were unprimed, and so were all those which were to
leeward.  Hereby all men are to take warning by me, not to trust any
man in such extremities when he himself may see it done: this was my
oversight, this my overthrow."

Poor Richard! very dearly did he suffer for this want of attention to
details.  We are reminded of the great Nelson, who, when he was being
carried to the cock-pit, mortally wounded, noticed that one of the
tiller ropes was frayed, and ordered a new one to be put in at once.

Hawkins trusted too much to his gunner; while he with the rest of his
officers was busy clearing the decks, lacing the nettings, fastening
the bulwarks, arming the tops, tallowing the pikes, slinging the
yards, placing and ordering the men,--half his guns were useless from
sheer neglect!

"Plenty of cartridges ready, master-gunner?"

"Aye, aye, sir; there be over 500 in readiness."

Yet within an hour the cartridges fell short, and three men had to be
employed in making and filling more.

"Master-gunner, I gave you out 500 ells of canvas and cloth to make
cartridges, but we can't find a single yard of it."

"Got stowed away somewhere, I suspect, sir; we must make shift to
charge and discharge with the ladle--rayther a dangerous job in a hot
fight."

"There were brass balls of artificial fire--not one of them will go
off."

"Why, no, sir; I guess the salt-water has spoiled them all."

The commander's heart misgave him: was the man false, or incapable?
At length he and the master of the ship were forced to play the
gunner.  They found that few of the pieces were clear when they came
to use them, and others had the shot first put in, and after the
powder!  No wonder that many believed the master-gunner to be a vile
traitor.

When the action began Hawkins had only seventy-five men in all, and
the Spaniards had 1300, many of them "the choice of Peru."

Twice in the course of the day the enemy were beaten off, and in the
evening two Spanish ships were laid upon the _Dainty_ at once; but
the English, what with their muskets, what with their fireworks,
cleared their decks very soon.  If Hawkins had had more sound men, he
says, he could have boarded their vice-admiral and taken it.
However, the Spaniards had had enough of close quarters, and now set
to and, placing themselves within a musket-shot of the _Dainty_,
played upon her with their artillery without intermission.  "In all
these boardings and skirmishings," says Hawkins, "divers of our men
were slaine, and many hurt, and myself amongst them received six
wounds--one of them in the neck, very perilous; another through the
arm, perishing the bone, the rest not so dangerous.  The master of
our ship had one of his eyes, his nose, and half his face shott away.
Master Henry Courton was slaine.  On these two I principally relied
for the prosecution of our voyage, if God, by sickness or otherwise,
should take me away."

At times the Spaniards parleyed and invited Hawkins to surrender,
promising the usages of good war.  Once the captain of the _Dainty_
came to stir his leader to accept the terms offered, saying that
scarcely any men were left to traverse the guns or oppose any
defence, if the enemy should board again.  Poor Hawkins was suffering
agony, and believed himself to be at the point to die, but he roused
himself and begged them not to trust to promises from a Spaniard, for
they would assuredly be put to death as pirates or delivered to the
cruel mercies of the Inquisition.

The captain and his company agreed to fight on and sell their lives
dearly, so with tears and embracings--for they loved their
General--they took their leave; so the action was continued through
the night, and an hour before daybreak the enemy edged off in order
to remedy some defects, for the English shot made larger holes than
the Spanish, and a few more men would have turned the scale and given
the victory to the _Dainty_.

This breathing time the English employed in repairing sails and
tackling, stopping leaks, mending pumps, and splicing yards; for they
had many shot under water, and the pumps were battered to pieces.

When the action was renewed the vice-admiral came upon their quarter,
and a shot from one of the _Dainty's_ stern-pieces carried away his
mainmast close to the deck.  Hawkins lay below, and knew nothing of
what had occurred; then was the time to press the Spaniard home, but
the _Dainty_ was steered away, and the Spaniards had time to repair
their damage.

They soon overtook the _Dainty_, and the fight went on through the
second night, and they ceased firing again before the dawn; but there
had been no interval for rest or refreshment, except to snatch a
little bread and wine as they could.  Indeed, some of the English
crew had drunk heavily before the fight began; some ignorant seamen
even mixed powder with their wine, thinking it would give them
strength and courage.  The result of their drinking was, of course,
order, and foolish hardihood without reason, or vainglorious exposure
to danger.  And though Hawkins had prepared light armour for all, not
a man would use it; yet it would have saved many from such wounds as
splintered wood creates if they would have imitated their foe and
worn armour.

By the afternoon of the third day the enemy had the weather-gage of
them, and their guns were telling with terrible effect.

The _Dainty_ had now fourteen gaping wounds under water, eight foot
of water in her hold, her sails torn to tatters, her masts bowing and
bent, and her pumps useless--hardly a man was now unwounded.

Again the master with others approached their commander:

"Sir, the Spaniards still offer good war, life and liberty and an
embarkation to England.  If we wait any longer, sir, the ship will
sink; unless a miracle be wrought in our behalf by God's almighty
power, we may expect no deliverance or life."

Hawkins was too ill to resist further; he murmured sadly:

"Haul down the ensign, then, and hoist a flag of truce."

So they bade the rest cease firing, and a Spanish prisoner was sent
from the hold to tell Beltran de Castro that if he would give his
word of honour the ship should be surrendered.

Seeing the flag of truce, the Spaniard shouted:

"Hoist out your boat, Englishman."

"We cannot do so; it be all shot to pieces."

"So is ours.  Amain your sails, then; strike sail, can't you?"

"No, we can't; there be not enough men left to handle them."

Meanwhile the vice-admiral, not seeing the flag of truce, had come
upon the _Dainty's_ quarter, and firing two of his chase-pieces,
wounded the captain sorely in the thigh and maimed one of the
master's mates.

Then the Spanish admiral came alongside, and the prisoner jumped into
the warship, and was received with all courtesy.

Don Beltran affirmed that he received the commander and his people _à
buena guerra_, to the laws of fair war and quarter.  He swore by his
habit of Alcantara, and the green cross of the order which he wore
upon his breast, that he would give them their lives with good
treatment, and send them as speedily as he could to their own country.

"The Spanish admiral wants a pledge?  Here is my glove; take it to
him."

Don Beltran also sent one of his captains to help to bring the
English commander aboard the "admiral," which he did with great
humanity and courtesy.

"The General received me," says Hawkins, "with courtesy and
compassion, even with tears in his eyes and words of kind
consolation, and commanded me to be accommodated in his own cabin,
where he sought to cure and comfort me the best he could: the like he
did with all our hurt men."

There were only forty Englishmen left, all wounded; but all
recovered, in spite of the fact that no instruments, doctors, or
salves were to be had.  We remember that in the other case where an
English ship had to surrender to the Spaniards, the _Revenge_
disdained to swim in dishonour, and sank sullenly in a terrible storm.

The _Dainty_ lived to fight for Spain under the name of _La
Visitation_, being so named because she was captured on the day of
that festival.

As soon as Hawkins was removed the Spaniards began to ransack their
prize; but the water increased so fast in the hold that she nearly
sank, and it needed a strong body of workers to save her.

She was finally navigated to the port of Panama, and anchored there
some two leagues from the town, about three weeks after the fight.

When the good folk on shore saw the prize and heard the glad news,
they lit bonfires on the hills and candles in every window; the
churches and halls were illuminated, as on a holy day.  As the city
faced the sea, it appeared to those in the ships as though the whole
place was in flames.

Don Beltran reassured Hawkins that his officers and men should be
well treated, and gave him his word that if the King left him to his
disposal, his ransom should be only a couple of greyhounds for
himself and a couple for his brother.  It sounded almost too good to
be true.

Then the Englishman had the mortification of seeing his dear _Dainty_
being rebaptized with all solemnity in the harbour, where she was
shored up.  Perhaps a sardonic smile curled his lip when, in the very
midst of the ceremony, the props on one side gave way with a loud
crash, and the reluctant ship heeled over, "entreating many of them
that were in her very badly."

Here ends Sir Richard's account of his unfortunate voyage in his
"Observations"; he had intended to write a second part, but deferred
it too long.

Don Beltran was not allowed by his King to observe the terms he had
offered; the crew were sent to serve in the galleys at Cartagena,
Hawkins and twenty others Don Beltran took with him to Lima.

Our hero had shown courage and generosity and kindness to natives and
prisoners, but as a complete seaman his own words show him to have
been deficient.  He trusted his subordinates too much, and he kept
rather loose discipline; but he was a man of the highest honour, and
won the respect of the best Spaniards.

At Lima the Inquisition claimed the prisoners, but the Viceroy
refused to give them up until he had heard from King Philip.

In 1597 Hawkins was sent to Spain and imprisoned at Seville; in
September 1598 he escaped, but was retaken and thrust into a dungeon.

In 1599 he was taken to Madrid, although Don Beltran had indignantly
protested against the violation of his solemn promise.

In 1602 he was released and sent home, as by this time Count Miranda,
President of the Council, had come to the conclusion that formal
pledges given by the King's officers must be kept, or else no other
English would surrender.

In July 1603 Hawkins was knighted, became M.P. for Plymouth and
Vice-Admiral of Devon, and had to scour the sea for pirates.

In 1620 he sailed under Sir Robert Mansell to put down Algerine
corsairs in the Mediterranean, and returned home, after a failure,
sick and weak in body.  In 1622 he was carried off by a fit while
attending the Privy Council on business bearing on his late command.

By his wife Judith he left two sons and four daughters.

His book, "Observations in his Voyage into the South Sea, A.D. 1593,"
was not written until nearly thirty years after the events, and
consequently bears traces of inaccuracy in details and dates; but it
surpasses all other books of travel of those times in describing the
details of nautical life, in scientific interest concerning the fauna
and flora of the countries he visited, and in transparent candour and
freedom from prejudice.  He was no boastful discoverer, but a
God-fearing, conscientious servant of the Queen, who, like so many
others, tried to do his duty, and sometimes failed to reach the
highest success.

But for all that, he was not the least among England's heroes; he was
a worthy son of Sir John, and a man whom Devon may claim as one of
her noblest and most generous sons.



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  Edinburgh & London




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