Sir Francis Drake, the Queen's Greatest Seaman. page 3

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.