Chapter XI: Part 11

The King's brother had great liking of our armor, a sword, and divers other things which we had, and offered to lay a great box of pearl in gage for them; but we refused it for this time, because we would not make them know that we esteemed thereof, until we had understood in what places of the country the pearl grew, which now your worship doth very well understand. He was very just of his promise: for many times we delivered him merchandise upon his word, but ever he came within the day and performed his promise. He sent us every day a brace or two of fat bucks, coneys, hares, fish the best of the world. He sent us divers kinds of fruits, melons, walnuts, cucumbers, gourds, pease, and divers roots, and fruits very excellent good, and of their country corn, which is very white, fair, and well tasted, and groweth three times in five months: in May they sow, in July they reap; in June they sow, in August they reap; in July they sow, in September they reap. Only they cast the corn into the ground, breaking a little of the soft turf with a wooden mattock or pick-axe. Ourselves proved the soil, and put some of our peas in the ground, and in ten days they were of fourteen inches high. They have also beans very fair, of divers colors, and wonderful plenty, some growing naturally and some in their gardens; and so have they both wheat and oats. The soil is the most plentiful, sweet, fruitful, and wholesome of all the world. There are above fourteen several sweet-smelling timber-trees, and the most part of their underwoods are bays and such like. They have those oaks that we have, but far greater and better.

After they had been divers times aboard our ships, myself with seven more went twenty mile into the river that runneth toward the city of Skicoak, which river they call Occam; and the evening following we came to an island which they call Roanoak, distant from the harbor by which we entered seven leagues; and at the north end thereof was a village of nine houses built of cedar and fortified round about with sharp trees to keep out their enemies, and the entrance into it made like a turnpike very artificially.[3] When we came toward it, standing near unto the water's side, the wife of Granganimeo, the King's brother, came running out to meet us very cheerfully and friendly. Her husband was not then in the village. Some of her people she commanded to draw our boat on shore, for the beating of the billow. Others she appointed to carry us on their backs to the dry ground, and others to bring our oars into the house for fear of stealing.

[3] The site of the colony established in the following year, 1585.

When we were come into the utter room--having five rooms in her house--she caused us to sit down by a great fire, and after took off our clothes and washed them and dried them again. Some of the women plucked off our stockings and washed them, some washed our feet in warm water, and she herself took great pains to see all things ordered in the best manner she could, making great haste to dress some meat for us to eat. After we had thus dried ourselves, she brought us into the inner room, where she set on the board standing along the house some wheat like frumenty, sodden venison and roasted, fish sodden, boiled and roasted, melons raw and sodden, roots of divers kinds, and divers fruits. Their drink is commonly water, but while the grape lasteth they drink wine, and for want of casks to keep it, all the year after they drink water; but it is sodden with ginger in it, and black cinnamon, and sometimes sassafras, and divers other wholesome and medicinable herbs and trees.

We were entertained with all love and kindness, and with as much bounty, after their manner, as they could possibly devise. We found the people most gentle, loving and faithful, void of all guile and treason, and such as live after the manner of the golden age. The people only care how to defend themselves from the cold in their short winter, and to feed themselves with such meat as the soil affordeth; their meat is very well sodden, and they make broth very sweet and savory. Their vessels are earthen pots, very large, white and sweet; their dishes are wooden platters of sweet timber. Within the place where they feed was their lodging, and within that their idol, which they worship, of whom they speak incredible things. While we were at meat, there came in at the gates two or three men with their bows and arrows from hunting, whom when we espied we began to look one toward another, and offered to reach our weapons; but as soon as she espied our mistrust, she was very much moved, and caused some of her men to run out, and take away their bows and arrows and break them, and withal beat the poor fellows out of the gate again.

When we departed in the evening and would not tarry all night, she was very sorry, and gave us into our boat our supper half-dressed, pots and all, and brought us to our boat-side, in which we lay all night, removing the same a pretty distance from the shore. She perceived our jealousy, was much grieved, and sent divers men and thirty women to sit all night on the bank-side by us, and sent us into our boats fine mats to cover us from the rain, using very many words to entreat us to rest in their houses. But because we were few men, and, if we had miscarried, the voyage had been in very great danger, we durst not adventure anything, although there was no cause of doubt; for a more kind and loving people there cannot be found in the world, as far as we had hitherto had trial.

Beyond this island there is the mainland, and over against this island falleth into this spacious water the great river called Occam by the inhabitants, on which standeth a town called Pomeiock, and six days' journey from the same is situate their greatest city, called Skicoak, which this people affirm to be very great; but the savages were never at it, only they speak of it by the report of their fathers and other men, whom they have heard affirm it to be above one hour's journey about. Into this river falleth another great river called Cipo, in which there is found great store of muscles, in which there are pearls; likewise there descendeth into this Occam another river called Nomopana, on the one side whereof standeth a great town called Chawanook, and the lord of that town and country is called Pooneno. This Pooneno is not subject to the King of Wingandacoa, but is a free lord.

Beyond this country is there another king, whom they call Menatonon, and these three kings are in league with each other. Toward the southwest, four days' journey, is situate a town called Secotan, which is the southernmost town of Wingandacoa, near unto which six-and-twenty years past there was a ship cast away, whereof some of the people were saved, and those were white people, whom the country people preserved. And after ten days remaining in an out island unhabited, called Wocokon, they, with the help of some of the dwellers of Secotan, fastened two boats of the country together, and made masts unto them, and sails of their shirts, and having taken into them such victuals as the country yielded, they departed after they had remained in this out island three weeks. But shortly after, it seemed, they were cast away, for the boats were found upon the coast, cast a-land in another island adjoining. Other than these, there was never any people apparelled, or white of color, either seen or heard of among these people, and these aforesaid were seen only of the inhabitants of Secotan; which appeared to be very true, for they wondered marvellously when we were among them at the whiteness of our skins, ever coveting to touch our breasts and to view the same.

Besides they had our ships in marvellous admiration, and all things else were so strange unto them, as it appeared that none of them had ever seen the like. When we discharged any piece, were it but an arquebuse, they would tremble thereat for very fear, and for the strangeness of the same, for the weapons which themselves use are bows and arrows. The arrows are but of small canes, headed with a sharp shell or tooth of a fish sufficient enough to kill a naked man. Their swords be of wood hardened; likewise they use wooden breast-plates for their defence; They have beside a kind of club, in the end whereof they fasten the sharp horns of a stag, or other beast. When they go to wars they carry about with them their idol, of whom they ask counsel, as the Romans were wont of the oracle of Apollo. They sing songs as they march toward the battle, instead of drums and trumpets. Their wars are very cruel and bloody, by reason whereof, and of their civil dissensions which have happened of late years among them, the people are marvellously wasted, and in some places the country left desolate.

Adjoining to this country aforesaid, called Secotan, beginneth a country called Pomovik, belonging to another king, whom they call Piemacum; and this King is in league with the next King adjoining toward the setting of the sun, and the country Newsiok, situate upon a goodly river called Neus. These kings have mortal war with Wingina, King of Wingandacoa; but about two years past there was a peace made between the king Piemacum and the Lord of Secotan, as these men which we have brought with us to England have given us to understand; but there remaineth a mortal malice in the Secotans, for many injuries and slaughters done upon them by this Piemacum. They invited divers men, and thirty women of the best of his country, to their town to a feast, and when they were altogether merry, and praying before their idol--which is nothing else but a mere delusion of the devil--the captain or lord of the town came suddenly upon them, and slew them every one, reserving the women and children; and these two have oftentimes since persuaded us to surprise Piemacum his town, having promised and assured us that there will be found in it great store of commodities. But whether their persuasion be to the end they may be revenged of their enemies, or for the love they bear to us, we leave that to the trial hereafter.

Beyond this island called Roanoak are many islands very plentiful of fruits and other natural increases, together with many towns and villages along the side of the continent, some bounding upon the islands, and some stretching up farther into the land.

When we first had sight of this country, some thought the first land we saw to be the continent; but after we entered into the haven we saw before us another mighty long sea, for there lieth along the coast a tract of islands two hundred miles in length, adjoining to the ocean sea, and between the islands two or three entrances. When you are entered between them, these islands being very narrow for the most part, as in some places six miles broad, in some places less, in few more, then there appeareth another great sea, containing in breadth in some places forty, in some fifty, in some twenty miles over, before you come unto the continent; and in this enclosed sea there are above one hundred islands of divers bignesses, whereof one is sixteen miles long, at which we were, finding it a most pleasant and fertile ground, replenished with goodly cedars and divers other sweet woods, full of currants, of flax, and many other notable commodities which we at that time had no leisure to view. Besides this island there are many, as I have said, some of two, of three, of four, of five miles, some more, some less, most beautiful and pleasant to behold, replenished with deer, coneys, hares, and divers beasts, and about them the goodliest and best fish in the world, and in greatest abundance.

Thus, sir, we have acquainted you with the particulars of our discovery made this present voyage, as far forth as the shortness of the time we there continued would afford us to take view of; and so contenting ourselves with this service at this time, which we hope hereafter to enlarge, as occasion and assistance shall be given, we resolved to leave the country, and to apply ourselves to return for England, which we did accordingly, and arrived safely in the west of England about the midst of September.

And whereas we have above certified you of the country taken in possession by us to her majesty's use, and so to yours by her majesty's grant, we thought good for the better assurance thereof to record some of the particular gentlemen and men of account who then were present, as witnesses of the same, that thereby all occasion of cavil to the title of the country, in her majesty's behalf, may be prevented, which otherwise such as like not the action may use and pretend. Whose names are, Master Philip Amidas, Master Arthur Barlow, captains; William Greenville, John Wood, James Bromewich, Henry Greene, Benjamin Wood, Simon Ferdinando, Nicholas Petman, John Hughes, of the company.

We brought home also two of the savages, being lusty men, whose names were Wanchese and Manteo.

R. R. HOWISON

Arrived in England, Barlow and Amidas immediately sought the Queen, and laid before her an account of their voyage and of its results. There was much of truth as a basis for their wondrous descriptions; but the sober observer will not fail to mark in this narrative the impress of imaginations heated by the novelty of their performance and the encouraging hope of their royal mistress. They spake of the land they had visited as an earthly paradise; its seas were tranquil and gemmed with green islands, on which the eye delighted to rest; its trees were lofty, and many of them would rival the odoriferous products of tropical soil; its fruits were so lavishly supplied by nature that art needed to do little more than gather them in summer and autumn, for the wants of the winter; its people were children of another age when virtue triumphed, and vice was yet unknown. The Court and the Queen were alike enlisted, and looked to this discovery as one of the brightest spots in her lustrous reign.

For a land so distinguished in natural charms, and to which England designed to devote the expanding energies of her people, a name was to be found worthy of future love. The Queen selected "Virginia," and none can deplore the graceful choice. She remembered her own unmarried state; and connecting, it may be, with this the virgin purity which yet seemed to linger amid this favored region, she bestowed a name which has since interwoven itself with the most sensitive chords of a million hearts.

Raleigh had now obtained the honor of knighthood and a seat in parliament; and deriving from this lucrative monopoly means for further effort, he made diligent preparation for despatching another fleet to Virginia. The second expedition consisted of seven vessels, large and small; and that gallant spirit, Sir Richard Grenville, himself was at its head. The war with Spain was now in progress, and the richly laden vessel from South America and the West Indies offered tempting prizes to English bravery. Sir Richard sailed from Plymouth, April 9, passed the Canaries and West Indies, captured two Spanish ships, ran imminent hazard of being wrecked on the dangerous headland now known as Cape Fear, and reached Wocpcon on June 26th. Manteo was brought back to his native land, and proved an invaluable guide and interpreter to his newly made friends.

But their amicable relations with the natives were now to receive a rude shock, from which they never recovered. At Aquascogoc, an Indian stole from the adventurers a silver cup; and, on being detected, he did not return it as speedily as was desired (July 16). For this enormous offence the English burned the town and barbarously destroyed the growing corn. The affrighted inhabitants fled to the woods, and thus a poisoned arrow was planted in their bosoms, which rankled unto the end. A silver cup, in the eyes of European avarice, was a loss which could only be atoned by ruin and devastation; and had the unhappy savage stolen the only child of the boldest settler, a more furious vengeance could not have followed! To such conduct does America owe the undying hatred of the aboriginal tenants of her land, and the burden of infamy that she must bear when weighed in the scales of immaculate justice.

A serious attempt was now made to found a colony. One hundred eight men were left on the island of Roanoke, comprising in their number some of the boldest hearts and many of the best cultivated minds that had left the mother-country. Among them was Thomas Heriot, whom Raleigh had sent out with a full knowledge of his scientific acquirements, his love of investigation, and his moral worth. Sir Richard Grenville returned to England, where he arrived in September, bringing with him a rich Spanish prize.

The settlers, thus left to their own resources, seem to have done little in the all-important task of clearing the country and planting corn for future necessities. Ralph Lane had been appointed governor, a man uniting military knowledge with experience in the sea. He undertook several voyages of exploration, penetrated north as far as Elizabeth River and a town on Chesapeake Bay, and south to Secotan, eighty leagues from Roanoke. But his most famous expedition was up Albemarle Sound and the Chowan River, of his adventures in which he has himself given us a description in a letter preserved by Captain Smith. The King of the Chawanooks was known by the title of Menatonon. He was lame in one of his lower limbs, but his spirit seems to have been one of uncommon activity and shrewdness. He told the credulous English of a country, four days' journey beyond them, where they might hope for abundant riches.

This country lay on the sea; and its king, from the waters around his island retreat, drew magnificent pearls in such numbers that they were commonly used in his garments and household conveniences. Instantly the fancies of the eager listeners were fired with the hope of attaining this wealth; and notwithstanding the scarcity of food, and the danger of an assault by "two or three thousand" savages, they continued to toil up the river. They labored on until they had nothing for sustenance except two dogs of the mastiff species and the sassafras leaves which grew in great abundance around them. Upon this inviting fare they were fain to nourish their bodies, while their souls were fed upon the hope of finally entering this region of pearls; but at length, in a state near to starvation, they returned to Roanoke, having made no discovery even so valuable as a copper spring high up the Chowan River, concerning which the Indians had excited their hopes.

Thomas Heriot employed his time in researches more rational than those which sought for pearls amid the wilderness of America. He intermingled freely with the Indian tribes, studied their habits, their manners, their language, and origin. He sought to teach them a theology more exalted than the fancies of their singular superstition, and to expand their minds by a display of the instruments of European science. He acquired a vast fund of information as to the state of the original country, its people and its products, and to his labors we may yet be indebted in the progress of this narrative.

But we have reason to believe that a great part of the colonists contributed nothing to the success of the scheme, and did much to render it fruitless. The natives, who had received the first adventurers with unsuspecting hospitality, were now estranged by the certain prospect of seeing their provisions taken away and their homes wrested from them by civilized pretenders. Wingina, the King of the country, had never been cordial, and he now became their implacable foe. Nothing but a superstitious reverence of the Bible, the fire-arms, and the medicinal remedies of the colonists restrained his earthly enmity; but at length, upon the death of his father, Ensenore, who had been the steady friend of the whites, he prepared for vengeance. In accordance with a custom common among the Indians, he had changed his name to Pemissapan, and now drew around him followers to aid in his scheme of death. Twenty or more were to surround the hut of Lane, drive him forth with fire, and slay him while thus defenceless. The leader destroyed, the rest of the colonists were to be gradually exhausted by starving, until they should fall an easy prey to the savages. But this well-concerted plan was betrayed to the English--a _rencontre_ occurred, and several Indians were slain. The settlers considered themselves justifiable in meeting the treachery of the foe by a stratagem, which drew Pemissapan and eight of his principal men within their reach, and they were all shot down in the skirmish (1586).

But this success did not assuage the hunger of the famished colonists. They were reduced to extremity, when a seasonable relief appeared on their coasts (June 8th). While despair was taking possession of their bosoms, the white sails of a distant fleet were seen, and Sir Francis Drake, with twenty-three ships, was soon in their waters. He had been cruising in search of the Spaniards in the West Indies and had been directed by the Queen to visit the Virginia colony. His quick perception instantly discerned the wants of the settlers, and he provided for them a ship well stored with provisions and furnished with boats to serve in emergency. But a violent storm drove his fleet to sea and reduced to wreck the vessel intended to sustain the settlers. Their resolution gave way; it seemed as though divine and human power were united against them, and, in utter despondency, they entreated Drake to receive them in his fleet and carry them to England. He yielded to their wishes. They embarked June 18th, and July 27th they landed once more on the shores of their mother-land.

Thus, after a residence of nearly twelve months in Virginia, the first colonists deserted the country which had been offered as containing all that the heart of man could desire. Little was gained by their abortive attempt beyond an increased knowledge of the New World, and another lesson in the great book of depraved human nature.

It would be pleasing to the lover of Virginia to be able to record the final good-fortune of Walter Raleigh, but nothing resulted from his patent except successive disaster and an appalling consummation. The determined knight had sent a ship to seek the colony; and this arrived after the disheartened settlers had sailed with Sir Francis Drake, and, thus finding the island deserted, it returned to England. Two weeks afterward Sir Richard Grenville arrived with two ships well-appointed, but no flourishing settlement greeted his eager eyes. Unwilling to abandon the semblance of hope, he left fifteen men on the island, well provided with all things essential to their comfort, and then spread his sails for England (1587).

In the succeeding year Raleigh prepared for another attempt. Convinced that the Bay of Chesapeake, which had been discovered by Lane, afforded greater advantages for a colony, he directed his adventurers to seek its shores, and gave them a character of corporation for the city of Raleigh--a name that North Carolina has since, with merited gratitude, bestowed upon her most favored town. John White assumed command of this expedition, and they were soon in the waters of Virginia (July 22d). The cape to which maritime terrors have given an expressive name threatened them with shipwreck, but at length they arrived in safety at Hatteras, and immediately despatched a party to Roanoke to seek the settlers left by Sir Richard Grenville. A melancholy silence pervaded the spot--the huts were yet standing, but rank weeds and vines had overspread them, and striven to reclaim to the wilderness the abortive efforts of human labor. Not one man could be found, but the bones of one unhappy victim told in gloomy eloquence of conflict and of death. From the reluctant statements of the natives, they gathered the belief that these men had either all perished under the attacks of overwhelming numbers, or had gradually wasted away under the approaches of disease and famine.

A discovery so mournful held out no cheering prospects to the new adventurers; yet they determined to renew the attempt upon the island adjoining Hatteras. About one hundred fifteen persons were landed and prepared for their novel life. The Indians were no longer pacific; the spirit of Wingina had diffused itself through every bosom, and the unfortunate mistake, which caused the death of a friendly savage, contributed much to the general hostility. But amid so much that was unpropitious, two events occurred to shed a faint light upon their days (August 13th). Manteo, the faithful friend of the early visitors, was baptized with the simple though solemn rites of the Christian faith, and upon him was bestowed the sounding title of Lord of Dessamonpeake, and, a few days after, the first child of European parentage was born upon the soil of America. Eleanor, daughter of Governor White, had married Ananias Dare, and on August 18th she gave birth to a female, upon whom was immediately bestowed the sweet name of Virginia. It is sad to reflect that the gentle infant of an English mother, and the first whose eyes were opened upon the New World, should have been destined to a life of privation and to a death of early oblivion.

But the colonists needed many things from the motherland, and determined to send the Governor to procure them. He was unwilling to leave them under circumstances so strongly appealing to his paternal heart, but yielded to the general wish and sailed on August 27th. But many causes now opposed his success in the mother-country. Spain was threatening a descent with her formidable Armada, and England was alive with preparations to meet the shock. Raleigh and Grenville entered with enthusiasm into the interests of their country, and were no longer in a state to furnish aid for a distant colony. Not until April 22, 1588, could they prepare two small barks for a voyage to Virginia, and these, drawn away by their eager thirst for Spanish prizes laden with Mexican gold, wandered from their route, and were driven back by superior enemies to their original ports.

Yielding to his disappointment and mortification at these repeated disasters, and exhausted in money by his enormous outlays, Raleigh no longer hoped for success from his own exertions. Forty thousand pounds had been expended and no return had been made. On March 7, 1589, he assigned his patent to Thomas Smith, Richard Hakluyt, and others, who had the means and the experience of merchants, or rather he extended to them the rights enjoyed under his patent and exercised by him in giving the charter for the "City of Raleigh." With this assignment he gave one hundred pounds for the propagation of Christian principles among the savages of Virginia.

But the energetic soul of Raleigh no longer ruled, and doubtful zeal impelled the assignees. Not until March, 1590, could Governor White obtain three ships for his purposes; and though their names might have incited him, by the motives both of earthly hope and religious trust, yet he preferred an avaricious cruise among the West India Isles to a speed which might, peradventure, have preserved the life of his daughter. He arrived at Hatteras August 15th, and sought the settlers left there three years before. The curling smoke of grass and trees in flame gave them encouragement, but they sought in vain their long-neglected friends. On the bark of a tree was found the word "Croatan," legibly inscribed, and White hoped, from the absence of the cross, which he himself had suggested as a sign of distress, that the settlers were still in being; but as they proceeded to Croatan a furious storm arose and drove them from the coast, and their dismayed spirits could find no relief except in a return to England.

No lingering trace has ever marked the fate of this unhappy colony. The generous Raleigh in vain sent five successive messengers to seek and save. They were gone, and whither no tongue was left to tell. Modern ingenuity may be indulged in the forlorn suggestion that they were amalgamated among their savage neighbors, but sober thought will rather fear that they perished under the mingled weight of famine, of disappointed hope, and of Indian barbarity.

DRAKE CAPTURES CARTAGENA

HE "SINGES THE KING OF SPAIN'S BEARD" AT CADIZ

A.D. 1586-1587

JULIAN CORBETT

Sir Francis Drake (born in Devonshire about 1540; died in 1596),
greatest of the Elizabethan seamen, has been the subject of perhaps
equal praise and blame at the hands of the world's historians. So
famous were his exploits, and so scanty the actual knowledge of them
in his own time, that "he was not dead before his life became a
fairy-tale." But history has distinguished fact from legend in the
life of this naval hero, whose undisputed achievements have kept his
name conspicuous among his country's foremost sea-fighters.

He began his career in the coasting-trade, sailed with Sir John
Hawkins in 1567, and three years later began privateering operations
against the Spaniards in the New World, by way of making good the
losses which they had inflicted upon him. These depredations on
Spanish possessions were continued through many years, with
occasional attacks upon the coast of Spain itself. "By Spanish
historians," says an English writer, "these hostilities are
represented as unprovoked in their origin, and as barbarous in their
execution, and candor must allow that there is but too much justice
in the complaint."

Whether justifiable or not, these aggressive acts of Drake had much
to do with the desire for revenge upon England which led Philip II
to prepare for a great invasion of that country. Drake, on his
return, in 1580, from the first English circumnavigation of the
globe, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. She now gave him important
commands, and from this period at least his career may be regarded
in connection with the regular service of his sovereign.

In the autumn of 1585 Drake sailed with twenty-five ships against
the Spanish Main, harrying the coasts of the West Indies and of
northern South America. Cartagena, which he captured in 1586, was
the chief port and stronghold of New Granada (now Colombia). By this
feat, as also by his "singeing of the beard of the Spanish King" at
Cadiz next year, he assailed with telling effect the power with
which England was at once to be brought into more serious conflict.

The mill of Philip's purpose went grinding on relentlessly. He invited a large fleet of English corn-ships to the relief of his famine-stricken provinces, and then, as they lay unsuspecting in his ports, he seized them every one. Never once was the growing armada out of his mind. This atrocious outrage was but to feed his monster, and swift and sharp was the retribution it earned. It was in the last days of May, and, ere June was out, far and near the seas were swarming with English privateers, and "The Dragon" was unchained.

Fortified with letters of marque to release the embargoed vessels, Drake hoisted his flag at Plymouth on the Elizabeth Bonaventura, and there, by the end of July, "in all jollity and with all help and furtherance himself could wish," a formidable fleet gathered round him. Frobisher was his vice-admiral, Francis Knollys his rear-admiral, and Thomas Fenner his flag-captain. Christopher Carleill was there, too, as lieutenant-general, with a full staff and ten companies under him. No such privateering squadron had ever been seen before. It consisted of two battle-ships and eighteen cruisers, with their complement of store-ships and pinnaces; it was manned with a force of soldiers and sailors to the number of two thousand three hundred, and it is not surprising that constant difficulties delayed its departure.

Yet delay was dangerous in the extreme. The Spanish party had again taken heart, and were whispering caution in the Queen's ear. Even Burghley grew nervous that she would repent; but at last he got sailing-orders sent off, and, with a sigh of relief, entered in his diary that Drake had gone. To his horror came back a letter from the admiral still dated from Plymouth, instead of from Finisterre, as he had hoped, and he sent down a warning to urge the immediate departure of the fleet. August wore away, and the equipment was still incomplete, when Drake, who was now in constant dread of a countermand, was alarmed by Sir Philip Sydney's suddenly appearing at Plymouth and announcing his intention of accompanying the expedition. Determined to have no more to do with courtiers and amateur soldiers, he secretly sent off a courier to betray the truant's escapade to the Court. He must even be suspected, in his desperation, of having set men in wait to intercept and destroy any orders that were not to his liking. The precaution was unnecessary. Sydney was peremptorily stopped, and ere any letter came to stay Drake, too, the wind had shifted northerly, and, all unready as he was, he cleared for Finisterre.

There he arrived on September 26th. He was clear away, but that was all. He was short both of water and victuals. There had not even been time to distribute the stores he had, or to issue his general orders to the fleet. He smelt foul weather, too; and, determined to complete somewhere what he had left undone at Plymouth, he boldly ran in under the lee of the Bayona Islands in Vigo Bay. The old Queen's officers were aghast. Entirely dominated by the prestige of Spain, they believed that nothing could be done against her except by surprise, and they trembled to see their admiral thus recklessly fling his cards upon the table. But he knew what he was doing. As with sagacious bravado he had sprung ashore at Santa Marta, and had mocked the Spanish fleet in Cartagena harbor, so now before he struck he exulted that his unfleshed host should hear him shout "_En garde!_" to the King of Spain; that they should listen while he cried that England cared not for spying traitors, for she had nothing to conceal; that her fleets meant to sail when and where they would, and Philip might do his worst. It was a stroke of that divine instinct which marks out a hero from among able captains--the magic touch of a great leader of men, under which the dead fabric of an army springs into life and feels every fibre tingling with the strong purpose of its heart.

Two leagues from the town of Bayona the fleet anchored; and resolved at once to display his whole strength, and exercise his men in their duties, Drake ordered out his pinnaces and boats for a reconnaissance in force. His boldness bore immediate fruit. The Governor sent off to treat, and by nightfall it was arranged that troops should land, and in the morning be allowed to water and collect what victuals they could. But at midnight the threatened storm rolled up. The troops were hurriedly reëmbarked; and, barely in time to escape disaster, the flotilla regained the ships. For three days the gale continued, threatening the whole fleet with destruction till it was got safely up above Vigo. There the whole of the boats in which the panic-stricken inhabitants had embarked their property were captured, and, though by this time the Governor of Bayona had arrived with a considerable force, he was compelled to permit Drake to carry out his purpose in peace.

By October 8th he was out in the Bayona road again, waiting for a wind to waft him on his way, and it was reported at the Spanish court that he had gone toward the Indies. The consternation was universal. The Marquis of Santa Cruz, high admiral of Spain and the most renowned naval officer in Europe, declared that not only the African islands, but the whole Pacific coast, the Spanish Main, and the West Indies were at the corsair's mercy, and told his master that a fleet of forty sail must be instantly equipped for the pursuit. But though for another fortnight Drake rode defiantly at the Bayona anchorage, not a limb of Philip's inert machinery could be moved against him; and, while the chivalry of Spain chafed under their sovereign's deliberation, the second blow was struck.

Madeira was passed by and the Canaries spared; for Palma, which Drake intended should revictual him, showed so bold a front that he would not waste time in trying to reduce it. It was on another point that his implacable glance was fixed.

Five years ago at Santiago, the chief town of the Cape Verd Islands, young William Hawkins, a personal adherent of Drake's, had been made the victim of some such treachery as his father and captain had suffered together at Vera Cruz. From that hour it was doomed. In the middle of November the fleet arrived in the road and the troops landed. Threatened by Carleill from the heights above the valley where it lies, and from the sea by Drake, without a blow the town was abandoned to its fate. For ten days the island was scoured for plunder and provisions, and ere the month was out the anchorage was desolate and Santiago a heap of ashes.

Drake's vengeance was complete, and, exulting like Gideon in the devastation that marked his course, he led his ships across the Atlantic. Is there a moment in history more tragic than that? For the first time since the ages began, a hostile fleet was passing the ocean--the pioneer of how many more that have gone and are yet to go--the forerunner of how much glory and shame and misery! What wonder if the curse of God seemed upon it? Hardly had it lost sight of land when it was stricken with sickness. In a few days some three hundred men were dead, and numbers of others prostrate and useless; but in unshaken faith, and with reverent wonder at the inscrutable will of Heaven, Drake never flinched or paused. His only thought was how to check the evil. At Dominica he got fresh provisions from the natives, and refreshed his sick with a few days on shore. At St. Christopher he again halted to spend Christmas and elaborate the details of his next move.

The point where Philip was now to feel the weight of his arm was the fair city of Santo Domingo in Española. It was by far the most serious operation Drake had yet undertaken. Hitherto his exploits had been against places that were little more than struggling settlements, but Santo Domingo was indeed a city, stone-built and walled, and flanked with formidable batteries. It was held by a powerful garrison, as Drake learned from a captured frigate, and a naval force had been concentrated in the harbor for its defence. As the oldest town in the Indies, its renown had hitherto secured it from attack, and in Spain it was held the queen city of the colonial empire. The moral effect of its capture would be profound, and, besides, from Virginia the governor of Raleigh's new colony had sent home a fabulous report of its wealth. Drake was fully alive to the gravity of the task before him. His dispositions had never been so elaborate, and they evince at least a touch of that military genius which the strategists of the next century denied him. While the sick were recruiting he sent forward a squadron to reconnoitre, and, if possible, to open communications with the maroons who infested the hills. For three days the garrison was thus exhausted with constant alarms, and then on January 1, 1586, the whole fleet appeared in the bay.

Night fell, and, as darkness closed the eyes of the harassed garrison, with the fleet all was activity. In boats and pinnaces the troops were being rapidly embarked, and soon Drake in person was piloting the flotilla for the surf-beaten shore. At a point within the bay, but some ten miles from the town, a practicable landing-place had been found. Watch-houses overlooked it, but watchmen there were none. Drake had got touch with the maroons. By his directions a party of them had stolen down from the hills, and as the sentries came out from the city in the evening, swiftly and silently they had been every one despatched. Thus, unseen and unmolested, the troops were successfully landed, and then, with pious and cheery farewells to Carleill, Drake returned to the fleet to prepare the ground for the surprise.

In the morning he anchored in the road, ran out his guns, and proceeded to threaten a landing at a point close to that side of the town upon which Carleill was stealthily approaching in two parallel columns. As the Spaniards saw the fleet preparing the advance of the boats and pinnaces, the whole of the horse and a large force of foot marched out of the town to oppose the threatened attack, and took up a position fronting the sea, with their left resting on the town and the other flank exposed in the line of Carleill's advance. It was exactly what had been foreseen, and, ere the Spaniards had discovered that the movement from the fleet was merely a feint, the horse which were covering their exposed flank were flying before Carleill's musketeers.

The surprise was complete. Taken in flank by Carleill, and threatened in the rear by his second column under Powell, the chief of the staff, the infantry could make no real resistance; and so rapidly was the English advance pushed home that the struggling mass of friend and foe entered pell-mell through the open gates of the town. For an hour, alarms of drum and trumpet mingling confusedly with the sounds of street-fighting reached the listening fleet as the two columns forced their way to meet upon the Plaza. But how they fared none could tell, till on a tower a white staff suddenly appeared, and in another moment the cross of St. George fluttered gayly out upon the breeze. With a roar of triumph the ships' guns saluted the signal of victory. The town was won.

Though the garrison fled panic-stricken across the river on the far side of the city, and the citadel was evacuated in the night, the place was far too large to be occupied by the force at Drake's command. Following, therefore, the same tactics that had been successful at Nombre de Dios, he ordered the troops to intrench themselves in the Plaza and to occupy the principal batteries. In this way he held the city for a month. The plunder was disappointing. The city was already a hundred years old, and its day was done; for the reckless native policy of the colonists had almost ruined the island. It remained but to treat for a ransom. The Governor at once declared himself unable to meet the extravagant demands of the English admiral, and in order to bring him to terms Drake began to burn the town piecemeal. But so well was it built that little harm could be done, and every day his impatience increased.

Once, in the course of the negotiations, he sent a boy with a flag of truce to the Spanish camp. A Spaniard, meeting the lad, so ill-treated him that he could barely crawl back to die at the admiral's feet. Then all the fury of Drake's nature burst forth. Two friars who were among the prisoners were immediately sent ashore and hanged by the provost-marshal on the scene of the crime. Another was despatched to the Spanish camp to declare that two more would be executed every morning until the offender was brought down and hanged on the spot by his own authorities. In hasty alarm the demand was complied with, and then the international dinners and the negotiations went on more smoothly. Convinced at last of the poverty of the colony, Drake accepted a ransom of twenty-five thousand ducats. The sum, which is equal to about fifty thousand pounds of our money, though little enough to satisfy the shareholders, was very serious for the enemy. For besides this loss the town had been stripped of everything worth carrying away by the troops and seamen. Two hundred forty guns were taken on board the English ships; and not only were they thoroughly refurnished from the Spanish stores, but for a month the whole expedition had lived in free quarters at the enemy's expense. The entire fleet which lay in the harbor fell into Drake's hands, and, with the exception of four of the finest galleons, was given to the flames. Besides the vessels which the Spaniards themselves had scuttled, two galleys with their tenders, fifteen frigates, and a galleon were thus destroyed, and hundreds of galley-slaves set free.

"It was such a cooling to King Philip," said one in Europe as the news leaked out, "as never happened to him since he was King of Spain." But as yet Drake was far from done. In the middle of February, with his force recruited by the English prisoners he had freed, and with a troop of attendant prizes laden with his spoil, in undiminished strength he appeared before Cartagena. No city in America was more difficult of approach, but the memories of the old hard days were still green, when, storm-beaten, drenched, and chilled, without food or shelter, he had ridden in the harbor day after day in despite of all the Spaniards could do, and he knew it all like a pilot. The city was built close to the shore fronting west, and directly from its southern face an inlet of the sea stretched many leagues southward along the coast, forming a large lagoon. The long spit of land which separated this sheet of water from the sea was pierced by two natural channels. At the far end was the dangerous Bocca Chica, and some three miles from the city was a larger entrance known as the Bocca Grande. Between this entrance and the town a tongue of land ran out at right angles from the spit to the opposite shore, forming an inner harbor and barring all approach to the city from the outer part of the lagoon, except by a narrow channel which lay under the guns of a powerful fort on the mainland.

On its northern and eastern faces the city was encircled by a broad creek, which ran round it from the inner harbor to the sea in such a way as to form a wide natural moat, rendering the city unapproachable from the mainland except by a bridge. This bridge was also commanded by the harbor fort, nor were land operations possible at any other point except from that part of the spit which lay between the city and the Bocca Grande. So finely, however, did this narrow down before the city could be reached, that between the inner harbor and the sea it was but fifty paces wide, and here the Spaniards had had time to prepare defences that looked impregnable. From shore to shore a formidable entrenchment completely barred the way; and not only was its front so staked and encumbered as to render a night attack impossible, but its approaches were swept by the guns and small-arms of a great galeas and two galleys which lay in the inner harbor.

To a man so tender as Drake ever was for the lives of his men and the safety of his ships, to attack such a place might well have appeared hopeless; but the originality of the amphibious corsair at once descried a hole which had escaped all the science of the Spanish martialists. Instead of entering by the Bocca Grande, with consummate skill and daring he piloted the whole fleet through the dangerous channel at the extreme end of the lagoon. The only impression which so hazardous a movement could create in the minds of the Spaniards was that he was about to repeat his Santo Domingo operations, and land his troops there to attack from the mainland. Such an impression must have been confirmed as, moving up the lagoon, he anchored opposite the Bocca Grande and threatened the harbor fort with his boats; but Drake's project was far different. Instead of being landed on the mainland, Carleill with eight companies was quietly slipped ashore in the Bocca Grande, with instructions to make his way diagonally through the woods that covered the spit till he reached the seashore, and then, instead of advancing on the front of the intrenchments, to wade along through the wash of the surf till he was within striking distance of the Spanish position.

Meanwhile Frobisher advanced with the flotilla against the harbor fort, and as soon as Carleill was heard in contact with the enemy's pickets he opened fire. The boat-attack was repulsed--indeed, it may only have been intended as what soldiers then called "a hot alarm"--but Carleill was completely successful. By the march through the surf he had not only evaded the obstacles which the enemy had so carefully prepared, but he had been covered from the fire of the galleys in the harbor, and had never so much as entered the fire-area of the heavily armed intrenchments. After a desperate struggle at push of pike, the position was carried by assault, and once more so hotly was the advantage pursued that in one rush the whole town was captured. The garrison fled across the bridge to the hills, and the next day, when Drake brought up the fleet to bear upon the fort, that also was evacuated.

No success was ever better earned and few more richly rewarded. Cartagena was the capital of the Spanish Main, and though much younger than Santo Domingo it was far wealthier. It yielded rich loot for the men; and for his shareholders Drake, after a long negotiation, succeeded in exacting a ransom of a hundred ten thousand ducats, besides what he got for an adjacent monastery. Though to all this plunder Drake could add the consolation that he had destroyed the galleys and shipping which crowded the port, and blown up the harbor fort which the Spaniards had forgotten to include in the convention, he was still unsatisfied. Well knowing that by an advance up the Chagres River in his boats Panama lay at his mercy, he was resolved with its capture to crown the campaign; but as he lay in Cartagena the sickness, which had never really ceased, broke out again with new virulence, and made such havoc with his force that he had reluctantly to confess that Panama must wait. To capture it with the crippled means at his command was impossible, and the only question was whether Cartagena should be held till he could return with reënforcements.

The soldiers declared themselves ready to undertake the task; but in a full council of war it was finally decided that no strategical advantage would be gained at all proportional to the risk that would be run in further weakening the fleet, and on the last day of March the signal to make sail home was flying from the Elizabeth Bonaventura. So severely, however, did they suffer from the weather and want of water that it was nearly two months before they reached the coast of Florida. Still Drake found time and energy to destroy and plunder the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, and relieve Raleigh's exhausted colony in Virginia. With the remnants of the settlers on board, he weighed for England, and on July 28, 1586, he was writing from Plymouth to Lord Burghley laconically reporting his return; and, apologizing for having missed the Plate fleet by only twelve hours' sail--"the reason best known to God"--he declared that he and his fleet were ready at once to strike again in any direction the Queen would be pleased to indicate.

"There is a very great gap opened," said Drake in his letter to Burghley, "very little to the liking of the King of Spain." That, with the calm request for orders, was his comment on a feat which changed the destinies of Europe. At its fullest flood he had stemmed the tide of Spanish empire. It was no less a thing than that.