Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/433

 (Notes and Queries, 2nd series, iii. 57); and though Drake did vainly urge a money claim against the Spanish government, the circumstances of that claim are very accurately known. There is no reason to doubt the substantial truth of the story told by Camden (Ann. Rer. Angl. ii. 351), that he was at an early age apprenticed to the master of a small vessel, part pilot, part coaster, and that by his diligence and attention he won the heart of the old man, who, dying without heirs, left the bark to him. He seems to have followed this petty trade for a short time, but in 1565-6 was engaged in one or two voyages to Guinea and the Spanish main, with Captain John Lovell, and was learning, in the Rio Hacha, that the Spaniards would certainly resist any infringement of their commercial policy (, p. 807; Drake Revived, p. 2). In 1567 he commanded the Judith of fifty tons in the squadron fitted out by his kinsman [q. v.], which sailed from Plymouth on 2 Oct., and was destroyed by the Spaniards in the port of San Juan de Lua in the September following; the Minion of a hundred tons and the Judith alone making good their escape, with all the survivors on board, many of whom they were afterwards obliged to put on shore for want of room and provisions. The two ships succeeded in reaching England in the following January, the Judith a few days in advance, having parted from the Minion during the voyage. Drake was immediately sent up to town to 'inform Sir William Cecil of all proceedings of the expedition' (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 20 Jan. 1569), and was thus brought to the notice of the great minister.

Drake appears to have spent the next year in seeking to obtain compensation for his losses; but 'finding that no recompense could be recovered out of Spain by any of his own means or by her majesty's letters, he used such helps as he might by two several voyages into the West Indies (the first with two ships, the one called the Dragon, the other the Swan, in the year 1570; the other in the Swan alone in the year 1571) to gain such intelligences as might further him to get some amends for his loss. And having in those two voyages gotten such certain notice of the persons and places aimed at as he thought requisite, he thereupon with good deliberation resolved on a third voyage' (Drake Revived, p. 2). His equipment consisted of two small ships, Pasha and Swan, carrying in all seventy-three men, and also 'three dainty pinnaces made in Plymouth, taken asunder, all in pieces, and stowed aboard to be set up again as occasion served' (ib. p. 3), and with these he sailed out of Plymouth on 24 May 1572, 'with intent to land at Nombre de Dios,' then, as Porto Bello afterwards, 'the granary of the West Indies, wherein the golden harvest brought from Peru and Mexico to Panama was hoarded up till it could be conveyed into Spain.' On 6 July the small expedition sighted the high land of Santa Marta, and a few days later put into a snug little harbour (apparently in the still unsurveyed Gulf of Darien), which Drake in his former voyage had discovered and named Port Pheasant, 'by reason of the great store of those goodly fowls which he and his company did then daily kill and feed on in that place.' Here they set up the pinnaces, and were joined by an English bark with thirty men, commanded by one James Rause, who agreed to make common cause with them. On the 20th they put to sea, and on the 22nd arrived at the Isle of Pines, where they found two Spanish ships from Nombre de Dios lading timber. These ships were manned by Indian slaves, and Drake, after examining them, 'willing to use them well, not hurting himself, set them ashore upon the main, that they might perhaps join themselves to their countrymen the Cimaroons, and gain their liberty if they would; or, if they would not, yet by reason of the length and troublesomeness of the way by land to Nombre de Dios, he might prevent any notice of his coming which they should be able to give; for he was loth to put the town to too much charge in providing beforehand for his entertainment; and therefore he hastened his going thither with as much speed and secrecy as possibly he could' (ib. p. 8). So, leaving Rause with thirty men in charge of the ships, the rest, seventy-three in all, went on in the pinnaces, arrived on the 28th at Cativaas, and after a few hours' repose came off Nombre de Dios about three o'clock in the morning of 29 July. They landed without opposition, and marched up into the town. The Spaniards, accustomed to the requirements of a wild life and to the frequent attacks of the Cimaroons, speedily took the alarm and mustered in the market-place; but after a sharp skirmish, in which Drake was severely wounded in the thigh, they were put to flight. Two or three of them were, however, made prisoners, and compelled to act as guides and conduct the English to the governor's house, where they found an enormous stack of silver bars, the value of which was estimated at near a million sterling. As it was clearly impossible to carry away this silver in their boats, they passed on to the treasure-house, 'a house very strongly built of lime and stone,' in which were stored the gold, pearls, and jewels, 'more,' said Drake to his followers,