Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/665

Rh Life on the ocean; how glorious it was all along through the sixteenth century! So little of the world was known; all was so magnificently strange; one might at any moment stumble upon pearl islands, golden shores, Amazon lands, and life-restoring waters. And then morals were so easy, and liberty so broad. Talk about the iron inquisition, the coercion of opinion, and the restrictions laid on commerce. Were there not islands and continents, wealthy, defenceless places, that the strong might rob, and have the learned and pious to find excuses for them in return for a share? And then might not the robbers be righteously robbed; just as the big fish eat the little fish, to the eternal glory of the creator? Such was the order of things, and Francis Drake availed himself of his high privileges. Narrowly escaping with his head from Vera Cruz in 1568, in 1572 he successfully attempted the capture of some silver on its way from Vera Cruz to Nombre de Dios. He also attacked the latter town and obtained a little plunder, after which he sailed for England. A few years later he fitted out an expedition at Falmouth, and sailed in December 1577 to pick up what he could find of anybody's property anywhere. In 1578, after having played havoc on the Spaniards in the south Atlantic, he entered the Pacific, captured vessels off the Central American coast, and about the middle of April made his appearance in the Golden Hind at Huatulco, in Oajaca, which place he sacked. This accomplished, he sailed the