Drakes Great Armada | Page 4

at Raleigh's
expense established above a hundred colonists on the island of
Roanoak. Drake's Great Armada left Plymouth in September of the
same year. It marked a turning-point in the relations between the
English and Spanish monarchs. Elizabeth, knowing that the suppression
of the insurrection in the Netherlands would be followed by an attack
upon England, was treating with the insurgents. Philip deemed it
prudent to lay an embargo on all her subjects, together with their ships
and goods, that might be found in his dominions. Elizabeth at once
authorized general reprisals on the ships and goods of Spaniards. A
company of adventurers was quickly formed for taking advantage of
this permission on a scale commensurate with the national resources.
They equipped an armada of twenty-five vessels, manned by 2,300 men,
and despatched it under the command of Drake to plunder Spanish
America. Frobisher was second in command. Two-thirds of the booty
were to belong to the adventurers; the remaining third was to be
divided among the men employed in the expedition.
Drake's armament of 1585 was the greatest that had ever crossed the
Atlantic. After plundering some vessels at the Vigo river, he sailed for
the West Indies by way of the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands,
hoisted the English flag over Santiago and burnt the town, crossed the
Atlantic in eighteen days, and arrived at Dominica. At daybreak, on
New Year's Day, 1586, Drake's soldiers landed in Espanola, a few
miles to the west of the capital, and before evening Carlile and Powell
had entered the city, which the colonists only saved from destruction by
the payment of a heavy ransom. Drake's plan was to do exactly the

same at Carthagena and Nombre de Dios, and thence to strike across
the isthmus and secure the treasure that lay waiting for transport at
Panama. Drake held St. Domingo for a month, and Carthagena for six
weeks. He was compelled to forego the further prosecution of his
enterprise. A deadly fever, which had attacked the men during the
sojourn at Santiago, still continued its ravages. In existing
circumstances, even had Nombre de Dios been successfully attacked,
the march to Panama was out of the question; and after consultation
with the military commanders, Drake resolved on sailing home at once
by way of Florida. He brought back with him all the colonists who had
been left by Sir Richard Greenville in 'Virginia.' Drake had offered
either to furnish them with stores, and to leave them a ship, or to take
them home. The former was accepted: but a furious storm which
ensued caused them to change their minds. They recognized in it the
hand of God, whose will it evidently was that they should no longer be
sojourners in the American wilderness; and the first English settlement
of 'Virginia' was abandoned accordingly.
Ten years afterwards (1595) Drake was again at the head of a similar
expedition. The second command was given to his old associate
Hawkins, Frobisher, his Vice-Admiral in 1585, having recently died of
the wound received at Crozon. This time Nombre de Dios was taken
and burnt, and 750 soldiers set out under Sir Thomas Baskerville to
march to Panama: but at the first of the three forts which the Spaniards
had by this time constructed, the march had to be abandoned. Drake did
not long survive this second failure of his favourite scheme. He was
attacked by dysentery a fortnight afterwards, and in a month he died.
When he felt the hand of death upon him, he rose, dressed himself, and
endeavoured to make a farewell speech to those around him. Exhausted
by the effort, he was lifted to his berth, and within an hour breathed his
last. Hawkins had died off Puerto Rico six weeks previously.
The following narrative is in the main the composition of Walter Biggs,
who commanded a company of musketeers under Carlile. Biggs was
one of the five hundred and odd men who succumbed to the fever. He
died shortly after the fleet sailed from Carthagena; and the narrative
was completed by some comrade. The story of this expedition, which
had inflicted such damaging blows on the Spaniards in America, was
eminently calculated to inspire courage among those who were

resisting them in Europe. Cates, one of Carlile's lieutenants, obtained
the manuscript and prepared it for the press, accompanied by
illustrative maps and plans. The publication was delayed by the
Spanish Armada; but a copy found its way to Holland, where it was
translated into Latin, and appeared at Leyden, in a slightly abridged
form, in 1588. The original English narrative duly appeared in London
in the next year. The document called the 'Resolution of the
Land-Captains' was inserted by Hakluyt when he reprinted the narrative
in 1600.

DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA
NARRATIVE MAINLY BY