Beginnings of the American PeopleBecker, Carl L. (Carl Lotus)
History
Beginnings of the American People
Becker, Carl L. (Carl Lotus)
United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
Accompanying Hawkins on this voyage, and escaping with him from San Juan
de Ulloa, was "a certain Englishman, called Francis Drake." Reared in a
Protestant family which had felt the effects of the reaction under Queen
Mary, he had an instinctive hatred of the Roman Church, and his
experience at San Juan de Ulloa inspired him at the age of twenty with a
lifelong animosity toward all Spaniards. Renouncing the semi-peaceful
methods of Hawkins, Drake devoted his life to open privateering, never
doubting that in plundering Spanish ships he was discharging a private
debt and a public obligation. And of all the gentlemen adventurers who
made plunder respectable and raised piracy to the level of a fine art,
he was the greatest. He carried himself in the "pirate's profession with
a courtesy, magnanimity, and unfailing humanity, that gave to his story
the glamour of romance." No other name struck such fear into Spanish
hearts, or so raised in English ones the spirit of adventure and of
contempt for the queen's enemies. He is known in Spanish annals as "the
Dragon," and before he died the maritime power of Spain had passed its
zenith.
Three years after the disaster at San Juan de Ulloa the trend of events
favored the bolder course. In 1570 the Pope's Bull deposing Elizabeth
from the English throne was nailed to Lambeth Palace; and in 1572, not
without the tacit approval of the Government, and backed by the rising
national hostility to Spain, Drake set out for the Indies, where he
operated for two years, planning attacks on Cartagena and Nombre de
Dios, or rifling the treasure trains as they came overland from Panama.
Henceforth the watchfulness of Spain was redoubled in the West Indies;
but the Pacific, which Drake had seen from the Peak of Darien, was still
regarded as a safe inland lake. Into the Pacific, with its coasts
unprotected and its ships scarcely armed at all, he therefore determined
to venture. Authorized by the queen and with Walsingham's approval, he
set out in 1577. Quelling a mutiny as his great predecessor had done at
St. Julian, he passed the Straits of Magellan, and sailed northward
along the coast, harming no man, but taking every man's treasure until
the ship was full. He would have returned home by some northeast
passage, but failed to find any, and so at last crossed the Pacific--the
second to circumnavigate the globe. We are told that the queen "received
him graciously, and laid up the treasure he brought by way of
sequestration, that it might be forthcoming if the Spaniards should
demand it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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