In 1572 with three small ships, he attacked and plundered several Spanish settlements on the Isthmus of Panama and brought away as much silver, gold, and jewels, as he could carry. During this expedition, accompanied by eighteen Englishmen and thirty Indians, he made a journey across the Isthmus. From the top of a tree, he beheld the waters of the Pacific, and expressed his resolve to “sail once in an English ship on that sea.” After his return to England, he served four years in Ireland, but he did not forget either the western ocean or his resolve. Secretly encouraged by Queen Elizabeth, he undertook an expedition “to discomfort the Spanish as far as possible.” A few days before Christmas in 1577, he set sail from Plymouth, intending to pass through the Straits of Magellan and make the circuit of the globe. Drake’s fleet consisted of five small vessels and a crew of a hundred and sixty-six men. In the end, two of these vessels were left on the coast of Brazil. As Drake passed the western coast of America he stopped to attack the Spanish settlements. We are told that his men “being weary, contented themselves with as many bars and wedges of gold as they could carry, burying above fifteen tons of silver in the sand and under old trees.” In August, 1578, Drake entered the Straits of Magellan. Adverse currents and storms separated the three vessels and only the Golden Hind, originally called the Pelican, passed through to continue the course. Along the coasts of Chili and Peru the Englishmen sailed, plundering till they were weary of spoils. From one ship they got “a prodigious quantity of gold, silver, and jewels,”--“thirteen chests of coin, eighty pounds of gold, twenty-six tons of silver, besides jewels and plate.” The writers of the time who give an exact list of the captured treasures passed lightly over the natural objects and wonders of the New World. “They saw many strange birds, beasts, fishes, fruits, trees, and plants too tedious to mention,” says one. Drake coasted along the western shore of America, trying to discover a passage to the Atlantic. He landed and claimed the country, which he called New Albion, for Queen Elizabeth and England. Turning from the severe cold of the northern seas, he sailed across the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, stopping at Java and other islands. Resuming his voyage, he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and sailed along the coast of Africa. In November, 1579, he re-entered the harbor of Plymouth, having made the circuit of the globe in two years and ten months. He was the first commander to take his ship around the world; Magellan, who had undertaken the same voyage, died on the route. Drake, “the master thief of the unknown world,” at once became a popular hero. He presented to the queen “great stores of silver, gold, and gems,” and received from her the honor of knighthood.