sailed for the West Indies a third time. Young Francis Drake sailed with him in command of the 'Judith,' a small vessel of fifty tons." The voyage had a prosperous beginning and a disastrous ending. After disposing of most of their slaves, they were driven by storms to take refuge in the Mexican port of Vera Cruz, and there they were attacked by a Spanish fleet. Drake in the "Judith" and Hawkins in another small vessel escaped. But the latter was overcrowded with men and obliged to put half of them ashore on the Mexican coast. The majority of those left on board, as well as a majority of Drake's crew, died on the voyage home, and it was a miserable remnant that landed in England, in January, 1569. _E. J. Payne, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America, chapter 1._ ALSO IN: _The Hawkins Voyages; edited by C. R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, No. 57)_. _R. Southey, Lives of the British Admirals, volume 3._ AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580. The Piratical Adventures of Drake and his Encompassing of the World. "Francis Drake, the first of the English Buccaneers, was one of the twelve children of Edward Drake of Tavistock, in Devonshire, a staunch Protestant, who had fled his native place to avoid persecution, and had then become a ship's chaplain. Drake, like Columbus, had been a seaman by profession from boyhood; and ... had served as a young man, in command of the Judith, under Hawkins, ... Hawkins had confined himself to smuggling: Drake advanced from this to piracy. This practice was authorized by law in the middle ages for the purpose of recovering debts or damages from the subjects of another nation. The English, especially those of the west country, were the most formidable pirates in the world; and the whole nation was by this time roused against Spain, in consequence of the ruthless war waged against Protestantism in the Netherlands by Philip II. Drake had accounts of his own to settle with the Spaniards. Though Elizabeth had not declared for the revolted States, and pursued a shifting policy, her interests and theirs were identical; and it was with a view of cutting off those supplies of gold and silver from America which enabled Philip to bribe politicians and pay soldiers, in pursuit of his policy of aggression, that the famous voyage was authorized by English statesmen. Drake had recently made more than one successful voyage of plunder to the American coast." In July, 1572, he surprised the Spanish town of Nombre de Dios, which was the shipping port on the northern side of the Isthmus for the treasures of Peru. His men made their way into the royal treasure-house, where they laid hands on a heap of bar-silver, 70 feet long, 10 wide, and 10 high; but Drake himself had received a wound which compelled the pirates to retreat with no very large part of the splendid booty. In the