Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
In this voyage of Hawkins the Earls of Pembroke and of Leicester were
among the adventurers.
If Hawkins’s account of the perfidy of the Spaniards at San Juan d’Ulua
be true,—and it has never been contradicted,—the Spanish Crown that
day brought down a storm of misery and rapine from which it never
fairly recovered. The accursed doctrine of the Inquisition, that no
faith was to be kept with heretics, proved a dangerous doctrine for
Spain when the heretics were such men as Hawkins, Cavendish, and Drake.
On that day Francis Drake learned his lesson of Spanish treachery; and
he learned it so well that he determined on his revenge. That revenge
he took so thoroughly, that for more than a hundred years he is spoken
of in all Spanish annals as “The Dragon.”[142]
Hawkins gives no account of Drake’s special service in the
“Judith,”—the smallest vessel in the unfortunate squadron, and one of
the two which returned to England; nor has Drake himself left any which
has been discovered; nor have his biographers. Clearly his ill-fortune
did not check his eagerness for attack; and from that time forward
Spain had at least one determined enemy in England.
[Illustration]
He had made two voyages to the West Indies in 1570 and in 1571, of
which little is known. For a fifth voyage, which he calls the third of
importance, he fitted out a little squadron of only two vessels, the
“Pasha” and the “Swan,” and sailed in 1572, with no pretence of trade,
simply to attack and ravage the Spanish main. He specially assigns
as his motive for this enterprise his desire to inflict vengeance
for injuries done him at Rio de Hacha in 1565 and in 1566, and, in
particular, that he might retaliate on Henriques, Viceroy of Mexico,
for his treachery at San Juan d’ Ulua. It seems that he had vainly
sought amends at the Court of Spain, and that the Queen’s diplomacy
had been equally ineffective. The little squadron, enlarged by a third
vessel which joined them after sailing, attacked Nombre de Dios, then
the granary of the West Indies, but with small success. They then
insulted the port of Cartagena, and afterward, having made an alliance
with the Cimaronnes, since and now known as Maroons,—a tribe of
savages and self-freed Africans,—they marched across the isthmus,
and Drake obtained his first sight of that Pacific Ocean which he was
afterward to explore. “Vehemently transported with desire to navigate
that sea, he fell upon his knees and implored the divine assistance
that he might at some time sail thither and make a perfect discovery of
the same.” The place from which Drake saw it was probably near the spot
where Balboa “thanked God for that great discovery,” and that he had
been first of Christian men to behold that sea. His discovery was made
in 1513, sixty years before Drake renewed it.[143]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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