302 THE SEA. 



that about a hundred of his people desired to be loft on the coast of Tabasco, and Hawkins 

 determined to water there., and then, " with his little remain of victuals/' to attempt the 

 voyage home. During- this time, while on shore with fifty of his men, a gale arose, 

 which prevented them regaining the ship ; indeed, they expected to sep it wrecked before 

 their eyes. At last the storm abated, and they sailed for England, the men dying off 

 daily from sheer exhaustion, the pitiful remainder being scarcely able to work the ship. 

 They at last reached the coast of Galicia, where they obtained fresh meat, and putting 

 into Vigo, were assisted by some English ships lying there. Hawkins concludes his 

 narrative as follows : " If all the miseries and troublesome affairs of this sorrowful voyage 

 should be perfectly and thoroughly written, there should need a painful man with his pen, 

 and as great a time as he had that wrote the lives and deaths of the martyrs/' 



The Judith, which made one of Hawkins's last fleet, was commanded by Francis 

 Drake, a name that was destined to become one of the most famous of the day, and very 

 terrible to the Spaniards. In this last venture he lost all that he had accumulated by 

 earlier voyages, "but a divine, belonging to the fleet, comforted him with the assurance, 

 that having been so treacherously used by the Spaniards,' he might lawfully recover in 

 value of the King of Spain, and repair his losses upon him wherever he could." This 

 comfortable doctrine consoled him. "The case," says Fuller, "was clear in sea divinity." 

 Two or three minor voyages he made to gain knowledge of the field of operation, and in 

 the West Indies made some little money "by playing the seaman and the pirate." On 

 May 24th, 1572, he sailed from Plymouth, in the PascJia, of seventy tons, his brother 

 accompanying him in the Swan, of only twenty-five tons; they had three pinnaces on 

 board, taken to pieces and stowed away. The force with which he was to revenge himself 

 on the Spanish monarch, numbered seventy-three men and boys, all told. In the Indies 

 he was joined by Captain Rowse, of an Isle of Wight bark, with thirty-eight men on 

 board. Let us see how they sped. 



It was known that there was great treasure at Nombre de Dios, and thither the little 

 squadron shaped its course. The town was unwalled, and they entered without difficulty, 

 but the Spaniards received them in the market-place with a volley of shot. Drake returned 

 the greeting with a flight of arrows, "the best ancient English complement, but in the 

 attack received a wound in his leg, which he dissembled, "knowing that if the general's 

 heait stoop, the men's will fall." He arrived at the treasury-house, which was full of 

 silver bars, and while in the act of ordering his men to break it open, fainted from the loss of 

 blood, and his men, binding up the wound, forcibly took him to his pinnace. It was time, 

 for the Spaniards had discovered their weakness, and could have overcome them. Rather 

 disappointed here, Drake made for Carthagena, and took several vessels on his way. He 

 learned from some escaped negro slaves, settled on the isthmus of Darien, that the treasure 

 was brought from Panama to Nombre de Dios upon mules, a party of which he might 

 intercept. Drake's leg having healed, he was led to an eminence on that isthmus, where, 

 from a great tree, both the Pacific and Atlantic might be seen. Steps had been cut in 

 the trunk of this huge tree, and at the top "a convenient arbour had been made, wherein 

 twelve men might sit." Drake saw from its summit that great Southern Ocean (the 

 Pacific Ocean) of which he had heard something already, and "being inflamed with 



