72 VOYAGE OF DRAKE. [1577. 



The first irruption of the English into the Pacific was made in 

 1575, by a party of freebooters, under John Oxenham, who crossed 

 the isthmus a little west of Panama, and, having then built a vessel 

 on the southern side, took many valuable prizes before any attempt 

 could be made, by the Spaniards, to arrest their progress. They, 

 however, in a few months, fell successively into the hands of their 

 enemies, and were nearly all executed with ignominy at Panama. 

 Their fall was, three years afterwards, signally avenged by another 

 body of their countrymen, under the command of the greatest 

 naval captain of the age. It is scarcely necessary to say that this 

 captain could be no other than Francis Drake, of whose celebrated 

 voyage around the world — the first ever performed by one crew in 

 one vessel — an account will be here given, as he, in the course 

 of it, visited the north-west side of America, and is supposed, 

 though erroneously, as will be proved, to have made important 

 discoveries in that quarter. 



Drake sailed from Plymouth on the 13th of December, 1577, 

 with five small vessels, which had been procured and armed by 

 himself and other private individuals in England, ostensibly for 

 a voyage to Egypt, but really for a predatory cruise against the 

 dominions and subjects of Spain. The governments of England 

 and Spain were then, indeed, at peace with each other : but mutual 

 hatred, arising from causes already explained, prevailed between the 

 two nations ; and the principles of general law or morals were not, 

 at that period, so refined as to prevent Queen Elizabeth from favor- 

 ing Drake's enterprise, with the real objects of which she was well 

 acquainted. 



For some months after leaving England, Drake roved about the 

 Atlantic, without making any prize of value : he then refitted his 

 vessels at Port San Julian, on the eastern coast of Patagonia ; and 

 he succeeded in conducting three of them safely through the dread- 

 ed Strait of Magellan, into the Pacific, which he entered in Sep- 

 tember, 1578. Scarcely, however, was this accomplished, ere the 

 little squadron was dispersed by a storm ; and the chief of the 

 expedition was left with only a schooner of a hundred tons' burden, 

 and about sixty men, to prosecute his enterprise against the power 

 and wealth of the Spaniards on the western side of America. 



Notwithstanding these disheartening occurrences, Drake did not 

 hesitate to proceed to the parts of the coast occupied by the Span- 

 iards, whom he found unprepared to resist him, either on land or on 

 sea. He accordingly plundered their towns and ships with little 



