Francis Drake

I was born near Tavistock and reared partly upon the Medway. Before beard or fortune, I learned the lead-line and the lee shore. With my kinsman Hawkins I sailed on slave-trading voyages; at San Juan de Ulúa in 1568 the Spaniards hemmed us in and bloodied us. I came home resolved to take Spain upon the sea, and with Her Majesty’s warrant I hunted their treasure routes.

In 1572 I struck at Nombre de Dios and the road over the Isthmus, lying for the silver mule trains. From a jungle ridge I first saw the South Sea and swore I would sail it. We brought home plunder and knowledge: where Spain was strong and where she was careless.

In 1577 I bore out again in Pelican, which I renamed the Golden Hind. We threaded the Strait of Magellan, quelled mutiny by executing Thomas Doughty, and ranged the Pacific coast of the Spaniard, taking the great Cacafuego. I pressed north to a coast I called Nova Albion, then crossed to the Moluccas and so home by the Cape. In 1581 the Queen knighted me aboard my ship at Deptford.

War sharpened my trade. In 1587 I singed the King of Spain’s beard at Cádiz; in 1588, as vice admiral, I helped harry the Armada with fireships off Gravelines. I also sat for Plymouth and served as its mayor. My last voyage, with Hawkins in 1595, failed; I died of the flux off Portobelo and was given to the sea. Call me admiral or pirate—both names have followed me—and know that my beginnings in the slave trade shadow all my deeds.