Pirates: A History

by Travers, Tim

  Spanish reinforcements easily captured the English sailors manning the shore batteries. These sailors were either captured and made prisoners, or put to the sword. On board the Jesus, Hawkins cut the moorings of his ship, which drifted away under fire from the Spanish flag ship. One Spanish shot shattered the main mast of the Jesus, and the Spanish prepared to send fire ships against the Jesus. The first fire ship failed to ignite, but as the second bore down on the Jesus, Hawkins and a large number of men managed to transfer to the Minion, leaving behind the ten Spanish hostages, and the wounded from the Jesus. Hawkins called for help from Francis Drake aboard the Judith, but according to Hawkins, Drake abandoned Hawkins and sailed for home. Hawkins was able to sail out of the harbour in the Minion, but was forced to leave behind five or six ships, much artillery, and an unknown amount of treasure.

  The voyage home was a disaster for Hawkins – men were so hungry that they ate every rat, parrot, dog, or monkey aboard, and then turned their attention to the leather fittings. Water also failed, and some drank sea water. Realising that starvation could not be prevented, Hawkins put around 100 men ashore at Campeche, the logwood centre on the Yucatan peninsula. Continuing hunger and disease forced Hawkins’ ship and the remaining crew to put into Galicia, Spain, before they could reach England. It is alleged that off Spain, Hawkins came across three Portuguese ships, which he captured, and then cut off the legs of the Portuguese sailors and pitched them overboard, still alive. This cruelty, if true, is in contrast to the ten Spanish hostages whom Hawkins did not kill when the Spanish attacked the Jesus in the port of San Juan de Ulua. Perhaps Hawkins did not have time for this at San Juan de Ulua. Nevertheless, when the Minion finally arrived in Cornwall in January 1569, there were only some fifteen sailors left alive, though strangely some slaves still survived. The human cost of Hawkins’ voyage was tremendous, 130 dead at San Juan de Ulua, and 52 taken prisoner, 100 left in Campeche, and 45 dead of disease on the way home. An unknown but small number came home with Drake in the Judith, and curiously enough, Hawkins seemingly forgave Drake for abandoning him at the crisis of the battle in San Juan de Ulua. Perhaps Hawkins took account of his family relationship to Drake, and he probably also needed Drake for his future trading activities.4

  As a result of Hawkins’ voyages, and especially the 1567–1569 expedition, the Spanish and the Portuguese certainly thought Hawkins was a pirate, and the Spanish saw the battle at San Juan de Ulua as their victory over a heretical English pirate. But since two of the ships on Hawkins’ slaving and trading raid belonged to the Queen, the Jesus and the Minion, it seems that Hawkins was not quite a pirate, because he at least had the financial support of the Queen, if not a specific commission. Following this voyage, Hawkins’ future career was as Treasurer of Elizabeth’s navy, and as a trader. Surprisingly, he was even suspected of being a double agent for Spain, or of wanting to enter Spanish service, perhaps because of religious doubts about Elizabeth’s Protestantism, but in the end this did not happen. In future years, Hawkins went to sea reluctantly, since he actually preferred to remain at home as a trader and send others overseas, such as his cousin, Francis Drake.

  Francis Drake (1540–1596)

  Francis Drake was born in Devon, England, where his father was a sheep shearer and a farmer, and then a priest. However, as a cousin of John Hawkins, Francis Drake was brought up with a number of other relatives in the Hawkins household. He had gone on some of Hawkins’ early voyages, including as mentioned above, the 1567–1569 slaving and trading expedition, which came to grief at San Juan de Ulua. Drake learned some lessons from Hawkins’ voyages, one of which was to sail with a single small ship, or a very small fleet of similar ships, capable of hiding in bays in the Caribbean, and capable of going up rivers to make land-based attacks. It was also a good idea to find a refitting spot where such attacks could be planned, and to which it was safe to return. Another idea was to have some small cut up pinnaces aboard the larger ships which could be reassembled and launched to attack or discover places where larger ships could not go. A favourite spot for Drake was the secluded anchorage of Port Pheasant, some miles east of the small Spanish port of Nombre de Dios. Another safe location was the Isle of Pines, even closer to Nombre de Dios.

  In 1572 Drake aimed to capture Nombre de Dios. This was a potentially valuable target, because the port annually stored silver and other treasures from Peru, which had been shipped to Panama, and then come overland from Panama to Nombre de Dios. With the treasure in store, the inhabitants of Nombre de Dios waited for the Spanish plate fleet to arrive and pick up the treasure. Having done this, the Spanish plate fleet would return to Spain via Havana in Cuba. So, in July 1572, having first stopped for provisions at Port Pheasant, Drake then left his three ships at a safe harbour in the Isle of Pines. Following this, Drake boarded three small pinnaces with some of his crew and headed toward Nombre de Dios. Drake landed near Nombre de Dios and then marched toward the port at night. It turned out to be fairly simple to capture the small port since there were only some thirty-five or forty inhabitants, although Drake himself and a number of his men were wounded by musket fire. However, the treasure house turned out to be empty, so the raid to capture silver and treasure was a disaster. To prevent total failure, Drake and his men then captured a Spanish merchant ship in the harbour of Nombre de Dios, which contained wine. Unfortunately, this was worth very little, and Drake spent the next several weeks sailing rather aimlessly around the Spanish possessions on the coasts of Central America and the north coast of South America, looking for Spanish ships to take. He had limited success with this, but as always, Drake had to worry as much about an adequate supply of food and water, which he obtained by capturing small ships or by raiding ashore.

  Determined not to return until he had captured a valuable cargo of some kind, Drake decided to wait for the return of the plate fleet. He and his crew spent the autumn living ashore and then in January 1573, with the end of the wet season, he set out overland toward the town of Panama, hoping to raid the warehouses at Venta des Cruces, close to Panama, and also to intercept one of the mule trains bringing silver and treasure to Nombre de Dios. In the meantime, Drake lost his brother John to a gunshot wound, and another brother, Joseph, to disease. Others also died of disease, and when Drake set out toward Panama, he had only eighteen sailors with him, plus a valuable group of some thirty Cimarrons, escaped black slaves who were enemies of the Spanish. Learning that a mule train containing treasure was on its way, Drake and his men laid an ambush. But Drake’s bad luck continued because one of his crew stood up just as the mule train approached, with his white shirt gleaming in the moon light, and this alerted the Spanish guards. The mule train turned back, and only some less valuable materials were captured. Yet Drake still refused to give up, and in April 1573, Drake teamed up with a French pirate who appeared on the coast, Le Testu, and once more laid an ambush close to Nombre de Dios.

  This time, Drake succeeded. The mule train was ambushed and discovered to be carrying a full load of silver. A fight ensued in which Le Testu was mortally wounded, as were several other French pirates, but the Spanish guards were driven off. There was so much silver and gold that some had to be hidden in the ground in animal burrows, while Drake carried off as much as he could, and Le Testu was left lying beside the road. As Drake prepared to get onboard his ship, his crew discovered a small Spanish fleet waiting for them, but with typical determination, Drake constructed a raft and eluded the Spanish by sailing to a nearby island. Here he and his crew were rescued by his pinnaces. Drake then sent a party back to find Le Testu and recover the rest of the buried silver. The party discovered Le Testu dead, and much of the buried treasure recovered by the Spanish, but some was still found and taken back to the ships. Now Drake decided he had done enough and prepared to sail home. He divided up the treasure with the French pirates and sailed for Plymouth. He had been away for so long that he and his crew were given up for lost, but on Sunday 9 August 1573, his small fleet was sighted and, a
s the story goes, all those who were in church deserted the preacher, and ran to welcome Drake’s arrival. Drake’s share of the proceeds from his voyage was some £20,000 – a huge fortune at the time – and he further increased his take by apparently cheating the widow of his brother John of her share of the proceeds.5

  Drake’s success attracted the keen interest of Queen Elizabeth and other high placed investors, including Privy Council members, and in 1577 a major pirate raid was planned to the Pacific coast of South America. There was the usual attempt to keep the plans secret, especially from the Spanish, but the Spanish soon got wind of what was afoot, and tried to find out the exact targets of the enterprise. Meanwhile, investors, including the Queen, put in money and ships – the Queen’s investment apparently being the ship the Swallow. Significantly, the Queen issued no formal commission, obviously in order to protect her neutral position with Spain. At this point one can ask: in this enterprise, which eventually became a voyage around the world – was Drake a pirate? Since Drake had no specific commission or license, then he was a pirate. Of course, this was also the position of the Spanish. But since the Queen committed a ship to the voyage, took a large part of the vast fortune with which Drake returned, knew what was happening, and did not forbid the voyage, or imprison or blame Drake after the voyage (in fact she knighted him), it is also fair to call Drake a privateer of a sort. As usual, Drake trod a fine line between piracy and privateer, but perhaps in this case closer to a privateer, unlike his earlier assault on Nombre de Dios, which was more purely piracy.6

  Drake’s new enterprise of some five ships left England in November 1577. A storm at the outset destroyed one ship, but Drake left again and sailed to the Cape Verde islands, where a Spanish merchant ship was captured and added to the fleet. The next landfall was Brazil, but along the way Drake and his friend, Thomas Doughty, who had been an original supporter of the expedition, became enemies. Drake seems to have suspected Doughty of trying to undermine his authority, and the situation became tense enough for Drake to call a trial at the southern location of Port St Julian, on the east coast of South America. Drake accused Doughty of incitement to mutiny, and treason for speaking ill of the Queen. Drake essentially forced and tricked the jury to find Doughty guilty, despite a claim of illegality by a friend of Doughty’s, to which Drake replied, ‘I have not quoth he [Drake] to deal with you crafty lawyers, neythar care I fore the lawe, but I know what I will do.’ By now most of Drake’s crew were really quite frightened of him, and thus Drake forced through the execution of Doughty. Doughty was actually beheaded, though not before Drake and Doughty had embraced in a final farewell. Just before he died, Doughty also asked Drake to forgive one of his supporters, Hugh Smith, and Drake agreed reluctantly, ‘I forgive thee [Smith], but by the life of God … I was determined to have neiled thy ears to the pillary.’ When Doughty’s head was cut off, Drake held up the head and told the assembled crew, ‘This is the end of traitors.’7

  Why Drake felt the need to actually execute Doughty is not clear, though Doughty and his supporters may have been opposed to Drake’s plan to turn the voyage into a pirate expedition. Drake may also have been afraid of mutiny among his small fleet, a perpetual problem in long voyages, and so wished to intimidate his sailors – which he certainly succeeded in doing. Whatever the reason, Drake and the fleet then continued down the coast of South America, through the Straits of Magellan, losing some pinnaces and two ships in the process – the Marigold perhaps ran aground, while the Elizabeth returned to England. Now reduced to one ship, the Pelican (possibly renamed the Golden Hind), Drake sailed up the Pacific coast of South America, raiding and capturing ships as he went. It is noteworthy that Drake made full use of his pinnaces in this voyage – they could more easily scout out targets or slip unseen into harbours – and were valuable for carrying raiding parties to shore. Thus Drake kept his ship about three or four miles off shore while the pinnaces scouted and raided.

  Of significance was Drake’s capture of a Spanish ship off the coast of Ecuador, which contained a large amount of gold, silver and jewels. Drake cut away the sails of this ship and let it drift away with its crew once the treasure had been transferred, although he did keep the black slaves he found onboard, presumably to do the hard work on the Pelican. The very next day, 1 March 1579, Drake came up with a Spanish treasure ship called the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion. Trailing ropes and cables to slow down his ship and fool the Concepcion into complacency, Drake then brought his ship alongside the Spaniard. According to the Spanish captain of this ship, San Juan de Anton, someone from the Pelican shouted ‘English! I order you to strike your sails!’ Anton supposedly replied, ‘What England demands that I strike sail? Come and do it yourself.’ That is just what Drake did, the Pelican firing cannon which destroyed the mizzen mast of the Concepcion, and then Drake’s crew boarded the Spaniard. Since the Concepcion did not have cannon, because the Spanish did not expect to use cannon in the Pacific seas, it was quite simple for the Pelican and its crew to take the Concepcion. This is borne out by the information that Anton was alone on the deck when the boarders from the Pelican arrived.8

  The treasure found on the Concepcion was enormous, composed of gold, silver bars, and reales (silver Spanish currency). The gold weighed eighty pounds, there were thirteen chests of reales, and enough silver to use as ballast in the ship. Another source said there were 1,300 silver bars, and fourteen chests of reales and gold. It certainly took six days for the treasure to be transferred to the Pelican, and evidently this treasure, in conjunction with what was taken elsewhere, was sufficient to make Drake and his backers very rich indeed, to say nothing of the Queen. It was also the case that so much treasure would very likely make Drake welcome in England, and would undercut any notion of the Queen arresting Drake as a pirate. But Drake and his crew were not home free yet, and a difficult voyage ensued, including going aground near the Celebes in January 1580. The Pelican escaped this death trap when the crew threw overboard all they could, and a gale came up with the winds fortunately in the right direction, so the Pelican was able to sail off the rocks. After further adventures, the Pelican arrived at Plymouth in September 1580, with Drake and those who survived the voyage having been away almost three years.

  As might be expected, Drake’s first question was whether the Queen was still alive, and, if she was, how would he be received. Drake was reassured by a private message from the Queen, and he was soon in private conference with Elizabeth. Apparently, this private meeting took about six hours, and Drake gave the Queen a sample of some of the Pelican’s treasures. Ultimately, Drake transferred some twenty tons of silver, gold and pearls to the Tower of London as the Queen’s share. Other parts of the treasure went to investors and significant courtiers. Drake kept a very large amount of treasure for himself, and therefore became one of the richest men in England. Following his purchase of a landed estate, which was a prerequisite for knighthood, Drake was knighted by the Queen in 1581.

  Despite this obvious public approval by the Queen, Drake was still regarded by many as a pirate, including apparently, Lord Burghley.9 As before, Drake trod the delicate line between privateer and pirate, and this distinction was played out again in Drake’s major raid on the West Indies from 1585-1586. The Queen invested £10,000 in this raid, which turned out to be a failure financially, and costly in lives. Next came the raid on Cadiz in 1587, which was clearly organized by the Queen and the Privy Council. The Queen invested four ships in the Cadiz venture, intending to stave off a Spanish invasion of England, but also hoping to make a considerable financial gain from the project. So Drake was no pirate in the Cadiz raid, which was a curious mixture of war and commerce. The next year, 1588, saw the huge Spanish Armada launched by Phillip II of Spain approach the shores of England. Lord Howard was the overall commander of the English fleet, and although Drake was given no specific command, he was given thirty-six ships, of which nine belonged to the Queen. Later, Drake was given a royal commission, so once more Drake wa
s clearly not a pirate in the Spanish Armada fight. But somehow Drake managed to veer toward piracy again during the Armada, because in the early stages of the struggle Drake disobeyed orders, put out his stern lantern at night, which was supposed to guide the English fleet, and went after a Spanish ship that had lagged behind the other ships of the Armada. This ship was the Rosario, a Spanish pay ship, and the captain, one Valdes, surrendered without a fight. After the Armada was defeated, Drake was able to make money from this capture plus claim ransom money for Valdes and two other Spanish officers, while taking little part in the final Armada battle of Gravelines.10

  Drake continued to be employed by the Queen, and set off on a final voyage in 1595 with some twenty-seven ships, aiming at Puerto Rico and the West Indies. The Queen invested both money and ships in this expedition. As it turned out, the voyage was a disaster, and Drake himself fell ill of dysentery. He died onboard his ship the Defiance in January 1596. He was buried at sea in a lead lined casket off Porto Bello, reportedly with trumpets sounding and cannon roaring. Drake’s career revealed him to be a tough, money minded individual, who was fortunate to have the backing of Queen Elizabeth for most of his endeavours. At times, Drake was clearly a pirate, for example in his early raids in the Indies, and certainly the Spanish always saw him as a pirate. At other times, due to the Queen’s need for income, Drake was free to pursue his own ends, even in the middle of the Armada battle. Perhaps the contradictory sub-title of the fine biography of Drake by the historian Harry Kelsey – calling Drake ‘The Queen’s Pirate’ – sums up his ambiguous status well enough.