To sail home for the first time in England’s history by this “shortest and quickest route” would cap this voyage with a glory which not even his wealth of Philip’s gold could give. There are many who deny that he had ever a serious intention to risk all that he had gained in so perilous an adventure. They must explain as best they can his constant enquiries of all the pilots who might have knowledge which would help him. We shall meet them from now on. Meanwhile he discussed the project with Anton and tried it out on his clerk Domingo de Lizarza, and when they would not agree, locked his great map away in dudgeon. Probably he went off in a tirade against Don Martin Enriquez, the Viceroy of Mexico — for all of them knew of the wrongs he had suffered at St. John de Ulua and how the Viceroy’s treachery rankled in his memories.
After five days, however, Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion was an empty ship. Drake made his presents to San Juan de Anton and gave him that Cimaroon negro to hand over to his master, of which act a word has already been written. To each of his crew he gave thirty or forty pesos in cash, and some stuff wherewith to make clothes. Others received agricultural implements or trimmed cloaks or weapons. To Domingo de Lizarza fell a steel shield and a sword, “so that you are now quite a man-at-arms.” A merchant from Cuevas who was travelling on the Spanish ship had been held a prisoner with the rest. Drake gave him some fans into which little mirrors had been inserted, telling him that they were for his lady. There was certainly no recipient for them on the Golden Hind. And he topped his gifts to San Juan de Anton with two barrels of tar and a silver-gilt bowl with Drake’s name engraved on the inside. Thus laden with gifts and civilities they were all returned to their looted but undamaged ship. Drake hoisted his great sails. It was the 6th day of March. One has a picture of Drake upon his high poop watching the Cacafuego dwindle in the distance, and counting up all the presents he had made to the owner and the crew, he, Drake, the gentleman.
CHAPTER XII
ACROSS THE PACIFIC. THE SPICE ISLANDS. THE BEGINNING OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. THE “GOLDEN HIND” RUNS ON A REEF. END OF THE VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION.
IT WAS FORTUNATE for Drake now, as it was fortunate for England nine years later, that in the Spanish conception of naval warfare the soldier overrode the sailor. For the Viceroy of Peru, angered by the escape of the corsair and the futility of the two ill-equipped ships which he had sent after him, now manned another two ships with soldiers as well as sailors, provisioned them for a voyage, and even mounted a piece or two of artillery upon their decks. There were on board besides the sailors a hundred and twenty soldiers with Pedro Sarmiento in a high position — a formidable force. This squadron followed in the track of the Golden Hind until it fell in with the bark of Benito Diaz Bravo off the Quiximies River. Arguing from his report, the weather, Drake’s need to return home, and the seasonable changes of the winds, Pedro Sarmiento proposed to set a course straight across the bay of Panama to Nicaragua. The soldiers would not hear of the proposition. They had no orders of so wide a latitude from the Viceroy. Besides, Drake would make for Panama. That’s where the pirate would meet his doom. Sarmiento objected. But what did charts and weather knowledge amount to? The Generals knew better. Pedro was overruled. The squadron went off to Perico and Panama, and thence in due course returned to Lima to make what explanations its leaders could. But had Pedro Sarmiento’s advice been taken, Drake when he reached the island of Caño, where he prepared his ship for her homeward voyage, would have found these galleons waiting for him and would have been hard put to it to reach home uncrippled.
For it was precisely to Nicaragua that he set his course after he had dismissed Our Lady of the Conception. Enquiries of the ship masters and pilots whom he had captured had led him to believe that he could find a quiet creek in those waters, where he could get fresh water, set his men ashore for a spell and prepare his ship for her long voyage home. For she was leaking again and, as Anton had noticed, her bottom was foul with seaweed. As for Panama and the gulf of San Miguel, he could well afford to give it a miss. The Golden Hind was crammed with gold and silver, jewels, rare china and bales of silk. He had made his voyage, as the saying went.
So he ran north-west and on March 16th found an island six miles from the main where he could anchor in five fathoms of water close to the shore — the island of Caño. He took the precaution to keep his pinnace on patrol about the fairway, and on the 20th she captured the bark of Rodrigo Tello, which was on her way from Nicoya to Panama with a mixed cargo of sarsaparilla and maize, thirteen or fourteen passengers, and amongst those passengers two men who were more important to Drake than all the rest of the passengers and the cargo together. Nicoya was the depot and the shipyard of the China trade, and these two men, Martin de Aguirre and Alonzo Sanchez Colchero, were Government navigators on their way with their instruments, their books and their charts to the Royal Audiencia of Panama. They were sent by the Viceroy of New Spain and they were to carry letters to Gonzalo Ronquillo, the General of China, and to Judge Sandea, the Governor of the Philippines. For Drake they were especially important people. For he could not be sure that the Strait of the Bacallaos would let him through; and if it did not, the charts and the knowledge of a navigator accustomed to these seas would be invaluable. Tello’s bark with its passengers were taken into the creek at Caño and moored alongside the Golden Hind. Of the proposals which Drake made to Colchero, an account has been already given which does credit to Drake’s sense of justice. But the discussion began on the wrong lines. Colchero denied that he was a pilot at all. He was just a simple old shellback — nothing more — a statement which his charts and astrolabes made ridiculous. Drake replied sharply that Colchero was not to plague him by talking such nonsense, that he would take him whether he would or wouldn’t, and that he would hang him if he talked such rubbish again; and he does seem to have clapped the unfortunate navigator into a cage under the poop which he used as a guardroom, with irons on his legs.
Meanwhile he took the maize and landed the sarsaparilla and put on to the deck of the bark his guns and his booty. He was thus able to careen his galleon properly, clean her and caulk her seams. On the 24th of the month, the work was all done and the guns and treasure brought back on board. The ships then sailed away together to the west along the coast. But the passengers of Tello’s bark, with the exception of Colchero, and its crew, Drake turned off into the bark’s launch when it was close to land, gave them a keg of water and some flour and told them to make off.
This was on the 27th, and for the next week he continued on the same course without event. If Colchero is to be believed, Drake behaved to him throughout these days now with cajolery, now with truculence. But Colchero was telling his story to the Chief Constable of the Supreme Court at Panama and was unlikely to exhibit himself as a man of a tame spirit. He declared that as his ship drew near to Realejo, Drake tempted him with promises of gold and silver to become a Lutheran and go on the ship to England where great mercies would be conferred upon him. But Colchero was too stout a patriot to yield to such blandishments, and, beaten in argument, Drake cried: “You! you must be a devoted subject of your King Don Felipe and a great Captain!” This admiring cry is obviously creditable only to Colchero’s invention. Then Drake ordered him to pilot the ship into the harbour where a galleon bound for China was lying which he wanted to burn, as well as the town itself. He might, besides, find the Lord Judge in the town, whom he would certainly hang as a friend of the Viceroy. Colchero, however, replied that he dared not take a ship into that port, for he had never been into it at all. Neither promises nor threats could bring him into a different mind, so Drake had a noose put round his neck and his body lifted off the ground. Twice he was treated in this way and the treatment tired him very much, and Drake, seeing that he could not break down Colchero’s will, abandoned his evil design upon the town of Realejo and left it on his starboard side.
On the 4th of April, off the volcanoes of Guatemala, Drake seized another prize, the galleon of Don Francisco de Zárate
. It was the last capture which Drake was to make upon this voyage, and although he himself made little profit out of it, we of this generation would sacrifice for it the gold pesos of the Cacafuego. Francisco de Zárate belonged to one of the most illustrious families of Spain and had nothing to fear from any panel of judges in Panama. He had a keen eye, a philosophic mind and a precise pen; so that he was able in a letter which he wrote to the Viceroy of New Spain to give a clear account of the fifty-five hours which he spent upon the Golden Hind.
There was a moon in the early morning of the 4th of April. By the light of it, the watch upon Zárate’s ship noticed about half an hour before dawn the approach of a big galleon and a bark. The galleon was too close for safety and the helmsman shouted to it to bear away. No voice replied from the galleon. It seemed that they were all asleep, and the galleon edged nearer. The helmsman shouted again and louder, asking what ship that was. This time a voice, a Spanish voice, in fact Colchero’s, answered with what seems to have become a formula on the Golden Hind. It was the ship of Miguel Angelo bound for the port of Guatulco. The watch on Zárate’s ship was satisfied. For once the formula had worked. It was not even disturbed when, the ships having passed one another, the Golden Hind bore up and sailed across Zárate’s stern. An order to strike their sails emphasized by the discharge of half a dozen arquebuses was considered a joke. The arrival, however, of a launch full of armed sailors disillusioned them. There were only six men awake on Zárate’s ship, including Zárate himself. They were disarmed without a struggle and Zárate was packed off on the launch to the Golden Hind. He was glad to go, for although no one had been wounded, he had little doubt that he was to be killed, and the short passage to the galleon would give him time to recommend his soul to God.
Drake, however, received him in person on his deck and told him that he had nothing to fear and led him to his cabin. Having politely seated him there, Drake came to the point.
“I am a friend of those who tell me the truth, but with those who don’t tell it to me I lose my temper. Your best way to my favour is to tell me how much gold and silver you are carrying.”
“None,” replied Zárate, “beyond some small plates and cups which I use.”
Drake was silent for a moment but accepted the statement, and turned to another subject near to his heart. He asked — Zárate is writing to the Viceroy— “whether I knew your Excellency, and I answered: ‘Yes.’”
“Is any relative of his, or anything belonging to him, on your ship?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, it would give me a greater joy to come across him than all the gold and silver in the Indies,” Drake answered grimly. “You would see how the words of gentlemen should be kept.”
Zárate prudently made no answer and Drake led him down the companion to a prison below decks where an old man was sitting.
“You will have to remain here,” he said.
Don Francisco made no complaint, and Drake, mollified by his good humour, changed his mind.
“I don’t want you to try this just yet,” he said, and he released the old man, who was Colchero the pilot. Zárate recognized his voice as that of the man who had shouted that the Golden Hind was the ship of Miguel Angelo. They all three went on deck and talked till dinner-time. Then, as has indeed already been told, Drake placed Zárate next to him and told him that his life and property were safe.
Drake’s one trouble now was fresh water. In all other respects he was provisioned for a long voyage, but fresh water and a convenient harbour wherein to take it, as private as possible, were his greatest recurrent needs. He sought information from Zárate himself and from his crew. But no one could help him. A heavy surf broke upon the coast; sudden calms alternating with violent local winds added to its unattractiveness. Drake must make for a built, protected port before his want could be satisfied. He went aboard Zárate’s ship the next morning. It had a cargo of silk, linen, clothes and fine china. Drake was tempted to break his promise to Zárate. No doubt his own best suits were by now showing signs of wear and he had a liking for fine clothes. He took what he wanted besides some of the china, for which upon his return to the Golden Hind he made his apologies. The china was for his wife, he said, and in recompense he made to Zárate a present of a silver falchion and a cup by which, says Zárate ruefully, he was not the loser. Then he replaced Zárate and his crew upon his ship, took his pilot and gave him Colchero in exchange, and so sailed away north-westwards to the port of Guatulco.
He arrived on the morning of Monday in Holy Week with his two ships. He sent a launch full of armed men ashore and caught the small town in the exercise of its affairs, the court of justice sitting, the vicar at his church, Rengifo, the factor of the many Spanish companies which traded with the town, at work in his office. The bosun, a big pock-marked, redheaded fellow and a most militant Lutheran into the bargain, led the raid upon the church. Chalices, cups, embroidered altar-cloths were stolen, sacred images were torn from their places and smashed, the wafers of the Sacrament were crushed under the heels of their boots; the ruin of the church was complete. In the house of the factor they found a great pot full of silver reals, but there was no other treasure in the town. The pot they brought on board with the vicar, the judge and the factor. Drake took the pot containing one bushel of reals, but he had entered the port for water and he made the judge write a letter ordering all the inhabitants out of the town whilst he supplied his need. Thus the launch landed its crew for the second time into an empty town — or rather almost empty, for a sailor named Thomas Moone, but not Drake’s old boatswain of Nombre de Dios who had been drowned in the Marigold, caught a dilatory Spanish gentleman with a gold chain about his neck, and relieved him of it. Water was obtained, the ship’s barrels were, filled, and Drake remained until the end of the week in the harbour, embarrassing his hostages by offering them meat at his dinner-table through these days of Lent and still more by his discourses on the Pope. There was nothing in the Bible to warrant the kissing of the Pope’s toe, and the procedure was ridiculous. But Rengifo the factor declared that he was easy to talk with, and it was more in banter than in anger that he argued.
Drake was by now fluent in the Spanish tongue, and his mastery of the language seems so curiously to have perplexed the Spanish authorities that they have discovered the oddest reason for it. It is the historian Duro, to whom we owe so much of our knowledge of the Spanish side of the Armada enterprise, who gave currency to the story. He suggested that on the occasion of the marriage of Jane Dormer with the Count of Feria at Toledo, Drake was one of the hundred pages whom she brought from England to grace the ceremony. There is just one point at which the story might be said to fit the facts, and that a point of small importance. Jane Dormer was married to the Count of Feria on December 29th, 1558, when Francis Drake was thirteen years old and at the right age for this particular duty. But the marriage took place in England, not at Toledo. It was a Catholic marriage between a highly placed officer on the staff of Philip II and the favourite maid of honour of Mary Tudor. How in the world could the son of a little Protestant lay-reader on the Medway, befriended by the great Protestant family of Russell, come to figure in so papal a celebration? Even if he had been in birth and manner and appearance a match for so magnificent and glittering a company! But he was not. He was at this time a grubby little deckhand on a small North Sea tramp, his face reddened and roughened with the gales of the Dogger Bank, his hands seamed black with tar and dirt, and his walk on shore probably a seaman’s roll. He had nothing in common with the pretty boy, all velvet and satin and a flutter of ribbons, who would be needed to pace daintily up the aisle of a cathedral behind a bride.
There is no mystery in Drake’s mastery of the Spanish tongue. He was learning always. On this voyage he was plying every trained pilot he came across with questions about currents and winds. He was studying maps, learning to make maps. Twelve or thirteen years had passed since he had made his first unfortunate voyage with Captain Lovell to Rio de la Hac
ha and the Spanish Main. His second had taken him to St. John de Ulua. Then had come two lonely expeditions on the Swan. His fifth was to Nombre de Dios, and this voyage of circumnavigation was the sixth, in which he must examine and negotiate with men who knew no other language than the language of Spain. It was inevitable that, being the man he was, he should by now have fitted himself to speak it with fluency and ease. One would like to believe the fable, for Drake, his religion apart, would have revelled in the fine clothes, the show, the princely environment. But such stately parades were beyond his dreams in the year when Elizabeth ascended the throne. It was only now, in 1579, that he could have his page to stand behind him at the dinner-table and gentlemen to doff their hats at his approach and keep them doffed until he had bidden them twice to cover their heads.
He let all his prisoners go at Guatulco — except two negroes and, some say, a negress whom he took off the ship of Francisco de Zárate and put ashore a long time afterwards in the Philippines. If she was taken, why she was taken remains to this day a riddle. There have been few great men whose domestic affairs are so little known as Drake’s. He married Mary Newman of Plymouth in July 1569. She died, and he married Elizabeth Sydenham, also of Plymouth, in 1585. The rest is silence — except for one ill-natured gossip who many years later put it about that Drake had seized this negress to be his mistress. There is not a word in the various narratives of Drake’s many voyages which gives the least support to this slander; and it is to be remembered that those who wrote these narratives were not all Drake’s friends. Would the Chaplain Fletcher who discovered so much nobility in Doughty and so harsh a tyranny in Drake, for instance, have hesitated to embroider the lustfulness of his character, had he been offered the opportunity; All of Drake’s policy, as we read in the deposition of San Juan de Anton and the letter of Don Francisco de Zárate, gives the lie to the story. Drake was careful to sustain his authority on board his ship. He would talk with anyone and everyone, but he remained aloof, the General of the expedition, and he was little likely to undermine the respect which he had established by a sordid amour with a negress. He might, more probably, have taken her to wash his fine linen and goffer his ruff with less damage to them than would be wreaked by the clumsier hands of one of his crew.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 875