Drake had now no one to gainsay him. He still hoped to surprise the town of San Juan and take it with little opposition; and he prepared to land a force that evening. But as he sat at supper, when all the preparations were made, in his cabin on the Defiance with Sir Nicholas Clifford, Brute Brown, a friend of his who had served on the Rainbow during the last week of the Armada battles, Captain Strafford and some others, the Cabron battery opened fire. Drake had arrived too late. A fortnight before, he would have found only one fort, the Morillo, at the entrance to the harbour equipped with guns, and the town would have fallen into his hands as easily as he had hoped. But the attack upon Grand Canary had spoilt all his chances. Although Philip had sent word as early as April that an English fleet might be expected, Pedro Suarez, the Governor, had done little more than bring the treasure from the dismasted galleon on shore and sink the ship itself in the fairway of the harbour. The arrival of a post boat from Grand Canary and, a few days afterwards, of Pedro Tello with his five frigates and the prisoners from the Francis, had wakened him to the greatness of his peril. A conference had been held at the house of General Sanchez Pardo, who commanded the garrison. The people of the island were mustered, armed, and appointed to their places, and guns and gunners were taken from the frigates and distributed in old forts and advantageous positions. Two of these guns were planted in the curtain of the Cabron fort, and they now opened fire upon Drake’s flagship. A cannonball dropped plump into the cabin and struck down Clifford, Strafford and Brown as they sat at table. Clifford was so badly wounded that he died that night, and Brute Brown only lingered for five days. “Ah, dear Brute,” Drake said, “I could grieve for thee, but now is no time for me to let down my spirits.”
Had he some presage of the doom which waited upon this expedition? It may well have been. All the devices which used to fit together and make a swift triumph — secret landings, night marches, ships sailing unexpected into unprotected harbours — were failing one after the other. Drake turned from his ruined cabin and wounded comrades to countermand the landing and get the fleet under way and out of range. He sailed westwards along the coast past the Boqueron and Morillo batteries, across the harbour mouth, and sought a refuge behind the Cabras and Cabrita islands. There no cannon-shot could reach him, and he waited for the morning.
San Juan de Puerto Rico, like so many towns which Drake had visited, was built on a bulge of land only connected with the main territory by a narrow neck or, as in this case and that of Cartagena, by a made causeway. The harbour mouth, which was narrow and difficult by reason of the shoals, faced the north. Behind the headlands the water widened out into a great lagoon, that too made difficult by shallows. The town was at the north-east entrance; the castle and battery of El Morillo faced the ocean where the surf beat upon its walls; the wharfs were just within the harbour mouth overlooked by the fort of Santa Helena; and the greater part of the buildings looked southwards over the lagoon. In the morning Drake was seen from the Governor’s house to be on the water in his barge with the awning, taking soundings. There was a stockade where it was thought that he might try to force a landing, and a guard was sent to hold it. In addition, the frigates were anchored under the guns of Santa Helena, so that if an attack looked at all likely to be successful, the treasure could be quickly re-embarked and the frigates slip away with it to sea. To Pedro Tello, and indeed to all concerned with the defence of the town, the very name of Drake had a terrifying sound, and they divined behind each movement of simple reconnaissance some devilish and mysterious wile.
Drake’s plan, however, was simple. The surprise by his army having been foreseen and prevented, he must take his fleet into the harbour and land his troops under the cover of his guns. But what with the shoals, the sinking of the treasure ship, and a merchant vessel which had now been added, there was but the narrowest passage, and that close by the anchored frigates. He proposed, therefore, to deal with those frigates during the night. Unfortunately he chose the wrong way to deal with them. He might have cut them out, he determined to burn them, and after darkness had set in on that Thursday the 13th, he manned twenty-five pinnaces and long-boats with his soldiers and in his own barge led the way. But so keen a watch was kept by the garrison that although the night was dark the boats were detected. In those phosphorescent seas the blades of so many oars turned the water into a sheet of white flame. The batteries of the Rock fort and the fort of Santa Helena began to fire, but upon an enemy they rather guessed at than discerned. The attack was pressed with fireballs and musketry. The frigate Texedo, the flagship, was set on fire in the bows, but the fire was got under. The same thing happened with the Santa Isabel, the Santa Clara and the Santa Magdalena. Fires began to burn and were extinguished whilst the guns of the forts thundered and the men on the frigates used any weapon they could find, even to stones. After an hour of wild fighting, the Santa Magdalena was set on fire again, this time at the stern; and this time the fire took hold. But although twelve men on the ship were burnt and another twelve killed by musketry, the conflagration was more fatal to the assailants. It lit the scene to the brightness of day. The crowded boats now clustered about this frigate, now about that, were exposed to the gunners in the batteries, and so heavy a fire was poured upon them at so short a range that they were forced to retreat with a very serious loss.
But Drake did not quit. The next morning as the land breeze sprang up, his fleet was seen to sail out from behind the islands. To many in the town the hope came that he had abandoned the attack, but Pedro Tello had gauged his enemy better. Drake meant to get to windward of the harbour and reach down through the channel and past the forts. Tello sought out the General, Sanchez Pardo. One of the frigates and two merchantmen, as they were, laden with all their merchandise, were sunk in the narrow fairway which was still open. And when, as Tello had suspected, Drake’s whole fleet went about in the afternoon and came bowling down to the entrance, it was found to be completely closed. Drake called a council when he had returned to his anchorage behind the Goat and the Little Goat islands, and asked what should now be done. Most gave it as their opinion that the place was too strong and that to continue the attack was to hazard the whole voyage. But some of the younger officers held a bolder view. “How could they,” they asked, and especially one Captain Rush, “give an opinion when they had merely looked at the forts from the outside? Let them look a little closer!” and Thomas Maynarde protested that “no town in the Indies could yield us more honour or profit.”
But Drake had made up his mind. He sat in silence for a while and then said to Maynarde, “I will bring thee to twenty places far more wealthy and easier to be gotten.” And Sir Thomas Baskerville agreed.
The fleet sailed that night, and in the morning San Juan de Puerto Rico looked out over an empty sea. Drake moved on to the west, and rounding the corner of the island came to anchor on the 19th of the month in the Bay of San German. There he put five companies of musketeers and pikemen on shore, watered his ships, repaired his pinnaces, hunted and collected fresh meat and fish and fruit. A week later he sailed again, and southwards across the Caribbean Sea to the Spanish Main.
It was the right course. He could pick up the trade-wind off Cape de la Vela and bowl along with all sails set to Nombre de Dios. But he did nothing of the kind. His failure at Puerto Rico might have warned him, should have warned him, that time was a great ally or a fatal enemy according to whether he prized it or wasted it. He did not know that as the topsails of his ships caught the morning sun on the edge of the horizon, Pedro Tello had sent forward a swift post boat to San Domingo and to Menendez at Havana with the news that Drake was there. But he might have foreseen that just this one tiling must happen, and that if he was to find the road to Panama open to his troops, he must hurry with every inch of canvas stretched which his masts could carry. It is difficult to understand the mood which swayed him. Had he slipped back into the old days when, so poor was the defence and so incredible the appearance of an enemy, that every harbour was at his
mercy? Was he remembering his first voyage to the Indies with Captain Lovell and his defeat at Rio de la Hacha? He had a long and brooding memory for his adversities, counting them as personal wrongs some time to be avenged. It is more likely that he had in his mind the words he had used to his reluctant officers at Puerto Rico: “I will bring thee to twenty places far more wealthy and easier to be gotten.” A failure at Grand Canary; another at San Juan. He may well have believed that his comrades had lost their faith in his star and that some striking and profitable success must be won before he sent them out on the march to Panama. Panama would make up for all his rebuffs and discomfitures. But his men must advance to it with their confidence restored and some promise of the fortune which awaited them already in their pockets.
Whatever the motive, the strange fact is certain. Off Cabo de la Vela he hauled up into the wind and sent Sir Thomas Baskerville with his main force in the ships’ boats down the west face of the cape to Rio de la Hacha.
Baskerville occupied the town without meeting any resistance on the night of December 1st. The inhabitants fled to the woods, hiding what property they had of value in secret places in the neighbouring country. Drake brought his fleet to the roadstead on the following morning, and Baskerville’s soldiers were spread wide over the district searching out the spots where the treasure was cached. Runaway negro slaves helped them, and a certain amount of plunder was obtained. But it did not add up to much. Drake himself meanwhile led a small force in boats to the village of Lancheria, sixteen miles away. A pearl fishery was established there and a certain amount of pearls was seized. He returned to Rio de la Hacha with a few Spaniards as hostages and some more negro slaves. When he returned, the town’s Governor, from his retreat in the forest, began to negotiate with him for the ransom of the town. The negotiations were spun out day after day, and then, behind the Governor’s back, some citizens brought pearls to the value, as they said, of twenty-four thousand pesos. Drake, however, refused them because they were of inferior quality, and then received a jeering message from the Governor. Drake was never meant to receive a ransom. The negotiations for a ransom were begun and extended just to keep him anchored in this corner of Terra Firma whilst warnings of his appearance were sent along the coast. Those warnings had now been given and received, and Drake was at liberty to burn the town, if it pleased him to do so.
Smarting under this insult, Drake did burn the town. He sailed along the coast to Santa Marta, now the headquarters of the American Fruit Company. There he found that the Governor of Rio de la Hacha had spoken the truth. There were no resistance, no plunder, and no inhabitants. Drake burned Santa Marta, and then, having spent nineteen unprofitable days in this region, he sailed to Nombre de Dios on Darien and arrived before it on December 27th.
Troops were landed at once. Again there was a mere show of defence. From seventy to a hundred soldiers held that fort with the escarpment which had been half-built when Drake had raided the town before. The defenders fired one shot from a cannon which burst with the discharge, and then fled. Some were captured, and they had the story to tell with which Drake was now becoming unhappily familiar. First, in the spring of the year a warning had come straight from Philip in Spain that a great fleet was fitting out in England with Drake in command; then from Puerto Rico a message that he was actually before that island; lastly, a word from Rio de la Hacha that in a week they might expect him at their door. A few caches were discovered and ransacked. But now Drake did not waste time.
Nombre de Dios was no longer the important harbour where the gold and jewels of Peru were embarked for Spain. Its deadly climate had enforced its lesson on the Spaniards. They had built a new and healthier base some twenty miles to the west at Puerto Bello, and in this month of December, 1595, Nombre de Dios was no more than the skeleton of a port.
No doubt Drake had it in mind to pay a visit of some considerable consequence to Puerto Bello, but meanwhile he was at Nombre de Dios, whence he had set out on the gold road to Panama. There was another choice in the Chagres River, which was navigable by boats for some leagues across the isthmus. A council of war was called and a decision was made to follow the old mule trail. Baskerville was landed with seven hundred and fifty picked men, and he began his march on December 29th. But the country had changed during the last twenty years. The jungle had grown; the Cimaroons had disappeared; Baskerville covered nine miles on the first day. On the second he reached the half-way house where the relays of horses and mules for the gold train were stabled. But the half-way house was burnt. The force bivouacked on the ground, and after advancing for three miles on the next morning reached the foot of a steep hill along the top of which a strong abattis had been built. Cast about as they might, there was no way round. All was impenetrable jungle, except for this one cleared path. The site had been chosen a year before by Baptista Antonelli, the engineer, and fortified by Alonzo de Sotomayor, a veteran of the Flanders wars. Maynarde declares that he found a way between the palisades which was used for fetching water and that he called upon some of his men to mount by it, but the rise was too steep and they were shot down. Three assaults were made by Baskerville and repulsed; and he then took counsel with his captains. For most of the two days they had marched in the rain and their matches and powder were spoilt. Baskerville was convinced that even if he drove a breach through this stockade he would be faced with others of a like kind all the way to Panama. His men were carrying their rations on their backs and were already hungry. Many had been killed or wounded, chiefly by arrows; and the rest were exhausted by the difficulties of the march. Baskerville reasoned that even if he could by a miracle force a way to Panama, he would arrive before that city with his numbers so depleted and worn out that, so far from capturing the city, he would be left without the strength to retreat. He gave the order to do so whilst he could; and so from this spot in the Sierra de Capira, close to and perhaps in sight of that high tree from which in more glorious days Drake had first seen the wide Pacific and prayed God that he might sail on it, the defeated troops marched back, broken in spirit and resentful of their leaders. Their shoes worn out, their bodies starved, they stumbled back to Nombre de Dios, swearing that they would never make adventures to buy gold at such a price again. Drake was still at Nombre de Dios when Baskerville returned on January 2nd. He was preparing to move on to Puerto Bello, without any apprehension that the land attack would fail. Yet it is impossible to deny the truth of Maynarde’s bitter words: “I am persuaded that never army great or small undertook a march through to unknown places, so weakly provided and with so small means to help themselves, unless it might be some few going covertly to do some sudden exploit before it were thought of by the enemy and so return unspied.”
Drake’s conduct of the whole expedition is a riddle explicable only on the theory that the arduous labours of his life had taken their toll of him, mind and body. When he should have hurried, he tarried. When he should have taken his time, he acted as though he had not a second to lose. He could go needlessly out of his way to make an attack on Grand Canary; he could waste nineteen days on Rio de la Hacha and Santa Marta; but at Nombre de Dios he made not one effort to renew his friendship with the Cimaroons and receive at once their information and support. The march across the isthmus! How it was planned and how it failed, and how it was tried again and succeeded, that story is told in the earlier pages of this book. It looked as if Drake had only remembered the triumphs which had crowned his early plans and not the cautious enquiries and the careful preparations which had preceded and made them possible. There was another aspect of his leadership today which is difficult to reconcile with the Drake of the older voyages. He had accepted serious defeats with little attempt to retrieve them, almost indeed with complacency, almost as though a sort of callousness had grown over his high pride and his disdain.
He was awake, however, now. “Since our return from Panama,” Maynarde wrote, ‘he never carried mirth nor joy in his face.” For six years he had been out of the favour of hi
s Royal Mistress. Then once more he had secured her goodwill by promising her honourable service and a profitable adventure. How was he to face her when he returned? She had spent seventy thousand pounds, and all that was brought back to set against that great sum did not amount to five thousand.
But he was not giving in. If his face was joyless and grave, it was not discouraged. On the 4th of January he summoned a council on the Defiance to decide what else they should attempt. From prisoners and runaway slaves it was now known that all the famous ports of Philip’s West Indies were informed of Drake’s presence and well prepared to withstand him. New ground must be tried if any good were to come of this long voyage. Drake sat at the head of the table in his cabin with maps and books spread out in front of him; watching, no doubt, with his lifelong expectancy for the opening door to open on a new and shining world. He spoke of a great city of Honduras and of the dwellings about the Lake of Nicaragua, where legend described the streets as paved with gold. He knew nothing of these places but what he read in his books. None the less, his words carried his audience with him.
“Which will you have?” he asked, and Baskerville cried out: “Both! One after the other! And all too little to content us if we took them.”
They set fire to Nombre de Dios, sank fourteen small frigates which were anchored in the roads, and took on board twenty bars of silver and a little gold — all that they stopped to find of the cached treasure. On the 5th they sailed away, and on the 10th they anchored behind the island of Escudo de Veragua, where they captured one of Philip’s swift postal frigates. They got little joy from the capture, for they learned from its officers and crew that the famous towns upon the lake were poor and the way to them seamed with shoals and reefs. But they had no chance to discover the truth for themselves, for the winds held them prisoners. Their food ran short. Beyond a few turtles that bare island gave them nothing for the pot. If the story of the streets paved with gold was untrue, the bay of Nicaragua had one reputation which was well and truly deserved. It was the unhealthiest spot between Darien and Mexico. For twelve days the fleet beat up and down in those waters, praying for a change of wind. But the wind stood in the same quarter and men and officers died.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 903