Brent

 

Sir Francis Drake

 

        The “Golden Hind” sails past a huge trading ship.  If the ship is Spanish, the majority of the crew will take their chances on the lifeboats.  Maybe the ship is English.  If so, the majority of the crew will ask for the captain of the “Hind’s” autograph.  Who is this controversial character who strikes fear into the Spaniards’ hearts and is one of the best known men in England?  It’s Sir Francis Drake!  This man, called “El Draco” by the Spanish, was a national hero for the English, but one to be greatly feared for the Spanish.

Was he really a bloodthirsty pirate, or was he a good businessman and honest citizen?  He made many accomplishments and set impressive records in his relatively long lifetime.  But he also sunk many Spanish ships.  You, the reader, will learn about Drake’s life in intervals of decades, and then hear the answer to this question.

 

        The fifteen forties were not very eventful for Drake.  He was born between 1540 and 1543 in Devonshire as the son of a tenant of Lord Francis Russell, the second earl of Bedford.  His father was a Protestant preacher.  The only important event other than Drake’s birth in this decade was the Catholic uprising, which caused Drake’s family to flee to the west area of England.  This event and his father’s job caused him to hate Catholicism for the rest of his life.

 

        Between 1550 and 1560, Drake began his career as a sailor.  When his family left their former home, they moved into a naval vessel near Chatham.  Since Drake lived in a boat, he came to know everything about them at an early age.  At thirteen years, our subject apprenticed to a coastal vessel trading in Northern English ports, which were among some of the roughest coastal stretches in the world.  Therefore, Drake learned how to pilot vessels very early.

 

        From 1560-1570, Drake began to widen his horizons in the world of sailing.  His mentor died and left him his ship so that Drake could sail beyond the English ports that he knew so well.  He also found out that he was related to the powerful Hawkins family, who had many high-ranking naval officers in their family. At age twenty-three, Drake decided that these people would be his path to fame.  He sold his boat and enlisted in the fleet owned by the Hawkins.  His ship was in a squadron led by Sir John Hawkins, who became Drake’s close friend.  On his assigned ship, the Judith, he traveled to the Gulf of Mexico on a slave-trading voyage.  Unfortunately, all but two ships were lost in an attack by the Spanish.  Even though the English hated the Spanish in the first place, this event is what really spurred Drake to become a privateer.

 

        From 1570 to 1580, Drake’s career as a privateer blossomed.  In 1570 Drake made two more voyages to the West Indies that set a base for his wealth.  1572 was a very important year for Drake.  He commanded his first marauding expedition against the Spanish ports in the Caribbean with only two ships and captured the port of Nombre de Dios.  This was the first time that Drake had seen the Pacific Ocean, but he would see it more than a few times.  When he made it back to England, He was recognized almost everywhere.  He was so popular, he was merchandised (Not joking, numerous souvenirs were made in his name)!  At this point, Drake was sent to calm a rebellion in Ireland until 1576.  Queen Elizabeth I had heard if his skill, and, in 1577, she ordered Drake to attack the Spanish colonies on the Pacific coast of the New World.  Drake had only five ships as he set off for the Americas.  The crew abandoned two store ships after supplies were loaded into the others.  In late 1578 the ships sailed through the Strait of Magellan in sixteen days, a sixteenth century record.  When they emerged in the Pacific as the first English men to sail on the forbidden waters (the Spanish banned English ships from it), a gale struck up.  One ship sunk, and the other missed a rendezvous with the Golden Hind (Drake’s flagship) and turned back, assuming it had sunk.  The Hind moved up the coast like a storm, tearing apart Spanish settlements.  Drake continued to sail up to as far as the Canadian border looking for a safe passage home, becoming the first English man to see Canada.  He decided to continue west instead of wasting time looking for a shortcut.  As Drake headed south, he stopped at an area near present-day San Francisco and claimed it for England, naming it New Albion.  Drake continued sailing west soon after.  In a little more than a year, Drake reached England with only 56% of his crew left.  He became the first captain to sail his ship around the world (Magellan died before he finished his circumnavigation).

 

        From 1580 to 1590 Drake’s privateering career rose and then fell late in the same decade.  In 1581 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth on the Golden Hind.  The same year he was appointed mayor of Plymouth and in 1584 and 1585 he served as a member of Parliament.  In 1586 the Queen ordered Drake to destroy the Spanish Armada, an invasion fleet that the Spanish were piecing together.  With thirty ships, Drake destroyed the nearly completed Armada within thirty-six hours.  This delayed the invasion for one more year, but very soon the Armada was in the English Channel.  In 1588 Drake became the vice-admiral of the fleet that held back the Spanish once more, its main admiral being John Hawkins.  Unfortunately, the next year Drake tried to destroy the remaining ships and failed. Afterward came a downward slide…

 

        Little is known about the final years in Drake’s life.  From 1590-1596 Drake did not do much.  After his 1589 mission failed, he returned to Parliament.  In 1595 the Queen sent him on another mission to fight the Spanish in the West Indies with Sir John Hawkins.  Unfortunately his crew was almost totally destroyed by a fever, Hawkins and Drake dying themselves.  They were buried at sea off of Puerto Belo, Panama.

 

        Now the question: Was Sir Francis Drake a greedy, bloodthirsty pirate as the Spanish thought?  Or a kind businessman and all-around-good-guy as the English believed?  Drake did sink many ships, but supposedly he was taking revenge.  This question is hard to answer because not many notes were taken on his personality.  Fortunately, there are some clues available.   It seems that not many rich people liked Drake because of his casual and joking “common folk” style.  Also, he jokingly referred to destroying the Spanish Armada “Singeing the King of Spain’s beard”.  This gives a person the impression that he was a happy, kind man.  Also, he seems to have had a love for children because his only grief was that none of his wives bore him any. 

 

        In conclusion, if a person studies hard enough, they might find that Sir Francis Drake wasn’t totally horrible and may have been very nice.  Sir Frances Drake had a very exciting life, except for the beginning (of course, he was a child at that point).  But think of this: How did Sir Francis become such a good sailor? Was it starting at an early age and studying hard?  Or was he born with a talent, a talent that none of us have?  That no one, except him, ever had?