the object of the voyage, as revealed in their actions then and late r, was ro shatter the monopoly of oceanic world trade asserted by Spa in and Portugal with the support of the Pope as God's spokesman on earth. Spain's tribute from the conquered American colonies had provided the gold and silver that made her all at once the dominant power in Europe, spurred on by a driving religious ideology that made her a menace ro the independence of other nations. So, it is clear that Drake's five ships, sailing into the autumnal evening ro go out and attack the world 's strongest and most aggressive power, carried a heavier cargo of concerns, and perhaps a greater share in the world's destiny, than a casual raiding expedition. "The famous voyage," as it would soon be known, got off ro a messy start. Standing southwest through the night of 15 November, by morning Drake's ships had reached the mouth of the English Channel, where they were met by a head wind "quite contrarie to [their] intended course." Under threatening skies they ran back ro anchor in Falmouth, driven by a rising wind. Over the next two days this wind rose to a howling gale. The flagship Pelican and the little Marigold were both forced ro cut away their mainmasts ro avoid being driven ashore, even in the sheltered anchorage they'd gained. Running back ro Plymouth, the ships made good their damages. They put ro sea again "wit h happier sayles" on 13 December. The squadron made a swift 12-day passage southward, keeping well ro sea in fair winds. Sailing in the wake of Portuguese and Spanish navigarors, man had come a long way from the headlandro-headland piloting practiced by Europeans only a century earlier in these same waters, as the Portuguese h ad worked their way, step by step, down the Moroccan coast, which Drake reached in one quick leap from England. The fleet raised the sandy, barren coast of Africa just north of Mogador on Christmas morning, 25 December 1577. From there, having reprovisioned, the fleet headed south along the coast. It had been talked up in seaport rowns that Drake was bound ro the Mediterranean, but as the fleet sai led southwest ro the Cape Verde Islands and then struck out across the Atlantic rowards Brazil, it became clear that Drake was bound into the Pacific world. In 1520, Magellan had discovered a way through the Americas ro the Pacific. But in the intervening half century, few ships h ad sailed through the Strait of Magellan. It was not that Spain's Philip II did not see the importance of the Strait as a direct sea route ro his growing colonies on South America's Pacific coast. It was just that the going was roo rough. Samuel Eliot Morison, the great chronicler of these voyages, sums up the agonies of the Spanish effort ro carry out Philip's orders ro develop this route: At least six expeditions had tried ro get through, with about seventeen vessels, twelve of which had been cast away in or near the eastern entrance: and Elcano's Victoria still held the unique distinction of passing through and returning home. "Of these vessels' crews," he adds, "not one man in five ever saw his native land again; probably well over a thousand had perished."
SEAHISTORY 143, SUMMER2013
The Ships and Their People Now that the ships' crews know where they are going, let's have a closer look at Drake's squadron, its mission and its people, beginningwith its remarkable Captain General. Francis Drake was born about 1540, son of one Edmund Drake, a yeoman farmer and wool-shearer who leased his farm near Plymouth from the Earl of Bedford. Edmund ran into trouble with the law, and for this reason or because of religious persecution (the srory his children were brought up ro believe), he left Devon when Francis was about eight, traveling across England ro Chatham, a burgeoning naval base on the Medway just off the Thames estuary. Edmund found a home for his fami ly in a laid-up ship's hull a nd scraped out a living as an evangelical preacher ro the ships of the fleet. Francis acquired a good education in these straightened circumstances. The O xford-educated naval officer and hisrorian William Monson later said of Drake: "He wou ld speak much and arrogantly but eloquently, which was a wonder ro many that his education could yield him those helps of nature." In the early 1550s, Francis was apprenticed ro the owner and master of a small barque trundling cargoes up and down the coast. He also made voyages ro the Continent, and now and then piloted larger vessels through the treacherous sand banks and swirling tides of the Thames estuary-a wonderful training ground for seamanship. It was a region where waterfront streets and taverns echoed ro the talk of sailors and merchants, just in from Lisbon, Bordeaux, or Genoa. The Thames served as an outlet for the ever-growing trade of the port of London, which by the 1550s handled some ninety percent of England 's exports. Francis's mother had died, and Edmund followed in 1557, leaving a scanty estate. The master of the barque died a few years later and left the vessel ro Francis, aged about twenty. Francis sold the vessel and rook his money, a few friends from the ship, and himself ro Plymouth. There, in the early 1560s he began shipping out in the deep-sea trading expeditions his cousi n John Hawkins had begun ro run ro Africa and the Caribbean.
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