06 - Chronicles of America - Elizabethan Sea-Dogs by William Wood

Step back into the dawn of American history with Elizabethan Sea-Dogs, where the spirit of the citizen, colonist, and pioneer comes alive! This captivating exploration reveals the daring adventurers of the Elizabethan era who paved the way for future generations in the New World. Under the brilliant leadership of Sir Francis Drake, the first of the modern admirals, English sailors claimed their dominion over the sea. Known as Sea-Dogs, they opened the gateway for explorers and settlers seeking their fortunes in America. Discover how this century of maritime quests and naval warfare laid the foundations for Anglo-American history and secured the path for countless pioneers eager to carve out their destinies.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter six of Elizabethan Sea Dogs by William Wood. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter six Drake's beginning.
We must now turn back for a moment to fifteen
hundred and forty five, the year in which the Old world,

(00:21):
after the discovery of the minds of Potosi, first awoke
to the illimitable riches of the New. The year in
which King Henry assembled his epoch making fleet. The year
two in which the British national anthem was so to say,
born at sea, when the parole throughout the waiting fleet

(00:42):
was God save the King, and the answering counter's son
was long to reign over us. In the same year,
at Crowndale, by tavis Stock and Devon was born Francis Drake,
greatest of Sea Dogs and first of modern US admirals.
His father, Edmund Drake, was a skipper in modest circumstances,

(01:07):
but from time immemorial there had been Drakes all round
the countryside of tavis Stock, and the family name stood high.
Francis was called after his godfather, Francis Russell, son and
heir of Henry's right hand reforming peer Lord Russell, progenitor

(01:27):
of the Dukes of Bedford down to the present day.
Though fortune thus seemed to smile upon Drake's cradle, his
boyhood proved to be a very stormy one. Indeed, he
was not yet five when the Protestant zeal of the
Lord Protector Somerset stirred the Roman Catholics of the West

(01:50):
Country into an insurrection that swept the anti papal minority
before it like flotsam before a flood. Drake's father was
a zealous Protestant, a hot gospeler, much given to preaching,
and when he was cast up by the storm on
what is now Drake's Island, just off Plymouth, he was

(02:12):
glad to take passage for Kent. His friends at court
then made him a sort of naval chaplain to the
men who took care of his Majesty's ships laid up
in Gillingham Reach on the River Medway, just below where
Chatham Dockyard stands today. Here in a vessel too old

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for service. Most of Drake's eleven brothers were born to
a life as nearly amphibious as the life of any
boy could be. The tide runs in with a rush
from the sea at Sheerness only ten miles away, and
so among the creeks and marshes, points and bends, through

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tortuous chain annals and hurrying waters lashed by the keen
east Wind of England, Drake reveled in the kind of
playground that a sea dog's son should have. During the
reign of Mary fifteen hundred and fifty three to fifty eight,
hot gospelers like Drake's father were, of course turned out

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of the service, and so young Francis had to be
apprenticed to the master of a bark, which he used
to coast along the shore and sometimes to carry merchandise
into Zealand and France. It was hard work and a
rough life for the little lad of ten, but Drake
stuck to it, and so pleased the old man by

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his industry that, being a bachelor, at his death he
bequeathed his bark unto him by will and testament. Moreover,
after Elizabeth's succession, Drake's father came into his own. He
took orders in the Church of England, and in fifteen
hundred and sixty one, when Francis was sixteen, became vicar

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of Upchurch on the Medway, the same river on which
his boys had learned to live amphibious lives, no dreams
of any golden West had Drake as yet to the
boy in his teens, westward Hoe meant nothing more than
the usual cry of London boatman touting for fairs upstream.

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But before he went out with Sir John Hawkins on
the troublesome voyage which we have just followed, he must
have had a fore taste of something like his future.
Rating of the Spanish main, for the Channel swarmed with
Protestant privateers, no gentler when they caught a Spaniard than

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Spaniards were when they caught them. He was twenty two
when he went out with Hawkins, and would be in
his fourth year when he returned to England. In the
Little Judith, after the murderous Spanish treachery at San Juan
de Ulia, just as the winter night was closing in

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on the twentieth of January fifteen hundred and sixty nine,
the Judith sailed into Plymouth. Drake landed William Hawkins, John's
brother wrote a petition to the Queen and Council for
letters of mark in reprisal for Juliua, and Drake dashed
off for London with the missive almost before the ink

(05:37):
was dry. Now it happened that a Spanish treasure fleet
carrying money from Italy and bound for Antwerp, had been
driven into Plymouth and neighboring ports by Huguenot privateers. This
money was urgently needed by Alva, the very capable but
ruthless governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who, having just drowned

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the rebellious Dutch in blood, was now erecting a colossal
statue to himself for having extinguished sedition, chastised rebellion, restored religion,
secured justice, and established peace. The Spanish ambassador therefore obtained

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leave to bring it over land to Dover. But no
sooner had Elizabeth signed the order of safe conduct than
in came Drake with the news of Saint Juan de Ulua.
Elizabeth at once saw that all the English sea dogs
would be flaming for revenge. Everyone saw that the treasure

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would be safer now in England than aboard any Spanish
vessel in the channel. So on the ground that the gold,
though payable to Philip's representative in Antwerp, was still the
property of the at Italian bankers, who advanced that Elizabeth
sent orders down post haste to comeandeer it. The enraged

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ambassador advised Alva to seize everything English in the Netherlands. Elizabeth,
in turn seized everything Spanish in England. Elizabeth now held
the diplomatic trumps for existing treaties, provided that there should
be no reprisals without a reasonable delay, and Alva had

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seized English property before giving Elizabeth the customary time to explain.
John Hawkins entered Plymouth five days later than Drake and
started for London with four pack horses carrying all he
had saved from the wreck by the irony of fate.

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He traveled up to town in the rear of the
long procession that carried the common deered Spanish gold. The
plot thickened fast, for England was now on the brink
of war with France over the secret aid englishmen had
been giving to the Huguenots at La Rochelle. But suddenly

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Elizabeth was all smiles and affability for France, and when
her two great merchant fleets put out to see one,
the wine fleet bound for La Rochelle went with only
a small naval escort, just enough to keep the pirates off,
while the other the big wool Fleet, usually sent to Antwerp,

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but now bound for Hamburg, went with a strong fighting
escort of regular men of war. Aboard this escort went
Francis Drake as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Home.
In June, Drake ran down to Tavistock in Devon Wood
one and married pretty Mary Newman All within a month.

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He was back on duty in July. For the time being,
the war cloud passed away. Elizabeth's tortuous diplomacy had succeeded,
owing to dissension among her enemies. In the following year,
fifteen hundred and seventy, the international situation was changed by

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the Pope, who issued a bull formally deposing Elizabeth and
absolving her subjects from their allegiance to her. The French
and Spanish monarchs refused to publish this order because they
did not approve of deposition by the Pope. But for
all that it worked against Elizabeth by making her the

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official standing enemy of Rome, at the same time it
worked for her among the sea dogs and all who
thought with them the case, said Thomas Fuller, author of
The Worthies of England. The case was clear in sea divinity,
religious zeal And commerciall enterprise went hand in hand. The

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case was clear, and the English Navy, now mobilized and
ready for war, made it much clearer still. Westward Hoe
in chief command at the age of twenty five, with
the tiny flotilla of the Dragon and the Swan manned
by as good a lot of daredevil experts as any

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privateer could wish to see out and back. In fifteen
hundred and seventy and again in fifteen hundred and seventy one,
Drake took reprisals on New Spain, made money for all
hands engaged, and gained a knowledge of the American coast
that stood him in good stead for future expeditions. It

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was fifteen hundred and seventy two when Drake, at the
age of twenty seven, sailed out of Plymouth on the
Non bro Dios expedition that brought him into fame. Had
a Liliputian fleet, the Pasca and the Swan one hundred
tons between them, with seventy three men all ranks and

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ratings aboard of them. But both vessels were richly furnished
with victials and apparels for a whole year, and no
less heedfully provided with all manner of ammunition artillery, which
then meant every kind of firearm, as well as cannon, artificers,
stuffs and tools, but especially three dainty pinnaises made in Plymouth,

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taken asunder all in pieces and stowed aboard, to be
set up as occasion served. Without once striking sail, Drake
made the channel between Dominica and Martinique in twenty five
days and arrived off our previously chosen secret harbor on

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the Spanish main towards the end of July. To his
intense surprise, a column of smoke was rising from it,
though there was no settlement within one hundred miles. On landing,
he found a leaden plate with this inscription, Captain Drake,
if you fortune to come to this port, make haste

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away for the Spaniards which you had with you here
the last year, have beraided the place and taken away
all that you left here. I depart hence this present
seventh of July fifteen hundred and seventy two, your very
loving friend John Garrett. That was fourteen days before. Drake, however,

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was determined to carry out his plan, so he built
a fort and set up his Pinnaises, but others had
now found the secret harbor. For in came three sail
under Rance, an Englishman, who asked that he'd be taken
into partnership, which was done. Then the combined forces, not

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much over a hundred strong, stole out and along the
coast to the Isle of Pines, where again Drake found
himself forestalled from the Negro crews of two Spanish vessels.
He discovered that only six weeks earlier, the Maroons had
annihilated a Spanish force on the Isthmus and nearly taken

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Nombra de Dios itself. These Maroons were the descendants of
escaped Negro slaves intermarried with the most warlike of the Indians.
They were regular desperadoes, always and naturally at war with
the Spaniards, who treated them as vermin to be killed

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at sight. Drake put the captured negroes ashore to join
the Maroons, with whom he always made friends. Then, with
seventy three picked men, he made his dash for Nambra
der Dios, leaving the rest under Rance to guard the base.

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Dios was the Atlantic terminus, as Panama was the Pacific
terminus of the Treasure Trail. Across the Isthmus of Darien.
The Spaniards, knowing nothing of Cape Horn and unable to
face the appalling dangers of Magellan straits, used to bring
the Peruvian treasure ships to Panama. Whence the treasure was

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taken across the Isthmus to Nombre de Dios by requas,
that is, by mule trains under escort. At evening, Drake's
vessel stood off the harbor of No Dios and stealthily
approached unseen. It was planned to make the landing in

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the morning. Along in nerve racking weight ensued. As the
hours dragged on, Drake felt instinctively that his younger men
were getting demoralized. They began to whisper about the size
of the town as big as Plymouth, with perhaps a
whole battalion of the famous Spanish infantry, and so on.

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It wanted an hour of the first real streak of dawn,
But just then the old moon sent a ray of
light quivering in on the tide. Drake instantly announced the dawn,
issued the orders shove off out oars, give way inside
the bay. A ship just arrived from sea was picking

(15:29):
up her moorings. A boat left her side and pulled
like mad for the wharf. But Drake's men raced the Spaniards,
beat them, and made them sheer off to a landing
some way beyond the town. Springing eagerly ashore, the Englishmen
tumbled the Spanish guns off their platforms, while the astonished

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sentry ran for dear life. In five minutes, the church
bells were peeling out their wild alarms, trumpet calls were sounding,
drums were beating round the general parade, and the civilians
of the place, expecting massacre at the hands of the Maroons,
were rushing about in agonized confusion. Drake's men fell in.

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They were all well drilled and were quickly tolled off
into three detachments, the largest under Drake, the next under Oxenen,
the hero of Kingsley's Westward ho and the third of
twelve men only to guard the pinnaces. Having found that
the new fort on the hill commanding the town was

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not yet occupied, Drake and Oxenham marched against the town
at the head of their sixty men, Oxenham by a
flank Drake, straight up the main street, each with a trumpet,
sounding a drum, rolling firepikes blazing, swords flashing, and all
ranks yelling like fiends. Drake was only of medium stature,

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but he had the strength of a giant, the pluck
of a bulldog, the spring of a tiger, and the
cut of a man that is born to command. Broad browed,
with steel blue eyes and close cropped auburn hair and beard,
he was all kindliness of countenance to friends, but a

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very dragon to his Spanish foes. As Drake's men reached
the plaza, his trumpeter blew one blast of defiance and
then fell dead. Drake returned the Spanish volley and charged immediately,
the drummer beating furiously, pikes leveled and swords brandished. The

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Spaniards did not wait for him to close for Oxenham's party.
Firepikes blazing were taking them in flank. Out went the
Spaniards through the Panama gate, with screaming townsfolk scurrying before them.
Bang went the gate, now under English guard. As Drake
made for the Governor's house, there lay a pile of

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silver bars such as his men had never dreamt of.
In all, about four hundred tons of silver ready for
the homeward fleet, enough not only to fill but sink
the Pasha, swan and pinnases. But silver was then no
more to Drake than it was once to Solomon. What

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he wanted was the diamonds and pearls and gold which
were stored. He learned in the King's Treasure House beside
the bay a terrific storm now burst. The firepikes and
arqua buses had to be taken under cover. The wall
of the King's Treasure House defied all efforts to breach it,

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and the Spaniards, who had been shut into the town,
discovering how few the English were, reformed for attack. Some
of Drake's men began to lose heart, but in a
moment he stepped to the front and ordered Oxenhen to
go round and smash in the treasure house gate, while
he held the plaza himself. Just as the men stepped off, however,

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he reeled aside and fell. He had fainted from loss
of blood caused by a wound he had managed to conceal.
There was no holding the men now. They gave him
a cordial, after which he bound up his leg, for
he was a first rate surgeon, and repeated his orders
as before. But there were a good many wounded, and

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with Drake no longer able to lead, the rest all
begged to go back. So back to their boats they went,
and over to the Bastamentos or Biddling Island, which contained
the gardens and poultry runs of the Nombro Dodillo citizens.
Here they were visited under a flag of truce by

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the Spanish off commanding the reinforcement just sent across from Panama.
It was all politeness, airs and graces while trying to
ferret out the secret of their real strength. Drake, however,
was not to be outdone, either in diplomacy or war,
and a delightful little comedy of prying and veiling courtesies

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was played out, to the great amusement of the English
sea dogs. Finally, when the time agreed upon was up,
the Spanish officer departed, pouring forth a stream of high
flown compliments, which Drake, who was a Spanish scholar, answered
with the like, waiving each other a ceremonious argue. The

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two leaders were left no wiser than before. Nombre de Dios,
now strongly reinforced and on its guard, was not an
easy nut to crack, but Panama, Panama meant a risky
march inland and a still risky or returned by the
regular treasure trail. But with the help of the Maroons,

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who knew the furtive byways to a foot, the thing
might yet be done. Rance thought the game not worth
the candle and retired from the partnership. Much to Drake's delight,
a good preliminary stroke was made by raiding Cartagenia. Here
Drake found a frigate deserted by its crew, who had

(21:25):
gone ashore to see fair play. In a duel fought
about a seaman's mistress. The old man left in charge
confessed that a Seville ship was round the point. Drake
cut her out at once, in spite of being fired
at from the shore. Next in came to more Spanish
sail to warn Cartagena that Captain Drake has been at

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Nombreake de Dios and taken it, and if a blessed
bullet hadn't hit him in the lake, he would have
sacked it too. Cartagena, however, was up in arm arms already,
so Drake put all his prisoners ashore unhurt, and retired
to reconsider his position, leaving Diego, a Negro fugitive from

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Nombre de Dios to muster the Maroons for arrayed over
land to Panama. Then Drake, who sank the swan and
burnt his prizes because he had only men enough for
the Pasha and the pinnaces, disappeared into a new secret harbor.
But his troubles were only beginning, for word came that

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the Maroons said that nothing could be done inland till
the reins were over five months. Since this meant a
long wait. However, what with making supply depots and picking
up prizes here and there, the wet time might pass
off well enough. One day, Oxenham's crew nearly mutinied over

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the shortness of provisions, Have you not as much as
I Drake called them? As God's providence ever failed us.
Yet within an hour a Spanish vessel hove in sight,
making such very heavy weather of it that boarding her
was out of the question. But we spent not two

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hours in attendance till it pleased God to send us
a reasonable calm so that we might use our guns
and approach her at pleasure. We found her laden with victuals,
which we received as scent of God's great mercy. Then
yellow Jack broke out and the men began to fall
sick and die. The company consisted of seventy three men,

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and twenty eight of these perished of the fever, among
them the surgeon himself and Drake's own brother. But on
the third of February fifteen hundred and seventy three, Drake
was ready for the dash on Panama. Leaving behind about
twenty five men to guard the base. He began the
overland march with a company of fifty all told, of

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whom thirty one were picked Maroons. The fourth day out,
Drake climbed a forest giant on the top of the divide,
saw the Atlantic behind him in the Pacific far in front,
and vowed that if he lived, he would sail an
English ship over the Great South Sea. Two days more

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and the party left the protecting forest for the rolling Pampas,
where the risk of being seen increased at every step.
Another day's march, and Panama was sighted as they topped
the crest of one of the bigger waves of ground.
A clever maroon went ahead to spy out the situation

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and returned to say that two requas would leave at dusk,
one coming from vent to Cruz fifteen miles northwest of Panama,
carrying silver and supplies, and the other from Panama loaded
with jewels and gold. Then a Spanish s was caught
asleep by the advanced party of Maroons, who smelt him

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out by the match of his firelock. In his gratitude
for being protected from the maroons, this man confirmed the
previous information. The excitement now was most intense, for the
crowning triumph of a two years great adventure was at
last within striking distance of the English crew. Drake drew

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them up in proper order, and every man took off
his shirt and put it on again outside his coat,
so that each would recognize the others in the night attack.
Then they lay listening for the mule bells till presently
the warning tinkle let them know that recuus were approaching
from both Ventor Cruz and Panama. The first or silver

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train from Venta Cruz was to pass in silence. Only
the second or gold train from Panama was to be attacked. Unluckily,
one of the English wish had been secretly taking pulls
at his flask and had just become pot valiant when
a stray Spanish gentleman came riding up from Bent to Cruz.

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The Englishman sprang to his feet, swayed about, was tripped
up by Maroons, and promptly sat upon. But the Spaniards
saw his shirt rained up, whipped round, and galloped back
to Panama. This took place so silently at the extreme
flank in towards Panama that it was not observed by
Drake or any other Englishman. Presently, what appeared to be

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the gold train came within range. Drake blew his whistle
and all set on with glee, only to find that
the Panama requa they were attacking was a decoy sent
on to spring the trap, and that the gold and
jewels had been stopped. The Spaniards were up in arms,
but Drake slipped away through the engulfing forest and came

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out on the Atlantic side, where he found his rear
guard intact and eager for further exploits. He was met
by Captain Tattoo, a Huguenot just out from France with
seventy men. Tattoo gave Drake news of the massacre of
Saint Bartholomew, and this drew the French and English Protestants together.

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They agreed to engage in further rating of Spaniards share
and share a light by nationalities. Though Drake had now
only thirty one men against Tattoos seventy, Nombre de Dios,
they decided was not vulnerable as all the available Spanish
forces were concentrated there for its defense, and so they

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planned to seize a Spanish train of gold and jewels,
just far enough inland to give them time to get
away with the plunder before the garrison could reach them.
Somewhere on the coast, they established a base of operations
and then marched overland to the Panama Trail and lay
in wait. This time the marauders were successful. When the

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Spanish train of gold and jewels came opposite the ambush,
Drake's whistle blew, the leading mules were stopped, the rest
lay down, as mule trains will. The guard was overpowered
after killing a Maroon and wounding Captain Tattoo, and when
the garrison of Nombre de Dios arrived a few hours later,

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the gold and jewels had all gone. For a day
and a night, and another day Drake and his men
pushed on loaded with plunder, back to their rendezvous along
the coast, leaving Tattoo and two of his devoted frenchmen
to be rescued later. When they arrived worn out at
the rendezvous, not a man was in sight. Drake built

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a raft out of unhewn tree trunks, and setting up
a biscuit bag as a sail, pushed out with two
Frenchmen and one Englishman till he found his boats. The
plunder was then divided up between the French and the English,
while Oxenham headed a rescue party to bring Tattoo to
the coast. One frenchman was found, but Tattoo and the

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other had been caught by Spaniards. The pasha was given
to the accumulated Spanish prisoners to sail away in. The
pinnases were kept till a suitable smart sailing Spanish craft
was found, boarded and captured to replace them, whereupon they
were broken up and their medal given to the Maroons. Then,

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in two frigates with ballast of silver and cargo of
jewels and gold, the thirty survivors of the venture set
sail for home. Within twenty three days we passed from
the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and
so arrived at Plymouth on Sunday, about sermon time, August ninth,
fifteen hundred and seventy three, At what time the news

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of our captain's return brought under his friends, did so
speedily pass over all the church, and surpassed their minds
with desire to see him, that very few or none
remained with the preacher, all hastening to see the evidence
of God's love and blessing towards our gracious queen and country,

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by the fruit of our captain's labor and success. Solely
de O Gloria. End of Chapter six