Nearly five years elapsed between Drake's return from his Famous
Voyage and the despatch of the formidable armament commemorated in the
following pages. During the last of these years the march of events
had been remarkably rapid. Gilbert, who had been empowered by
Elizabeth, in the year of Frobisher's last expedition, to found
colonies in America, had sailed for that purpose to Newfoundland
(1583), and had perished at sea on his way homeward. Raleigh, who had
succeeded to his half-brother's enterprises, had despatched his
exploring expedition to 'Virginia,' under Amadas and Barlow, in 1584,
and had followed it up in the next year (1585) by an actual colony. In
April Sir Richard Greenville sailed from Plymouth, and at Raleigh's
expense established above a hundred colonists on the island of
Roanoak. Drake's Great Armada left Plymouth in September of the same
year. It marked a turning-point in the relations between the English
and Spanish monarchs. Elizabeth, knowing that the suppression of the
insurrection in the Netherlands would be followed by an attack upon
England, was treating with the insurgents. Philip deemed it prudent to
lay an embargo on all her subjects, together with their ships and
goods, that might be found in his dominions. Elizabeth at once
authorized general reprisals on the ships and goods of Spaniards. A
company of adventurers was quickly formed for taking advantage of this
permission on a scale commensurate with the national resources. They
equipped an armada of twenty-five vessels, manned by 2,300 men, and
despatched it under the command of Drake to plunder Spanish America.
Frobisher was second in command.
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