He Brought Back With Him All The Colonists Who Had Been
Left By Sir Richard Greenville In 'Virginia.' Drake Had Offered Either
To Furnish Them With Stores, And To Leave Them A Ship, Or To Take Them
Home.
The former was accepted:
But a furious storm which ensued caused
them to change their minds. They recognized in it the hand of God,
whose will it evidently was that they should no longer be sojourners
in the American wilderness; and the first English settlement of
'Virginia' was abandoned accordingly.
Ten years afterwards (1595) Drake was again at the head of a similar
expedition. The second command was given to his old associate Hawkins,
Frobisher, his Vice-Admiral in 1585, having recently died of the wound
received at Crozon. This time Nombre de Dios was taken and burnt, and
750 soldiers set out under Sir Thomas Baskerville to march to Panama:
but at the first of the three forts which the Spaniards had by this
time constructed, the march had to be abandoned. Drake did not long
survive this second failure of his favourite scheme. He was attacked
by dysentery a fortnight afterwards, and in a month he died. When he
felt the hand of death upon him, he rose, dressed himself, and
endeavoured to make a farewell speech to those around him. Exhausted
by the effort, he was lifted to his berth, and within an hour breathed
his last. Hawkins had died off Puerto Rico six weeks previously.
The following narrative is in the main the composition of Walter Biggs,
who commanded a company of musketeers under Carlile. Biggs was one of
the five hundred and odd men who succumbed to the fever. He died
shortly after the fleet sailed from Carthagena; and the narrative was
completed by some comrade. The story of this expedition, which had
inflicted such damaging blows on the Spaniards in America, was
eminently calculated to inspire courage among those who were resisting
them in Europe. Cates, one of Carlile's lieutenants, obtained the
manuscript and prepared it for the press, accompanied by illustrative
maps and plans. The publication was delayed by the Spanish Armada; but
a copy found its way to Holland, where it was translated into Latin,
and appeared at Leyden, in a slightly abridged form, in 1588. The
original English narrative duly appeared in London in the next year.
The document called the 'Resolution of the Land-Captains' was inserted
by Hakluyt when he reprinted the narrative in 1600.
DRAKE'S GREAT ARMADA
NARRATIVE MAINLY BY CAPTAIN WALTER BIGGS
A Summary and True Discourse of Sir Francis Drake's West Indian
Voyage, begun in the year 1585. Wherein were taken the cities of
Santiago, Santo Domingo, Carthagena, and the town of St. Augustine, in
Florida. Published by Master Thomas Cates.
This worthy knight, for the service of his prince and country, having
prepared his whole fleet, and gotten them down to Plymouth, in
Devonshire, to the number of five and twenty sail of ships and
pinnaces, and having assembled of soldiers and mariners to the number
of 2,300 in the whole, embarked them and himself at Plymouth
aforesaid, the 12th day of September, 1585, being accompanied with
these men of name and charge which hereafter follow:
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