Menendez: Drake and England

After that the exploits of Drake on the sea were marvellous. They were against the Spaniards, whom he hated intensely. Within the space of a single year he captured and plundered Carthagena in South America, and several other towns in that region; burned Forts Antonio and St. Augustine, ravaged places in the West Indies, and running up the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, he visited Roanoke Island, and bore away from it, to England, a famishing colony which Raleigh had planted there. On another occasion he "singed the beard of the King of Spain," as he said, by burning one hundred Spanish vessels in the harbor of Cadiz. He was a terror to the Spaniards everywhere; and long after his death, in 1595, Spanish nurses used the name of Drake as a bugaboo to frighten children, representing him as a devouring dragon. Although he is honored for his enterprise and the glory he won for England, and is regarded as the founder of the Royal Navy, Sir Francis Drake was only a daring pirate on a large and legalized scale. Camden says: "Nothing troubled him more than that some of the chief men at court refused to accept the gold which he offered them as gotten by piracy."

In 1594, the Spanish king threatened England, with a great show of power. Drake entered the service of his sovereign, and with Admiral Hawkins he sailed for America in 1595, with twenty-six vessels. A divided command worked mischievously. Hawkins died at Porto Rico, partly from the effects of a wound, and partly from chagrin because of reverses. Drake soon afterwards achieved great triumphs. He destroyed several Spanish towns; but a fatal fever seized him late in the year. It was aggravated by mental agitation caused by a defeat of his forces, and he died in December. The gallant sailor was honored with a sailor's funeral. He was buried at sea in sight of Puerto Bello.