Drake, Francis (c. 1540–1596)

A letter from Queen Elizabeth I of England to the English navigator Francis Drake, dated 3 March 1587, the year that he attacked the Spanish fleet in Cadiz harbour, Spain. While the two nations were not at war, most of Drake's actions against the Spanish were acts of piracy, but many believe that he had the queen's sanction for what he did.

English buccaneer and explorer. After enriching himself as a pirate against Spanish interests in the Caribbean between 1567 and 1572, as well as in the slave trade, he was sponsored by Elizabeth I for an expedition to the Pacific, sailing round the world from 1577 to 1580 in the Golden Hind, robbing Spanish ships as he went. This was the second circumnavigation of the globe (the first was by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan). Drake also helped to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588 as a vice admiral in the Revenge.

Drake suggested to Queen Elizabeth I an expedition to the Pacific, and it was granted; in December 1577 he sailed in the Pelican with four other ships and 166 men toward South America. In August 1578 the fleet passed through the Straits of Magellan and was then blown south to Cape Horn. The ships became separated and returned to England, all but the Pelican, now renamed the Golden Hind. Drake sailed north along the coast of Chile and Peru, robbing Spanish ships as far north as California, and then, in July 1579, traveled southwest across the Pacific. He rounded the South African Cape in June 1580, and reached England in September 1580, thus completing the second voyage around the world. When the Spanish ambassador demanded Drake's punishment, the Queen knighted him on the deck of the Golden Hind in London. In a raid on Cádiz in 1587 he burned 10,000 tons of shipping and delayed the Spanish Armada for a year. Drake sailed on his last expedition to the West Indies in 1595, and in January 1596 died on his ship.