Drake, Sir Francis c.1540-1596
English navigator

Born in Crowndale, near Tavistock, he worked in the coasting trade from the age of 13, but by 1565 was voyaging to Guinea and the Spanish Main. In 1567 he commanded the Judith in his kinsman Sir John Hawkins's ill-fated expedition to the Gulf of Mexico and in 1570 and 1571 sailed to the West Indies to make good the losses he had then sustained from the Spaniards, gaining great popularity in England in the process. In 1572, with two small ships, the Pasha and Swan, and a privateer's licence from Queen Elizabeth I, he plundered on the Isthmus of Panama and became the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean. On his return to Plymouth in 1573 he became a popular hero. In 1577 he set out with five ships to explore the Strait of Magellan, where he changed his ship's name to the Golden Hind. On entering the Pacific Ocean violent tempests were encountered for 52 days during which the Marigold foundered with all hands and the Elizabeth returned home. Drake sailed north alone, to Vancouver, but failing to find a Northwest Passage back into the Atlantic he turned south and moved across the Pacific, and for 68 days did not sight land until he made the Pelew Islands. After refitting in Java, he headed for the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived in England in September 1580, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world. The queen, in the face of Spanish protests, was at first uncertain how to receive him, but at length paid a visit to his ship at Deptford and knighted him. In the autumn of 1585 he sailed against the Spanish Indies, plundered Hispaniola, Cartagena and the coast of Florida, and brought home the 190 dispirited Virginian colonists, with tobacco and potatoes. Early in 1587 he pillaged Cadiz, and in 1588, as vice admiral under Charles Howard, took a leading part in harassing the Spanish Armada as it passed through the English Channel. Off Portland he captured the galleon Rosario. In 1589 he led a large expedition to aid the Portuguese against Spain, but the mission was unsuccessful. He died while on an expedition, with Sir John Hawkins, to the West Indies.

Bibliography: J A Williamson, Sir Francis Drake (1951)