own, had come home. For a week the little world of
England gave itself up to feasting. Ballads rang with the fame of
Drake. His name was on every tongue. One of his first acts was to
visit his old parents. Then he took the _Golden Hind_ round the
Channel to be dry-docked in Deptford.

For the once, the tactful Queen was in a quandary. Complaints were
pouring in from Spain. The {166} Spanish ambassador was furious, and
presented bills of sequestration against Drake, but as the amount
sequestered, pending investigation, was only fifty-six thousand pounds,
one may suspect that Elizabeth let Drake protect in his own way what he
had taken in his own way. For six months, while the world resounded
with his fame, the court withheld approval. Jealous courtiers "deemed
Drake the master thief of the unknown world," till Elizabeth cut the
Gordian knot by one of her defiant strokes. On April 4 she went in
state to dine on the _Golden Hind_, to the music of those stringed
instruments that had harped away Drake's fear of death or devil as he
ploughed an English keel round the world. After the dinner, she bade
him fall to his knees and with a light touch of the sword gave him the
title that was seal of the court's approval. The _Golden Hind_ was
kept as a public relic till it fell to pieces on the Thames, and the
wood was made into a memorial chair for Oxford.

[Illustration: The Silver Map of the World. Both sides of a medal
struck off at the time of Drake's return to England, commemorating his
voyage around the world. The faint dotted line shows the course sailed
by him in the _Golden Hind_.]

After all the perils Drake saw in the subsequent war--Cadiz and the
Armada--it seems strange that he should return to the scene of his past
exploits to die. He was with Hawkins in the campaign of 1595 against
Spain in the New World. Things had not gone well. He had not approved
of Hawkins's plans of attack, and the venture was being bungled. Sick
of the equatorial fever, or of chagrin from failure, Drake died off
Porto Bello in the fifty-first year of his age. His body {167} was
placed in a leaden coffin, and solemnly committed to that sea where he
had won his first glory.[11]

[1] This is but a brief epitome of the Spaniard's swelling words. Only
the Heavens above were omitted from Spain's claim.

[2] The exact position of the English towards the port is hard to give,
at the site of Vera Cruz has been changed three