oung Drake of the treacherous act and of
the glimpse of that cargo of gold and silver treasure. The English
captains had but asked a night's lodging from a power supposed to be
friendly. {3} They had been met by a pirate raid. Good! Young
Francis Drake eagerly took up Spain's challenge; he would meet the raid
with counter-raid. Three years later he was cruising the Spanish Main,
capturing and plundering ships and forts and towns. In 1572 he led his
men across the Isthmus of Panama, and intercepted and captured a
Spanish convoy of treasure coming overland. Near the south side of the
isthmus he climbed a tree and had his first glimpse of the Pacific. It
set his blood on the leap. On bended knee he prayed aloud to the
Almighty to be permitted to sail the first English ship on that 'faire
sea.' And, having recrossed the isthmus and loaded his ships with
plunder, he bore away for England and reached Plymouth in August 1573.

The raid on Panama had brought Drake enormous wealth. At his own cost
he built three frigates and two sloops to explore the South Seas, his
purpose being to enter the Pacific through the Strait of Magellan,
which no Englishman had yet ventured to pass. These ships he equipped
as if for royal tournament. Players of the violin and the harp
discoursed music at each meal. Rarest wines filled the lockers.
Drake, clad in rich velvet, {4} dined on plates of pure gold served by
ten young noblemen, who never sat or donned hat in his presence; and on
his own ship, the _Pelican_--afterwards called the _Golden Hind_--he
had a hundred picked marines, men eager for battle and skilful in
wielding the cutlass. His men loved him as a dauntless leader; they
feared him, too, with a fear that commanded obedience on the instant.

Queen Elizabeth was in a quandary how to treat her gallant buccaneer
and rover of the high seas. England and Spain were at peace, and she
could not give Drake an open royal commission to raid the commerce of a
friendly power; but she did present him with a magnificent sword, to
signify that she would have no objection if he should cut his way
through the portals leading to the 'closed sea.' The fleet set sail in
December 1577, and steered by the west coast of Morocco and the Cape
Verde Islands. The coast of Brazil was reached in April. Two of the
ships were abandoned near the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, after
having been stripped of provisions. In August the remaining three
sh