United States or Sierra Leone ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The plunder of Drake's memorable voyage had lured fresh freebooters to the "Spanish Main." The failure of Frobisher's quest for gold only drew the nobler spirits engaged in it to plans of colonisation.
Drake, his Britannic Majesty's Minister at the Court of Munich, which, by its object as well as its date, is evidently connected with the infamous plot now in the course of investigation. The printed copy of Mr. Drake's letters and authentic documents is annexed to the report. The originals will be immediately sent, by order of the First Consul, to the Elector of Bavaria.
They waited on the Council, who soothed them with the assurance that Drake's voyage was a purely private venture so far as prizes were concerned. With this diplomatic quibble they were forced to be content. But worse was soon to follow. The king of Portugal died. Philip's army marched on Lisbon immediately, and all the Portuguese possessions were added to the already overgrown empire of Spain.
All right let's go down and see what it did to your unclimbable slide and unscalable walls, Ventnor. I'm not sure we won't be able to get out that way." "Come on; everything's ready," Ruth was calling; her summoning blocked any objection we might have raised to Drake's argument. It was no dryad, no distressed pagan clad maid we saw as we passed back into the room of the pool.
At half-past seven, therefore, the engagement began by Admiral Drake's division, led by the Marlborough and Arrogant, fetching the fifth ship from the van, and bearing up in succession.
And that royal ear was lent, and almost fatal was the distillment poured into its porches. The pith and marrow of the great Netherland enterprise was sapped by the slow poison of the ill-timed negotiation. The fruit of Drake's splendid triumphs in America was blighted by it.
Immediately the Spaniards poured in their shot, by which only one man was killed, and Drake, with some others, slightly wounded; upon which the signal was given by Drake's whistle to fall upon them.
That event was delayed till the first year of Queen Victoria's reign; the House of Lords defending it, as it defended all other abuses of our old penal code, when the Commons in 1815 passed a Bill for its abolition. A book that was very famous in its day, on the opposite side to Defoe, was Doctor Drake's Memorial of the Church of England, published anonymously in 1705.
"The Spaniards that day sustained great loss and damage, having many of their shippes shot thorow and thorow, and they discharged likewise great store of ordinance against the English; who, indeed, sustained some hindrance, but not comparable to the Spaniard's loss: for they lost not any one ship or person of account, for very diligent inquisition being made, the English men all that time wherein the Spanish navy sayled upon their seas, are not found to have wanted aboue one hundred of their people: albeit Sir Francis Drake's ship was pierced with shot above forty times, and his very cabben was twice shot thorow, and about the conclusion of the fight, the bed of a certaine gentleman, lying weary thereupon, was taken quite from under him with the force of a bullet.
When all this treasure had been transferred to Drake's vessel, the Golden Hinde, the admiral sent for the Englishmen who had been rescued from the Santa Filomena, and gave audience to us on the quarterdeck. A sad and sorry multitude we looked, spite of the surgeon's care, as we stood gazing at the great sea-captain who had rescued us, and waiting for him to speak.
Word Of The Day