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Updated: May 13, 2025
To Ellis Hixom and his gang of shipkeepers the raiders appeared "as men strangely changed," though Drake was less changed than the others, in spite of the wound he got at Venta Cruz.
Hixom soon discovered a little bay, where there was good holding ground, with sufficient depth of water to float the prize. They entered the new port, and dropped their anchors there, promising the Spaniards their clothes, as well as their liberty, if they would but bring them to a clear spring of water and a supply of fresh meat.
He refused to visit the Indian villages, though the Maroons begged him earnestly to do so. His one wish was to rejoin Ellis Hixom. He "hustled" his little company without mercy, encouraging them "with such example and speech that the way seemed much shorter."
Of the remaining forty-two Drake selected eighteen of the best. A number were still ill abed, and these he left behind in the care of Ellis Hixom and his little band of shipkeepers. The dried meat and biscuit were then packed carefully into bundles. The eighteen took their weapons, with such necessaries as they thought they might require.
He, therefore, sent away his brother, with two pinnaces and a steady man named Ellis Hixom, to examine the Chagres River, and to bring back a report of its fitness for boats such as theirs. Having seen them stand to the west, Drake ordered his men aboard early in the morning of the 31st July.
Their fellows who had stayed with Ellis Hixom had built the little town in the woods, for the refreshment of all hands, in case they should arrive worn out with marching. At sunset on the evening of Saturday, the 22nd of February, the weary crew arrived at the little town, to the great joy of the Maroons who kept watch and ward there.
As soon as he appeared before Ellis Hixom, he handed over Drake's golden toothpick, "which he said our Captain had sent for a token to Ellis Hixom, with charge to meet him at such a river." The sight of the golden toothpick was too much for Ellis Hixom.
The Maroon saw him staring "as amazed," and told him that it was dark when Drake had packed him off, so that no letter could be sent, "but yet with the point of his knife, he wrote something upon the toothpick, 'which, he said, 'should be sufficient to gain credit to the messenger." Looking closely at the sliver of gold, Hixom saw a sentence scratched upon it: "By me, Francis Drake," which convinced him that the message was genuine.
Drake called Hixom aside, and gave him "straight charge, in any case not to trust any messenger that should come in his name with any tokens, unless he brought his handwriting: which he knew could not be counterfeited by the Cimaroons or Spaniards." A last farewell was taken; thirty brawny Cimmeroons swung the packs upon their shoulders, shaking their javelins in salute.
They followed her for two hours, when "it pleased God" to send a great shower, which, of course, beat down the sea into "a reasonable calm," so that they could pepper her with their guns "and approach her at pleasure." After a stormy night at sea, Drake sent Ellis Hixom, "who had then charge of his pinnace, to search out some harbour along the coast."
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