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Updated: May 25, 2025
Thus "our Captain had his desire, and men enough for his pinnaces." The next morning, the 16th August, the squadron bore away for the Gulf of Darien, to find some secret harbour where they might leave the ship at anchor, "not discoverable by the enemy," who thereby might imagine them quite departed from the coast.
We manned the boat with all speed, and went ashore, if happily we might succour our men; but we found them all slain, and laid naked in a row, with their faces upwards, and a cross set up beside them. We saw also two large pinnaces coming from Rio de Janeiro, full of men, who, as we supposed, were intended to take us.
These pirates joined with others whom they had won over, stole Laudonniere's two pinnaces, and set forth on a plundering excursion to the West Indies. They took a small Spanish vessel off the coast of Cuba, but were soon compelled by famine to put into Havana and give themselves up.
And after a few volleys had been fired from the said boats, galleys, and pinnaces, in reply to the many broadsides which they let fly at us from their fortress here on the afternoon of that same day Fernan Riquel, notary-in-chief of that camp, came with a reply from his Grace, also a copy of certain clauses from his instructions, and a message to the effect that he would finally have the work stopped, if this fleet would stand off farther from shore.
Yet were they not without some suspicions of danger from this new ally, he having eighty men, and they being now reduced to thirty-one. Then manning the frigate and two pinnaces, they set sail for the Cabezas, where they left the frigate, which was too large for the shallows over which they were to pass, and proceeded to Rio Francisco.
This adventure being terminated, and the pinnaces having returned to the fleet, the Lord-Admiral, who had been lying off and on, now bore away with all his force in pursuit of the Spaniards.
All day long the pinnaces, cutters, gigs, steam launches shoved and bumped against the stone steps, marines came ashore for the mail, stewards for fruit and fish, Red Cross nurses to shop, tiny midshipmen to visit the movies, and the sailors and officers of the Russian, French, British, Italian, and Greek war-ships to stretch their legs in the park of the Tour Blanche, or to cramp them under a cafe table.
Then, again, hundreds of boys came ashore in large pinnaces, landing within a few yards from me, each carrying a rifle.
They lay on their oars "at caliver-shot distance," and opened a smart musketry fire, "spending powder apace," without pausing, for two or three hours. One man was wounded on Drake's side. The Spanish loss could not be told, but Drake's men could plainly see that the Spanish pinnaces had been shot through and through. One lucky shot went into a Spanish powder tub, which thereupon exploded.
Our said captain and general of this present voyage and company, having the year before, with two little pinnaces to his great danger, and no small commendations, given a worthy attempt towards the performance thereof, is also pressed when occasion shall be ministered to the benefit of his prince and native country to adventure himself further therein.
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