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We also learnt that this great captain was now taking his first voyage round the world, and that he had had many great and remarkable adventures on the Spanish Main and on the coast of Peru, and had enriched his vessels with the spoils of Spanish treasure-ships, so that he now had with him a store of great and unusual value.
For days they sailed without seeing a single ship; then three showed upon the horizon and faded away. They kept on, passing Florida and Carolina, hoping to reach Boston before the treasure-ships, and to rob them at their own door. Their chances were fair, for the Maid of Provence had proved swift, good-tempered, and a sweet sailer in bad waters. Iberville had reckoned well.
During the seventeenth century the Spanish Main was beset with a horde of freebooters or buccaneers, as they called themselves, to whose fierce attacks the treasure-ships bound for Spain were constantly exposed, and who did not hesitate to assail the strongholds of the Spaniards in quest of plunder.
In the whole range of Drake's adventurous career there does not appear to be any evidence of his having been possessed with the idea of supernatural assistance, though if perchance he missed any of Philip's treasure-ships he complacently reported "the reason" to those in authority as "being best known to God," and there the incident ended. On the other hand, the Deity was no mystery to him.
But the English ships had to wait so long at the Azores for the coming of the Spanish fleet that the news of the intended attack reached Spain, and the Spaniards sent a strong fleet to help and protect their treasure-ships. The English in turn hearing of this sent a swift little boat to warn Lord Thomas. The warning arrived almost too late.
This was the seizure on October 5, 1804, of three Spanish treasure-ships on the high seas, without a previous declaration of war against Spain, though not without a previous notice that hostilities might be opened at any moment unless Spain ceased to give underhand assistance to France.
He showed them too his own cabin, where he had lived with three more officers, and the upper poop-deck where Drake would sit hour after hour with his spy-glass, ranging the horizons for treasure-ships.
Never dreaming that any foreign vessel had entered the Pacific, Spanish treasure-ships lay rocking to the tide in fancied security, and actually dipped colours to Drake. Drake laughed, waved his plumed hat back in salute, dealt out wine to give courage to 'his merrie boys, and sailed straight amid the anchored treasure-ships.
The contest with Spain was kept up on the sea by bold English mariners, who captured the Spanish treasure-ships, and harassed the Spanish colonies. It was a period of maritime adventure, when men like Frobisher, Hawkins, and Raleigh made themselves famous, and when Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world.
The weariness of waiting was soon to give way to the anxious fever of doubtful and protracted pursuit, of prolonged uncertainty and steadfast endurance, through which he advanced to his final triumph, just as he had to those of the past. The seizure of the Spanish treasure-ships, with its lamentable catastrophe, took place on the 5th of October.
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