The year was 1575, Queen Elizabeth I summoned a seasoned mariner by the name of Francis Drake for a meeting that was deeply shrouded in secrecy. Details regarding this meeting were kept from the public eye for many years, until well after the death of Francis Drake. This rendezvous was so secret, the Queen specifically ordered Drake to keep this secret from even one of her most trusted advisor, Lord Treasurer Burghley. The Queen commanded that no one involved discuss the specifics with anyone on pain of death.
Bawlf, the author of The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, provides an in-depth account of what happened on that mysterious voyage as well as the precedent events and the aftermath. The 400-page book recounts the life and death of English mariner, explorer, adventurer, privateer, and eventual knight, Sir Francis Drake. Highlighting Drake’s greatest accomplishments at sea, Bawlf is able to capture the image of a compassionate yet stern captain who was respected by his shipmates and beloved by all of England. In addition to the approval earned from his Queen and his country, Drake was also infamous in Spain as a privateer who specifically preyed on the Spanish merchant fleets in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific. The Spanish would not hesitate to consider Drake a pirate.
Bawlf uses his experience spent on the ocean, travelling up and down North America’s northwest coast from Alaska to San Francisco, as well as his love for maritime history to lend credence to his unique perspective. His background also serves to provide the reader with a particular writing style in order to shed new light on the voyage that remained secret, to almost everyone, until well after Francis Drakes death in 1596. The book is subdivided into ...
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...and catalogued in a page that lists all of his citations and sources. All of these are organized neatly under the sections “Notes” and “Bibliography.”
This book left me with a newfound admiration and curiosity for Sir Francis Drake. A man commonly seen by the Spanish as a pirate who treated his captors with such respect to pay them would not deserve such a title. However, the political climate of the times led to propaganda being produced by the Spanish, and cover-ups by the English. Whether one admires, or despises, Sir Francis Drake, it is difficult to doubt how worldly he was and to discount his contributions to maritime charting of the northwestern North American continent, even though details written in his journals have since been lost, and failed to come to light in the first place until after his death.
Works Cited
the Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake
Pretty, Francis. n.d. Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World. Hoboken, N.J.: BiblioBytes, n.d. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 23, 2014).
“The Wreck of the Sea-Venture,” written by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker in their book Many Headed Hydra, tells the story of the shipwreck of the Sea-Venture en route to Virginia in 1669, which left the passengers of the ship stranded on Bermuda without a ship to continue the journey to Virginia. While the members of the Virginia Company made a boat to continue the journey, the remaining passengers of the Sea-Venture had to cooperate with one another in order to survive. The authors’ thesis in this document is the shipwreck of the Sea-Venture and the actions taken by the sailors portray the themes of early Atlantic settlement. For example, the sailing of the Sea-Venture was caused by expropriation. The Virginia Company advertised the New
Lefler, Hugh T., and William S. Powell. Colonial North America. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973.
Phillips, Richard, and Stephan Talty. A captain's duty: Somali pirates, Navy Seals, and dangerous days at sea. New York: Hyperion, 2010.
Sir Francis Drake is known for England's defeat of the Spanish Armada. He was a sea dog and he sailed around the world. Drake was actually the first one to sail around the world since Magellan died in his journey.
Sails furled, flag drooping at her rounded stern, she rode the tide in from the sea. She was a strange ship, indeed, by all accounts, a frightening ship, a ship of mystery. Whether she was trader, privateer, or man-of-war no one knows. Through her bulwarks black-mouthed cannon yawned. The flag she flew was Dutch; her crew a motley. Her port of call, an English settlement, Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. She came, she traded, and shortly afterwards was gone. Probably no ship in modern history has carried a more portentous freight. Her cargo? Twenty slaves.
The British Empire was a World dominant force throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, but if it wasn’t for the naval defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the British might have never settled what would be the United States. And the person we have to thank is none other than Sir Francis Drake, a common man whose rise from a small country town, to the mighty dragon that the Spanish feared, was the most brilliant Captain during the Elizabethan Era. Sir Francis Drake’s privateering in the Caribbean and the Pacific were the staging grounds for the destruction of the Spanish Armada and the Rise of the British Empire. It was in the Caribbean where Drake inflicted is greatest defeats and captured his greatest prizes.
Web. 19 Aug 2013.Holmgren, Virginia C. "The Unheralded Story of Columbus." Sea Frontiers. Feb. 1992: 34-41. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 19 Aug 2013.
In 1572 Drake sailed from England with two ships and 73 men. They landed at a small island called the Isle of Pines and began preparations for his attack on the Spanish. His plan was to sack the city of Nombre de Dios. On their first attempt they did not succeed but they made another soon after. They then took the town of Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama, they captured a ship in the harbor of Cartagena, they burned Portobello, they crossed and re-crossed the isthmus, and they captured three mule trains bearing 30 tons of silver.
Milanich, Jerald T. and Susan Milbrath., ed. First Encounters: Spanish Exploration in the Caribbean and the United States1492-1570. Gainesville: U of Florida P, 1989.
Running down the Atlantic South American coast, storms, separations, dissension, and a fatal skirmish with natives marred the journey. Before leaving the Atlantic, Drake lightened the expedition by disposing of two unfit ships and one English gentleman, who was tried and executed for mutiny. After rallying his men and unifying his command with a remarkable speech, Drake renamed his flagship, previously the Pelican, the Golden Hind.
A modern reader might be surprised to find that travel writings of the 18th century, books intended for the general public, featured specific scientific terms and precise descriptions of landmarks, species and resources. But how did it happen that “sentiment, imagination, and the graces have been banished” (Voltaire, Letter to Cideville) from 18th century literature? In her article “Science, planetary consciousness, interiors” author Mary Louise Pratt argues that the change in travel writing in the 18th century promoted a new type of planetary consciousness, thus triggering a shift in European colonial policies. In her subsequent article “Narrating the anti-conquest”, she argues that as travel writing evolved, so did colonial policies and she exemplifies the process by an examination of four travel writers of the era to show how travel writing changed. Pratt suggests that writing shifted from survival literature, focusing on coastal regions (an observing eye), through strictly descriptive accounts of interiors (a scrutinizing eye), to writing about the ways in which things could be improved (an improving eye). Forty years after Pratt’s last example of 18th century anti-conquest writing was published, Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle came out of press. The ethos displayed by Darwinian his journal, however, diverged from the anti-conquest ethos as modified by Pratt. Therefore, a close reading of Darwin, one of the most prominent 19th century authors of travel writing, could be used to suggest in what direction 18th century travel writing evolved.
After reading three short selections on Captain John Smith (General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, A Description of New England, and New England’s Trials) in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 6th Ed., a second source was helpful to learn more about this historical figure. Philip L. Barbour, in The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith, focuses on the major roles Captain Smith filled during his lifetime: adventurer, colonist, and promoter. Because the book was divided into three main categories, it was helpful to use this secondary source in order to gain a greater understanding of John Smith’s role in the New World.
I am writing my first entry aboard this incredible vessel today, primarily because I have been spending the last three days exploring the sections open to my fellow third-class passengers and I. What I have seen is extraordinary, especially when first boarding the ship. The halls and staircases of the first class section were like nothing I had ever seen before in my life. They were blanketed in luxury from end to end. The first class passengers I had managed to see wore their best garments boarding the ship and were conversing with each other about their rich lives back home. I believe I even saw Mr. John Jacob Astor, a man I had heard much about for his contributions to the American fur trade. I had heard that he would be aboard for the maiden voyage of ...
Burgess, Chester Francis. The Fellowship of the Craft: Conrad on Ships and Seamen and the Sea. New York: National University Publications, 1976.