Modern
ingenuity may be indulged in the forlorn suggestion that they were
amalgamated among their savage neighbors, but sober thought will rather
fear that they perished under the mingled weight of famine, of
disappointed hope, and of Indian barbarity.
DRAKE CAPTURES CARTAGENA
HE "SINGES THE KING OF SPAIN'S BEARD" AT CADIZ
A.D. 1586-1587
JULIAN CORBETT
Sir Francis Drake (born in Devonshire about 1540; died in 1596),
greatest of the Elizabethan seamen, has been the subject of perhaps
equal praise and blame at the hands of the world's historians. So
famous were his exploits, and so scanty the actual knowledge of them
in his own time, that "he was not dead before his life became a
fairy-tale." But history has distinguished fact from legend in the
life of this naval hero, whose undisputed achievements have kept his
name conspicuous among his country's foremost sea-fighters.
He began his career in the coasting-trade, sailed with Sir John
Hawkins in 1567, and three years later began privateering operations
against the Spaniards in the New World, by way of making good the
losses which they had inflicted upon him. These depredations on
Spanish possessions were continued through many years, with
occasional attacks upon the coast of Spain itself.
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