SIR FRANCIS, a celebrated English admiral, was the son of Edmund Drake, a sailor, and was born near Tavistock, in Devonshire, in the year 1543. He was brought up at the expense and under the care of Sir John Hawkins, who was his kinsman, and, at the age of eighteen, was the purser of a ship trading to Biscay. At twenty he made a voyage to Guinea, and at twenty-two he was made captain of the Judith. In that capacity he was in the harbour of San Juan de Ulloa, in the Gulf of Mexico, where he behaved most gallantly in the actions under Sir John Hawkins, and returned with him to England, having acquired great reputation, though not worth a groat. Upon this he projected an attack against the Spaniards in the West Indies; a project which he no sooner published than he found volunteers now ready to accompany him. In 1570 he undertook an expedition with two ships, and the next year with only one, in which he returned safe, if not with such advantages as he had expected. In 1572 he made another expedition, in which he did the Spaniards some mischief, and gained considerable booty. In these expeditions he was much assisted by a nation of Indians, who were then engaged in a sort of chronic warfare with the Spaniards. The prince of these people was named Pedro, to whom Drake presented a fine cutlass from his side, which he saw the Indian greatly admired. Pedro, in return, gave him four large wedges of gold; which Drake threw into the common stock, saying that he thought it but just that such as on his credit bore the charge of so uncertain a voyage, should share the utmost advantage which that voyage produced. Then having embarked his men with all the wealth he had obtained, which was very considerable, he bore away for England, where he arrived in August 1573.

His success in this expedition, joined to his honourable behaviour towards his owners, gained him high reputation, and the use which he made of his riches a still higher. Having fitted out three frigates at his own expense, he sailed with them to Ireland; and there, under Walter earl of Essex, the father of the famous but unfortunate earl, he served as a volunteer, and performed many glorious actions. After the death of his patron, he returned to England, where Sir Christopher Hatton introduced him to her majesty Queen Elizabeth, and procured him countenance and protection at court. By this means he acquired the means of undertaking that grand expedition which has rendered his name immortal. The first proposal he made was to undertake a voyage into the South Seas through the Straits of Magalhaens; an achievement which no Englishman had hitherto ever attempted. This project having been well received at court, the queen furnished him with means; and his own fame quickly drew together a sufficient force. The fleet with which he sailed on this enterprise consisted only of five vessels, small when compared with the size of modern ships, and having on board no more than a hundred and sixty-four able men. Having sailed on the 13th of December 1577, he on the 25th fell in with the coast of Barbary, and on the 29th with Cape Verde. On the 18th of March he passed the equinoctial, made the coast of Brazil on the 5th of April, and entered the river Plata, where he parted company with two of his ships; but having met them again, and taken out their provisions, he turned them adrift. On the 29th of May he entered the port of St Julian's, where he continued two months for the sake of laying in a stock of provisions. On the 20th of August he entered the Straits of Magalhaens, and on the 25th of September passed them, having then only his own ship. On the 25th of November he arrived at Macao, which he had appointed as the place of rendezvous in the event of his ships being separated; but Captain Winter, his vice-admiral, having repassed the straits, had returned to England. He thence continued his voyage along the coast of Chili and Peru, taking all opportunities of seizing Spanish ships, and attacking them on shore, till his men were satiated with plunder; and then, coasting America to the height of forty-eight degrees, he endeavoured to find a passage that way back into the Atlantic, but could not, because none exists. However, he landed, and called the country New Albion, taking possession of it in the name and for the use of Queen Elizabeth; and having careened his ship, he set sail from thence on the 29th September 1579, for the Moluccas. He is supposed to have chosen this passage round, partly to avoid being attacked by the Spaniards at a disadvantage, and partly because, from the lateness of the season, dangerous storms and hurricanes were apprehended. On the 13th of October he fell in with certain islands inhabited by the most barbarous people he had met with in all his voyage. On the 4th of November he got sight of the Moluccas; and, arriving at Ternate, was extremely well received by the king of that place, who appears from the most authentic relations of this voyage to have been a wise and politic prince. On the 10th of December he made the Celebes, where his ship unfortunately struck upon a rock on the 9th of January following; but, beyond all expectation, they got her off, and continued their course. On the 16th of March he arrived at Java, whence he intended to have directed his course to Malacca; but he found himself obliged to alter his purpose, and to think of returning home. On the 25th of March 1580, he put this design in execution; and on the 15th of June he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, having then on board only fifty-seven men and three casks of water. On the 12th of July he passed the line, reached the coast of Guinea on the 16th, and there watered. On the 11th of September he made the island of Terceira, and on the 3d of November he entered the harbour of Plymouth. This voyage round the world was performed in two years and about ten months. Shortly after his arrival, the queen having gone to Deptford, went on board his ship, and there, after dinner, conferred upon him the honour of knighthood, at the same time declaring her entire approbation of all that he had done. She likewise gave directions for the preservation of his ship, that it might remain a monument of his own and his country's glory. In the year 1585, he sailed with a fleet to the West Indies, and took the cities of St Jago, St Domingo, Carthagena, and St Augustine. In 1587 he went to Lisbon with a fleet of thirty sail; and having received intelligence of a great fleet being assembled in the bay of Cadiz, and destined to form part of the armada, he with great courage entered the port, and there burnt upwards of 10,000 tons of shipping; a feat which he afterwards merrily called "burning the king of Spain's beard." In 1588, when the Spanish armada was approaching our shores, Sir Francis Drake was appointed vice-admiral under Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, high-admiral of England; and here fortune favoured him as remarkably as ever; for he made prize of a very large galleon, commanded by Don Pedro de Valdez, who was reputed the projector of the invasion. This affair deserves to be particularly stated. On the 22d of July, Sir Francis observing a great Spanish ship floating at a distance from both fleets, sent his pinnace to summon the commander to yield. Valdez replied, with much Spanish solemnity, that they were four hundred and fifty strong, that he himself was Don Pedro, and stood much upon his honour; and thereupon propounded several conditions, upon which he was willing to yield. But the vice-admiral replied, that he had no leisure to parley; that if the Don thought fit instantly to yield, he might; if not, he should soon find that Drake was no coward. Pedro, hearing the name of Drake, immediately yielded, and with forty-six of his attendants came on board the admiral's ship. This Don Pedro remained about two years Sir Francis Drake's prisoner in England; and when he was released, paid for his own and his captain's liberty a ransom of L3500. Drake's soldiers were well recompensed with the plunder of this ship, for they found in it 55,000 ducats of gold, which were divided amongst them.

A little before this formidable Spanish armament put to sea, the ambassador of his Catholic majesty had the confidence to propose to Queen Elizabeth, in Latin verse, the terms upon which she might hope for peace. The lines embodying this singular diplomatic communication are as follow:

Te veto ne pergas bello defendere Belgas; Quae Dracus eripuit nunc restituantur oportet: Quae pater evexit jubeo te condere collas: Religio Pape fac restituantur ad uguem.

To these the queen made this extempore response:

Ad Graecos, bone rex, flant mandata kalendas.

In the year 1559, Sir Francis Drake commanded the fleet sent to restore Dom Antonio, king of Portugal, the land forces being under the orders of Sir John Norris; but they had hardly put to sea when the commanders differed, and thus the attempt proved abortive. But as the war with Spain continued, a more formidable expedition was fitted out, under Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, against their settlements in the West Indies, than had hitherto been undertaken during the whole course of it. Here, however, the commanders again disagreed about the plan; and the result in like manner disappointed public expectation. Before these two last expeditions, all difficulties had given way to the skill and fortune of Sir Francis Drake; and this probably was the reason why he did not bear these disappointments so well as he might otherwise have done. A strong sense of them is supposed to have thrown him into a melancholy, which occasioned a bloody flux, of which he died on board his own ship, near the town of Nombre de Dios, in the West Indies, on the 28th of January 1595-96. His death was lamented by the whole nation, and particularly by his countrymen, who had great reason to love him from the correctness of his private life, as well as to esteem him on account of his public character. He was elected burgess for the town of Bessin, otherwise called Tintagel, in the county of Cornwall, in the twenty-seventh parliament of Queen Elizabeth; and for Plymouth, in Devonshire, in the thirty-fifth of the same reign. This town was under very particular obligations to him; for, in the year 1587, he undertook to bring into it water, from want of which it had till then been grievously distressed; and he performed this undertaking by conducting thither a stream from springs at eight miles distance, but by a course of upwards of twenty miles.