A ship & sailor of most daring enterprise and renown.
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Sir Francis Drake
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The keel of the Pelican was laid down at, the shipyards at Aldeburgh, Suffolk in 1575. This galleon, commissioned by adventurous favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, Francis Drake, the Pelican was intended to be his personal flagship in an attempt at the first circumnavigation of the globe by an Englishman. With the backing of the Crown secured in 1755 Drake set out in the Pelican in December of that year accompanied by four other ships on his mission. In his hand he carried a letter of mark from the Queen which stated
"We would gladly be revenged on the King of Spain for divers injuries that we have received." The prospects for profit were high, just as were the risks that all who took on this venture faced.
At the Cape Verde Islands they captured a Portuguese Merchant ship, renamed her Mary, and so increased the strength of their venturing fleet by one. In early 1578 Drake reached Brazil. Here Drake accused his co-commander, Thomas Doughty, of witchcraft and charged him with mutiny and treason. Doughty was beheaded on July 2 and Drake held his head aloft to the crew saying "This is the end of traitors." At the Magellan Straits he lost two of his ships, the Marigold, which sunk, and the Elizabeth, which was forced to limp back to England.
On the 1st of March 1579, off the coast of Ecuador, the Golden Hind caught up with the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (nicknamed the Cacafuego, a term which translates to a scatological and obscene version of "Spitfire"). Via a ruse whereby the Golden Hind was disguised as a wine merchant's ship and then by cover of night Drake was able to pull alongside the Spanish Galleon. The captain and crew of the Spanish galleon were dumbfounded at Drake's call for them to surrender. There were not supposed to be any English ships in the Pacific! Still, there was no surrender. Drake responded with a broadside that brought down the Spanish galleon's main mast, then crossbow and musket fire to clear the decks and finally a boarding party which quickly overwhelmed the utterly shocked crew.
 Below decks the Cacafuego was found to be
carrying what was then the largest treasure ever to be captured at sea. The Spanish galleon bore a dazzling
eighty pounds of gold, thirteen chests of coins with over 360,000 silver Pesos. jewels and finely made jewelry, rich porcelain and some 6 tons of silver. Fortune favored the bold.
Drake went on to ravage the Pacific coast of Spanish America. He pulled his ships ashore in California to clean and seal their hulls, claiming the land in the name of the Queen while he was at it. Drake had already made the decision to carry his enviable and now notorious prize with him on his circumnavigation. To do this and avoid the hunting Spanish, Portuguese and all other treasure-hungry powers he would need to be able to navigate the Pacific, the Philippines and the Moluccas with as much knowledge as his foes. One board one of his prizes was a navigator who knew all these routes, but even under torture the man refused to aid Drake. What Drake did get though were this man's maps and with these he struck west, toward Asia.
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Sir Francis Drake in the Golden Hind engaging the Cacafuego by John June. The original print is at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
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Drake would go on to seize another Spanish treasure ship, this one laden with Chinese silks and porcelain wares. After a 60 day voyage from their last Pacific landfall Drakes fleet reached the Philippines. Drake bartered for six tons of cloves and ginger from the Sultan of Ternate and successfully established England's first diplomatic relations in the region, however they were forced to lose 3 tons of spices and other food stuffs later when grounding on rocks forced the crew of the Golden Hind to jettison it.
On the 26th of September 1580 the Golden Hind dropped anchor in Plymouth harbor. Drake had returned with a fortune fit for his queen. After having caches of the treasure covertly deposited in a number of her estates en route from Plymouth to London, Drake's treasure was brought to the royal treasury at the Tower of London and was there assessed. That assessment certainly ran into the many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The Queen and all of the other backers of the venture claimed £47 for every £1 they invested. Drake was awarded £10,000 for himself and £10,000 to be divided amongst his surviving crew. England's government debt was paid off that year in full from the £160,000 share that was Elizabeth's. Elizabeth made the Golden Hind the first ever museum ship and it was maintained as such at the dockyard at Deptford, London for the next 70 years. In 1650 it was found to be unsalvageable due to rot. Master John Davies of Camberwell had some of the best pieces of timber made into a chair which he gave to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, where it remains to this day.
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