Francis Drake Quotes

There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, 
 when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, 
 when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore. 
 Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life, 
having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity, 
and in our efforts to build a new earth, 
 we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim. 
 Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, 
where storms will show your mastery, 
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. 
We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes, 
and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. 
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ.

It isn't that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.

The exam markers must have been somewhat bewildered to be told that when the Armada appeared, Francis Drake was playing with his balls.

These men are not made of the same stuff as the Francis Drakes and the other magnificent adventurers who created the empire. These, after all, are the tired sons of a long line of rich men, and they will lose their empire.”110

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd planned to speak to you tonight to report on the state of the Union, but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans. Today is a day for mourning and remembering. Nancy and I are pained to the core by the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss. Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this. And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle. But they, the Challenger Seven, were aware of the dangers, but overcame them and did their jobs brilliantly. We mourn seven heroes: Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together. For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "Give me a challenge, and I'll meet it with joy." They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve, and they did. They served all of us. We've grown used to wonders in this century. It's hard to dazzle us. But for twenty-five years the United States space program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space, and, perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers. And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program. And what happened today does nothing to diminish it. We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and, yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA, or who worked on this mission and tell them: "Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it." There's a coincidence today. On this day three hundred and ninety years ago, the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans, and a historian later said, "He lived by the sea, died on it, and was buried in it." Well, today, we can say of the Challenger crew: Their dedication was, like Drake's, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God." Thank you.

Disturb us, Lord

In Coruña, people sit around on the sea walls or the rocks and stare out to sea, as if they expect Francis Drake to turn up again and sack the city. A contemplative lot, the Galicians.

The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled--the great knights-errant of the sea. It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests--and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith--the adventures and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change; captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned "generals" of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!...The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealth, the germs of empires.

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it.

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wilder seas Where storms will show Your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars.

This book tells the story of that moment in time. It is a story of high adventure set during the age of exploration—when Francis Drake, Henry Hudson, and Captain John Smith were expanding the boundaries of the world, and Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Galileo, Descartes, Mercator, Vermeer, Harvey, and Bacon were revolutionizing human thought and expression.

Shakespeare was not even able to perform a function that we consider today as perfectly normal and ordinary a function as reading itself. He could not, as the saying goes, “look something up.” Indeed the very phrase—when it is used in the sense of “searching for something in a dictionary or encyclopedia or other book of reference”—simply did not exist. It does not appear in the English language, in fact, until as late as 1692, when an Oxford historian named Anthony Wood used it. Since there was no such phrase until the late seventeenth century, it follows that there was essentially no such concept either, certainly not at the time when Shakespeare was writing—a time when writers were writing furiously, and thinkers thinking as they rarely had before. Despite all the intellectual activity of the time there was in print no guide to the tongue, no linguistic vade mecum, no single book that Shakespeare or Martin Frobisher, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nash, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Izaak Walton, or any of their other learned contemporaries could consult.

Native Americans cured Cartier's men of scurvy near Montreal in 1535. They repaired Francis Drake's Golden Hind in California so he could complete his round-the-world voyage in 1579. Lewis and Clark's expedition to the Pacific Northwest was made possible by tribe after tribe of American Indians, with help from two Shoshone guides, Sacagawea and Toby, who served as interpreters. When Admiral Peary discovered the North Pole, the first person there was probably neither the European American Peary nor the African American Matthew Henson, his assistant, but their four Inuit guides, men and women on whom the entire expedition relied. Our histories fail to mention such assistance. They portray proud Western conquerors bestriding the world like the Colossus at Rhodes. So long as our textbooks hide from us the roles that people of color have played in exploration, from at least 6000 BC to to the twentieth century, they encourage us to look to Europe and its extensions as the seat of all knowledge and intelligence. So long as they say "discover," they imply that whites are the only people who really matter. So long as they simply celebrate Columbus, rather than teach both sides of his exploit, they encourage us to identify with white Western exploitation rather than study it.

There is no denying that Francis Drake was a pirate and that the enterprise he conducted four years later in Panama was highway robbery, or at best, highjacking. But it was on the scale that transforms crime into politics.

Por eso, cada vez que Úrsula se salía de casillas con las locuras de su marido, saltaba por encima de trescientos años de casualidades y maldecía la hora en que Francis Drake asaltó a Riohacha. Era un simple recurso de desahogo, porque en verdad estaban ligados hasta la muerte por un vínculo más sólido que el amor; un común remordimiento de conciencia.

The light of past discovery draws me forward. Its shining light guides me to the glory of exploration.

He was one of the Four Horsemen. My parents had drilled their names into my brain repeatedly. Prescott Ellis. West Greer. Francis Beaufort. Drake Ackley.

he became King of Portugal, King of Naples, King of Sicily, the Duke of Milan,

Nothing’s so partial as the laws of fate, Erecting blockheads to suppress the great. Sir Francis Drake the Spanish plate-fleet won; He had been a pirate if he had got none. Sir Walter Raleigh strove, but missed the plate, And therefore died a traitor to the State. Endeavour bears a value more or less, Just as ’tis recommended by success: The lucky coxcomb ev’ry man will prize, And prosp’rous actions always pass for wise.

Traveler, you who sail into the Caribbean in silvered yacht or gilded cruise ship, pause as you enter these waters to remember that deep below rest three men of honor who helped determine the history of this onetime Spanish Lake: Sir John Hawkins, builder of the English navy; Sir Francis Drake, conqueror of all known seas; and Admiral Ledesma, stubborn enhancer of his king’s prerogatives and the interests of his own strong family.

Carafa, as Pope Paul IV, established the Index of Forbidden Books, banned all women from entering the Vatican, burnt volumes of Talmud and Kabbalah, threw the Jews of Rome into the ghetto, drained the Church’s savings while overtaxing the faithful in order to enrich his nephews and mistress, tortured and burned homosexuals in public, ordained two nephews (ages fourteen and sixteen) as cardinals, and banned the potato—recently brought to Europe from the New World by Sir Francis Drake—as a fruit of lust sent by Satan.

SHAKESPEARE What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more (Hamlet) There is no one kind of Shakespearean hero, although in many ways Hamlet is the epitome of the Renaissance tragic hero, who reaches his perfection only to die. In Shakespeare's early plays, his heroes are mainly historical figures, kings of England, as he traces some of the historical background to the nation's glory. But character and motive are more vital to his work than praise for the dynasty, and Shakespeare's range expands considerably during the 1590s, as he and his company became the stars of London theatre. Although he never went to university, as Marlowe and Kyd had done, Shakespeare had a wider range of reference and allusion, theme and content than any of his contemporaries. His plays, written for performance rather than publication, were not only highly successful as entertainment, they were also at the cutting edge of the debate on a great many of the moral and philosophical issues of the time. Shakespeare's earliest concern was with kingship and history, with how 'this sceptr'd isle' came to its present glory. As his career progressed, the horizons of the world widened, and his explorations encompassed the geography of the human soul, just as the voyages of such travellers as Richard Hakluyt, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Drake expanded the horizons of the real world.

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself.  You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one.  On Tuesday, you wish you hadn’t come.  On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead.  On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now.  On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food.  And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it. I

At university Martha had made friends with a Spanish girl, Cristina. The common history of their two countries, or at least the contentious part, lay centuries back; but even so, when Cristina had said, in a moment of friendly teasing, "Francis Drake was a pirate", she had said No he wasn't, because she knew he was an English hero and a Sir and an Admiral and therefore a Gentleman. When Cristina, more seriously this time, repeated, "He was a pirate", Martha knew that this was the comforting if necessary fiction of the defeated. Later, she looked up Drake in a British encyclopedia, and while the word "pirate" never appeared, the words "privateer" and "plunder" frequently did, and she could quite see that one person's plundering privateer might be another person's pirate, but even so Sir Francis Drake remained for her an English hero, untainted by this knowledge.

THERE MUST BE A BEGINNING OF ANY GREAT MATTER, BUT THE CONTINUING UNTO THE END UNTIL IT BE THOROUGHLY FINISHED YIELDS THE TRUE GLORY.                                              - SIR FRANCIS DRAKE -

Sir George Somers, an experienced mariner, was put in charge of the fleet. Roughly sixty years of age, Somers, from the town of Lyme on England’s southwest coast, had a resume that included service under Essex, Sir Francis Drake, and the privateering Sir John Hawkins.30 A member of parliament, he was an accomplished mariner and navigator. His second in command as master of the fleet’s flagship was Captain Christopher Newport, whose maritime pedigree was every bit as impressive as Somers’s. About forty-nine years of age in 1609, Newport had gone to sea as a young man, sailing to South America and the Caribbean as a privateer. In 1590, when he was about thirty years of age, Newport had been in a sea battle with two Spanish treasure ships off the coast of Cuba. In that battle, Newport lost his right arm but persevered. For the next thirteen years, he was an active Caribbean privateer and was a leading participant in the capture, in 1592, of the Spanish treasure ship the Madre de Dios, a prize that carried about half a million pounds in gems, spices, silks, and other goods. Newport’s long experience as a privateer helped him establish strong links with English merchants. He was also known to King James I, having presented the monarch with two live crocodiles and a wild boar following one of his New World voyages. In 1606, he was named commander of the first Virginia expedition and sailed as captain of the Susan Constant, flagship of the first Virginia fleet.31 By the time he was named sailing master of the flagship of the 1609 fleet, he had made three crossings between England and Jamestown.

Francis Drake slowly surveyed the crew surrounding his men as he calculated the slim chances of success. Then he motioned for his men to keep their swords up. “Parley it is.” Grace grinned. “Yer not as dumb as ya look, Francis. Come aboard. Alone.” His men muttered loudly, and Drake held up his hand. “Fine. I’ll come alone... on one condition.” “And that is?” “That you stop calling me Francis.” ***

After Columbus everything changed. The Indian population collapsed. Clams and mussels exploded in number; they also grew larger. Game overran the land. Sir Francis Drake sailed into San Francisco’s harbor in 1579 and saw a land of plenty.

Francis Drake but also Sir Walter Raleigh, John Hawkins, Richard Grenville, and the Gilberts, whose climb in rank did not suffer from their pirate leanings. As Sir Henry Mainwaring, pirate turned admiral of the navy under King James I,

Martin Frobisher was called into service and given command of a squadron of ships when the Spanish Armada threatened in 1588. He was enraged when Sir Francis Drake, a pirate who was rewarded with a knighthood for his prize-taking prowess, seized a Spanish ship

Potatoes came to Europe from the New World in the early sixteenth century. Sir Francis Drake is thought to have introduced the potato to England, and shortly afterward Sir Walter Raleigh tried planting them on his Irish estates.

When the pirate Sir Francis Drake attacked Riohacha in the sixteenth century Úrsula Iguarán's great-great-grandmother became so frightened with the ringing of alarm bells and the firing of cannons that she lost control of her nerves and sat down on a lighted stove. The burns turned her into a useless for the rest of her days.

must

On March 1, 1579, Drake caught sight of the Spanish treasure ship

Cacafuego

By March 6, 1521, the fleet reached the island of Guam,

Ten days later Magellan’s fleet reached what is now called the Philippines,

Both treaties assumed that the Catholic Church had the final say over the matter,

For four anxious years, from 1554 to 1558, he was the jure uxoris king of England,

that is, the husband of Queen Mary, the grim, intensely Catholic “Bloody Mary.

Her Majesty dined on board, and after dinner conferred the honour of knighthood on the captain.

Various news has been current here with regard to them,” he wrote to Philip,

From this time on, Drake became a preoccupation for the Spanish, who condemned him as a “Lutheran heretic

Thomas Appletree, who had fired the shot, was condemned to death by hanging,

executioner placed the noose around the condemned man’s neck, Elizabeth intervened to spare him.

In time, the treaty had the opposite of its intended effect.

Events moved on, and in July 1579, Elizabeth was nearly assassinated as she traveled on a barge along the Thames.

European traders wishing to reach the Spice Islands previously had traveled east rather than west,

And he was the first person to use the term “British Empire” to describe his vision.

On April 4, 1581, almost seven months after his return, she strode onto the deck of the Golden Hind at Deptford

(He later had the pleasure of presenting those “goodly great emeralds” to Queen Elizabeth.)

persuaded Charles V of rival Spain to back the project.

which almost nothing was known in Europe.

Two of the most consequential figures of this era, Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth, knew the expedition’s true purpose:

But Protestant countries such as England ignored it for official purposes.

Philip made the most of their wedding, bringing ten thousand soldiers with him to England in 180 ships.

general, knighthood was conferred on those who glorified the Crown through military service,

But English Protestants rebelled. “Bloody Mary” ordered the execution of the conspirators,

Under cover of his official title, Mendoza pursued his real job, that of spy.

The previous circumnavigation came to a tragic conclusion fifty-five years earlier

he would complete the trip in a year or less and return with fresher, more potent spices.

Magellan’s crew, confined aboard their ships, relied on worm-eaten biscuits

During a watch, a ship’s boy supervised the half-hourglass,

By May 18, they went ashore again, in a different bay, where they waited fifteen days for the missing ships.

Fletcher recalled, “this was the greatest.” They were grateful to have overcome it, “but it was not the last.

Heaving long passed the point of no return to South America,

nearly three weeks of unbroken blue water.

The gallows that Magellan had erected still cast a shadow over a hill,

This work was a French translation of Pedro de Medina’s authoritative Arte de navegar,

He renounced slaving and vowed to seek revenge (and his fortune) against those who trafficked

Thirty-eight days later, Magellan spied the Pacific Ocean and wept with joy.

and lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.

In his peculiar morgue could be found a dozen corpses, no less than 144 heads, and 306 arms and legs.

Elizabeth, and especially Francis Drake, whom Mendoza recognized as the chief threat to Spain’s imperial ambitions.

In 1518, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan,

In the Philippines, Magellan blundered into a confrontation with a combative local chieftain, Lapu Lapu.

originally published in eight volumes in Valladolid, Spain, in 1545,

Magellan led a fleet of five little ships and 258 sailors from a variety of nations,

A round-trip to the far side of the world lasted seven years or longer,

Magellan hoped that by going west, in the opposite direction, over water,

His relief did not last long. He faced the largest body of water on the planet,

Magellan located a rumored passage near the southern tip of South America.

By this time, he had lost two ships. The three remaining vessels ventured into the passage without benefit of maps.

Beyond his library, Dee introduced crucial mathematical symbols such as +, –, and ÷ to England.

She placed her faith in God, not in superstitions about comets.

they had arrived at the Strait of Magellan,

That sense of security derived largely from the English Channel.

Elizabeth conveniently made Drake her proxy in an undeclared war against King Philip

experienced local pilots, familiar with the seas and tides, were valuable to a visitor like Drake.

several glasses were generally employed for greater precision.

The giant coconut crab (Birgus latro) is the largest land-based arthropod:

At the time, England’s tiny navy, hardly more than twenty vessels,

paled in comparison to Spain’s fleet of two hundred vessels.

In this deeply idiosyncratic work dating from 1577,

they are suspected of dismembering and devouring the body of Amelia Earhart,

A single specimen “was sufficient to satisfy four hungry men at a dinner,

The date of their escape from disaster was January 10, 1580.

Dee contemplated extending the English sphere of influence across the globe.

Dee discussed the formation of a navy designed to secure English shores,