patron lie returned to England, where Sir Christopher Hatton introduced him to Queen Elizabeth, and procured him a favourable reception at court. la this way he acquired the means of undertaking that grand expedition which has immortalized his name. The first proposal he made was to undertake a voyage into the South Seas through the Straits of Magellan, 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 fleat with which he sailed on this enterprise consisted of only five small vessels, and their united crews mustered only 166 men. Having sailed on the 13th December 1577, he on the 25th made the coast of Barbary, and on the 29th Cape Verd. He reached the coast of Brazil on the 5th of April, and entered the Ilio de la 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 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 August he entered the Straits of Magellan, and on the 25th September passed them, having then only his own ship. On the 25th Nov ember he arrived at Macao, which he had appointed as the place of rendezvous in the event of his ships being separ ated ; but Captain Winter, his vice-admiral, had repassed the straits and 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 coasted along the shores of America, as far as 48 N. lat., in an unsuccessful endeavour to discover a passage into the Atlantic. Having landed, however, he named the country New Albion, and took possession of it in the name of Queen Elizabeth. Having careened his ship, he sailed thence on the 29th September 1579 for the Moluccas. On the 4th November he got sight of those islands, and, arriving at Ternate, was extremely well received by the king. On the 10th December he made the Celebes, where his ship unfortunately struck upon a rock, but was taken off without much damage. On the 16th 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 March 1580 he again set sail ; and on the 15th June he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, having then on board only fifty-seven men and three casks of water. He passed the line on the 12th July, and on the 16th reached the coast of Guinea, where he watered. On the 11th September he made the Island of Terceira, and on the 3d November he entered the harbour of Plymouth. This voyage round the world, the first accomplished by an Englishman, was thus performed in two years and about ten months. The queen hesitated for some time whether to recognize his achievements or not, on the ground that such recognition might lead to complica tions with Spain, but she finally decided in his favour. Accordingly, soon after his arrival she paid a visit to Dept- ford, went on board his ship, and there, after partaking of a banquet, 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, the " Golden Hind," that it might remain a monument of his own and his country s glory. After the lapse of a century it decayed and had to be broken up. Of the sound timber a chair was made, which was presented by Charles II. to the university of Oxford. In 1585, open hostilities having commenced with Spain, Drake sailed with a fleet to the West Indies, and took the cities of St Jago, St Domingo, Cartagena, 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 tho Armada, he with great courage entered the port on the 19th April, and there burnt upwards of 10,000 tons of shipping, a feat which he afterwards jocosely called " singeing the king of Spain s beard." In 1588, when the Spanish Armada was approaching England, Sir Francis Drake was appointed vice-admiral under Lord Howard, and made prize of a very large galleon, commanded by Don Pedro de Valdez, who was reputed the projector of the invasion, and who struck
at once on learning his adversary s name.It deserves to be noticed that Drake s name is mentioned in the singular diplomatic communication from the king of Spain which preceded the Armada:—
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Te veto ne pergas bello clefendcre P.elgas ; Qux Dracus cripuit nunc restituaiitur oportet ; Quas pater evertit jubeo to comlere cellas : Jleligio Papre fac restituatur ad vmguem.
To these lines the queen made this extempore response:—
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Ad Grrccas, bone rex, fiant mandata kalendas.
In 1589 Drake commanded the fleet sent to restore Dom Antonio, king of Portugal, the land forces being under the orders of Sir John N orris ; 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 expecta tion. These disasters were keenly felt by Drake, and were the principal cause of his death, which took place on board his own ship, near the town of Nombre de Dios, in the West Indies, January 28, 1595.
DRAKENBORCH, Arnold (1684–1748), a celebrated scholar and editor, was born at Utrecht on the 1st January 1684. Having studied belles-lettres under Graevius and Burmann, and law under Cornelius A r an Eck, he succeeded Professor Burmann in 1716, and continued to hold his pro fessorship till his death in 1748, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His earliest work was a dissertation entitled Disputatio philologico-historico de Prcefectis urbis, in 4to (1704), and its merit caused it to be reprinted at Frankfort, in 1752, by Professor Uhl, accompanied with a life of its learned author. His next work, entitled Disputatio de ojjiclo prcefectornm prcetorio, was published in 1707; and ten years afterwards he issued his edition of Silius Italicus (1717), undertaken at the suggestion of Burmann. In order to render this edition as perfect as possible, nothing was omitted ; and many historical subjects were engraved for the purpose of elucidating the text, to which his own copious and learned annotations greatly contributed. But his splendid edition of Livy (Lugd. Batav. 1738 and 1746, 7 vols.), with a life of that historian, is that on which his fame as a scholar chiefly rests. The preface to this work is replete with erudition, and gives a particular account of all the literary men who have at different periods com mented on the works of Livy. His edition is based on that of Gronovius ; but he made many important altera tions on the authority of manuscripts which it is probable Gronovius either had never seen, or had not taken the pains to consult. The edition is peculiarly rich in various readings, but the text is, of course, inferior to that which has been furnished by the skill of later editors. Upon the whole, this edition of Livy was, at the time of its publi cation, one of the most elaborate, interesting, and instruc tive that had ever been given to the world.
