navigate the globe. During a voyage of sixty-eight days, without seeing land, Drake crossed the Pacific. At length he reached one of the Pelew Islands, and on the 4th of November, 1579, he arrived at Ternate. He refitted at an island near Celebes, and in the course of some intricate navigation the ship grounded on a shoal, but was got off after an anxious day. On January 9th, 1580, the Golden Hind passed the Cape, was at Sierra Leone on the 22nd of July, and arrived in Plymouth Sound on the 26th of September.
She was taken round to Deptford, and, on the 4th of April, 1581, the queen dined on board, conferring the honour of knighthood on the great circumnavigator. The Golden Hind was placed in dock, with orders that she should be preserved as long as she would hold together, and the cabin was converted into a banqueting-room. In 1587, Sir Francis Drake purchased Buckland Abbey, near his old home in Devonshire. This was inherited by his younger brother Thomas, whose descendants continue to possess it.
Drake was the first commander of an expedition who circumnavigated the globe. Magellan was slain in a brawl with the natives of the Philippine Islands, and one of his ships was brought home by a junior pilot. The English explorer, on the other hand, completed the voyage himself, maintaining discipline and order, giving constant attention to the health and comfort of his men. and avoiding disputes with the natives as far as possible. But he did much more; he discovered Cape Horn, and he discovered 480 miles of new coast to the northward of California. His voyage was the greatest maritime achievement of that century. The rest of the life of Sir Francis Drake was devoted to the naval service of his country. Like nearly all the other great naval commanders of that age, he owed his training to voyages of exploration and discovery. The habits thus acquired — of coolness and presence of mind, of forming a decision at the moment, of bringing the resources of a mind stored with knowledge and experience to bear quickly and effectively, and his magnetic influence over men — were all now devoted to the service of his queen and country in their great need. First among explorers and discoverers, Sir Francis Drake was, for that very reason, one of the greatest naval commanders of his age. For it cannot be too often repeated that voyages of discovery form the best nursery for a navy.
The next expedition which shaped a course in the direction of Magellan's Strait was not a success, as it never got beyond the
