About Me
LIFE AS A YOUNG CHAP.I was born in Devonshire (namely, Tavistock) England in, I would say, somewhere between 1540 and 1543. As the oldest of Edmund Drake’s twelve sons, I felt this responsibility helped prepare me for my future conduct in leadership.When I was still a small boy, Queen Mary I ascended to the throne, bringing along her Catholic influence. Because of religious disturbances around my hometown, our family moved to Chatham in Kent. My father, then a farmer, became a Protestant preacher, impressing upon me a strong Protestant devotion, which later proved to serve as a large factor in my life.While in Chatham, I started going to sea at around the age of 12 or 13. I became an apprentice on a small trading ship left to me when my master died. I sold this ship, and upon returning to Devon, I sailed with my cousin John Hawkins to the Caribbean.MY PERSONAL LIFE.My first wife, Mary Newman—God bless her soul, died after twelve years of our marriage in 1583. My second wife—Elizabeth Sydenham—whom I married in 1585, was twenty years my junior, and came from a much wealthier family. We unfortunately had no children, none whatsoever.MY NAVAL CAREER.In the 1550s, I became the Navigator of a small merchant ship. I was also appointed as an Officer on West African slave ships.As for a significant accomplishment I am particularly proud of, I was the first to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of South America, where I raided Nombre de Dios, Panama. Queen Elizabeth had commissioned me as a privateer to set sail for the wild lands of the Americas. After that I returned to England with Spanish gold and plunder.I was selected by Queen Elizabeth in 1577 to be the head of an expedition sailing around the world. What an exciting and frightening adventure to undertake! So I sailed around the world in my ship, “The Golden Hind,†within three years, from 1577 to 1580. In 1581, Queen Elizabeth knighted me Sir Francis Drake onboard.In 1587 my navy attacked and destroyed the Spanish Fleet at Cadiz. Thereafter, in 1588, I was appointed Vice Admiral of the navy that destroyed the Spanish Armada. What a title!This is how the story went: On July 29, 1588, the Spanish Armada was sighted off the coast of England. The next day, the English exchanged fire with the Spanish Armada. Then finally, on August 8, 1588, our English Navy destroyed the Spanish Armada. Victory at last!In 1595, I embarked upon my last voyage to the Caribbean with Sir John Hawkins, who sadly died of fever on the voyage. In 1596, I was sent to attack Spanish settlements in the West Indies; after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico, I died on the way home.MY DEATH.Though it is all rather blurry to me, I am told I died onboard the Defiance on January 28, 1596, from a tropical disease, which was probably dysentery. Thereafter I was buried at sea in a lead coffin off Puerto Bello on January 29, 1596.
