Francis Drake was a famous English sea-captain. He was born in Plymouth—a seaport and the largest town in the south of England. The boy spent much time near the sea. He looked at the ships and listened to the talks of the sailors. At fifteen the boy was taken as a sailor on a small ship and worked there for some years. Francis did his work so well that the captain said he was born to be a great sailor. When Francis Drake was twenty-five years old, he began to help the captain of the ship. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean many times with this captain and then was made captain of another ship.
At that time England and Spain were enemies. Spanish ships carried much gold from South America to Spain. English ships in the Atlantic Ocean often attacked Spanish ships and took the gold. Those English pirate captains gave much gold to their country. With the Spanish gold England built many good strong ships. This made England much stronger on the seas and oceans.
One day some Spanish ships attacked six English ships and only two of them came back to England. Francis Drake was captain of one of those ships. Drake sailed back into the Atlantic Ocean. With two small ships he attacked some Spanish ships which carried gold. Drake took much gold from those ships. Francis Drake became a pirate too. He sailed across the Atlantic again and again, and many Spanish ships did not sail back to Spain.
In November 1577 Francis Drake with five ships left Plymouth. He wanted to cross the Atlantic Ocean and find the way to the Pacific Ocean. The ships came to South America in winter, the wind was very strong and it snowed. Drake lost some of his ships in the wind and snow. At last the sailors saw the Pacific Ocean. In August of 1578 they came to Cape Horn and then had a short rest on some islands near Cape Horn.
After a rest in 1579 the ships crossed the Pacific Ocean and visited in the same year the island of Java in the South of Asia. Then the ships crossed the Indian Ocean and in June 1580 they came to the Cape of Good Hope in the South of Africa. Drake did not stop there but sailed north and in September 1580 the sailors saw England again. The voyage took almost three years, Francis Drake was the first English man who sailed round the world.
In 1585 Drake with twenty-nine ships sailed to the Atlantic Ocean. He attacked Spanish ships there and brought much gold to England.
In 1588 many Spanish ships with hundreds of soldiers on each of them sailed into English waters to attack England. This was the famous Spanish Armada; there were one hundred and thirty ships in it. The English ships did not attack the enemy. They let the great Spanish Armada sail past Plymouth and far into English waters.
The Spanish ships were very large; the English ships were much smaller, but they could sail faster and the sailors on them were better than the Spanish ones. Eight ships under Francis Drake’s command went into the middle of the Spanish Armada and attacked the ships. Soon many of the Spanish ships were on fire. Drake took twelve Spanish ships and carried them off.
This was a great victory for England. Only fifty Spanish ships came back to their country.
In 1595 English ships with Francis Drake as captain sailed into the Atlantic Ocean to attack the Spanish ships again. Drake hoped to get a lot of gold. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a month, but Francis Drake was ill and in January 1596 he died.
