Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and his friends had a financial stake in the venture and powerful
contacts at court. They were soon giving themselves airs and Drake,
to some extent, acquiesced in their affectation. He was a snob and
had the self-made man's exaggerated respect for wealth and priv-
ilege. The gentlemen added a tone of culture and refinement to the
enterprise which Drake found almost irresistible.
No captain had ever sailed the seven seas in quite the style that
Drake affected. He regarded himself as more of an ambassador than
a mariner. In his cabin he was served on silver plate. His personal en-
tourage included a drummer and a trumpeter to herald his arrival
and a group of musicians to play to him at mealtimes.
Thomas Doughty was all that a part of Drake aspired to be and
was not - highly educated, poised, politically astute, able to converse
easily with philosophers and princes. He had served in the Irish wars
and was an intimate of Sir Christopher Hatton and others close to
the queen. This cultivated gentleman was, without doubt, a young
man on his way to the top. He was also an intriguer. He thrilled to be
party to secrets and enjoyed the power that clandestine knowledge
gave him over the lives of others. He had embarked on this enter-
prise with one trump card up his sleeve: he was the secret agent of
Lord Burghley, Elizabeth's first minister. Burghley, a cautious and as-
tute statesman, had been opposed to the venture from the start and
had officially been kept in the dark as to its true objectives. He envis-
aged the notorious Drake stirring up all manner of diplomatic hor-
nets' nests. He, therefore, needed someone on the expedition to keep
him privately informed of all that happened. Thomas Doughty was
that person and he relished the power he believed that it gave him
over Drake.
Doughty had been made captain of the
Mary
and the ship soon
became the fleet's focus of discontent. As incidents, insults and ru-
mours increased Drake did nothing but when Doughty and his
cronies beat up John Brewer, whom Drake had sent to the
Mary
with
