Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
a message, the admiral could no longer ignore the challenge to his
authority. He stripped Doughty of his command and had him con-
veyed aboard the little store ship,
Swan.
This action may have post-
poned the inevitable showdown; it did not prevent it.
The ships reached Brazil, revictualled and turned south. The
weather grew colder. The biting
pampero
shrieked down from the
Andes, churning up violent storms and scattering the fleet. Men fell
ill with dysentery and fever. The crews grew fearful. Drake had still
not told them where they were headed. It was obvious now, that this
was no trip to Alexandria, nor even a raid upon the Spanish Main and
that their leader was taking them into more dangerous and more
distant waters. Doughty and his friends played on these anxieties.
Untold horrors lay ahead and the prospects for safe return were re-
mote if Drake was not challenged, they urged. Drake could see the
whole enterprise falling apart if he did not act. He tried to defuse
the situation by making Doughty an object of ridicule. He had him
tied to the
Pelican's
mainmast for a couple of days where he was the
butt of jeers and crude jokes. All this achieved was the heightening
of personal rivalry. The proud gentleman could not, now, back down.
It was Drake or Doughty.
And so they came to doleful St Julian's Bay. The desolate spot
which had decided the fate of Magellan's expedition was to perform
the same service for Drake's. The admiral convened a drumhead
court on the beach. What followed was not a trial in which the in-
terests of justice were served. Drake merely used legal forms for
his own ends. He had evidence brought of all the prisoner's mis-
demeanours, then harangued the 'jury' into demanding Doughty's
death. The unfortunate gentleman challenged the admiral's author-
ity to impose a capital sentence. He was probably right to do so. Al-
though Drake frequently boasted of the commission he held from the
queen, he never produced it or permitted anyone else to scrutinise
it. Now, he blustered away the challenge, for there could be no turn-
