Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Wherefore, in the name and to the use of her most excellent
majesty, he took the sceptre, crown, and dignity of the said country in-
to his hand . . .
4
Before leaving the locality, Drake set up a brass plate claiming
the territory in the name of his queen and naming it Nova Albion.
This first English colonisation occurred five years before a similar
claim was made to land on the east coast and seven years before
the establishment of the ill-fated Roanoke settlement in what is now
North Carolina. It is a pity, therefore, that no documentary or archae-
ological evidence has yet appeared enabling us to fix 'Drake's Bay'
beyond dispute.
The Englishmen stayed in this pleasant land until 23 July, by
which time Drake had abandoned any thought of the northward
route home. All that he had learned from captured charts and inter-
rogated prisoners indicated to him that this was a good time of year
to attempt a Pacific crossing. With Spaniards to the south and storms
to the north, this was the only option left open to him. He was com-
mitted. He would have to attempt the third circumnavigation of the
world and he would have to try to become the first captain to com-
plete such a circumnavigation.
This meant, first of all, facing an ocean completely unknown to
English navigators, then confronting Orient seas patrolled by Span-
ish and Portuguese men of war. For the first of those tasks he was
singularly ill-equipped. There can be little doubt that Drake's Span-
ish charts underestimated the width of the Pacific. Philip's subjects
had been regularly sailing the Manila route for little more than a dec-
ade and, although many earlier misconceptions had been cleared up,
the lack of any accurate means of measuring longitude left consid-
erable scope for cartographers' optimism. Drake had probably dis-
covered that the galleons from Acapulco could make the crossing in
