The Life of Sir Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake was born in the town of Devonshire (England). Sir Francis Drake's father was a Yeoman (lumberjack). Sir Francis Drake was an apprentice to a captain of a ship, and in 1567 he went on one of his first sea voyage. His ship, the Judith, was one of a squadron of vessels led by a kinsman of Drake, the English navigator Sir John Hawkins, on a slave-trading voyage in the Gulf of Mexico. Only two ships of the expedition were lost when the Spanish attacked them. In 1570 and 1571 Sir Francis Drake made two trading voyages to the West Indies. In 1572 he commanded two ships against Spanish seaports in the Caribbean Sea. During this voyage Sir Francis Drake first saw the Pacific Ocean; he captured the port of Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama and destroyed the nearby town of Portobello. He returned to England with a cargo of 30 tons of Spanish silver and a reputation as a brilliant privateer. …