sir francis drake 1545 1596 Vice Admiral English sea captain privateer navigator slaver politician Elizabethan
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral (c. 1540 – 27 January 1596), was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Queen Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588, subordinate only to Charles Howard and the Queen herself. He died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico. His exploits were legendary, makinghim a hero to the English but a simple pirate to the Spaniards. To the Spanish he was known as El Draque, "the Dragon"; "Draque" is the Spanish pronunciation of "Drake". His name in Latin was Franciscvs Draco. King Philip II was claimed to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats (about £4m or $8m by modern standards) for his life. He is famous for (among other things) sailing around the world, returning to England in 1580. Near Lima, Drake captured a Spanish ship laden with 25,000 pesos of Peruvian gold, amounting in value to 37,000 ducats of Spanish money (about £7m by modern standards). Drake also discovered news of another ship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, which was sailing west towards Manila. It would come to be called the Cacafuego. Drake gave chase and eventually captured the treasure ship which proved their most profitable capture. Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found 80 lb (36 kg) of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests full of royals of plate and 26 tons of silver. This particular catch had far-reaching consequences because the Spanish ship, having been intercepted sailing due west in the Pacific, exposed to the whole world in early 1580 that the Spanish were active in the Far East, a concession which had been awarded to the Portuguese by the Pope at Rome. This crisis forced Philip II of Spain to invade Portugal in 1580 to claim the Portuguese crown.
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