Francis Drake’s Raids on Spanish Colonial Ports Netted Tons of Loot

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As soon as the wet season ended, Drake, still refusing to give up, led his men out of their camp and abandoned one of his ships, since there were not enough men left to crew it. He led his survivors through the marshy South American jungle until they reached Panama City. There, outside the city boundaries, they took shelter and waited. Drake knew that the treasure ships from Peru would arrive in Panama City and unload their precious cargo onto mule trains to be taken to other cities in the New World, where the loot would be placed aboard new galleons and shipped to Spain.

As he had in Nombre de Dios, Drake relied on the element of surprise for attacking the mule trains. He gave his men orders to take shelter along the road used by the mules and their drivers. When everything was ready, the English waited in ambush with cocked pistols and sharpened cutlasses.

The mule train came into view, and the Englishmen prepared themselves to jump out and frighten off or kill the mule drivers and the small escort. All those preparations were undone, however, when one of Drake’s men, who had been drinking, foolishly made a premature attack at the head of the column. That frightened off the rest of the mule train, which fled back into the protection of the city.

Having failed again, Drake, together with his Franco-English privateers and the Cimaroons, made his way back towards Nombre de Dios, where in April he learned that a train of some 190 mules was approaching the city loaded with silver from the Spanish mines inland. Drake and his allies surprised that train, drove away the 50 Spanish guards and found that every mule carried around 300 pounds of pure silver. Drake’s losses were insignificant compared to the treasure he could claim for England. Only one Cimaroon was killed, and Captain le Testu was wounded.

Drake decided that it was now time to return to Europe. The area was becoming dangerous, as the Spaniards had put a price on his head and a fleet was cruising up and down the coast looking for him. Escaping the fleet, he crossed the Atlantic loaded with silver and other riches. One of his crewmen wrote:

Within 23 days we passed from the Cape of Florida to the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived at Plymouth on Sunday about sermon time, August 9, 1573, at what time the news of our Captain’s return, brought unto his friends, did so speedily pass over all the church, and surpass their minds with desire to see him, that very few or none remained with the preacher, all hastening to see the evidence of God’s love and blessing towards our Gracious Queen and country, by the fruit of our Captain’s labour and success. Soli Deo Gloria.

Drake’s treasure amounted to some 15 tons of silver ingots and about 100,000 pounds sterling in silver coins. The coins alone would be worth more than $25 million today. Even though they did not receive the entire treasure themselves, Drake and his 30 surviving men were now extremely wealthy.

Although he and his crewmen netted a 20,000-pound sterling share of the loot, Captain le Testu was less fortunate than Drake. Opting to lie low with two of his men until he recovered from his wounds, he was found by the Spaniards, who killed him and displayed his head in Nombre de Dios.

Later in life Drake led several more raids on the Spanish colonies in the New World and circumnavigated the globe on his ship The Golden Hind. He also received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth for services rendered to his country.

Travelers’ tales and rumors claim that not all of Drake’s treasure made it back to England, that he hid a large part that he did not wish to share with the queen and the shareholders in his expedition. There is no proof of that story — only the myth that a fortune in silver coins, packed in several skin-bags or weighed-down barrels, lies somewhere on the bottom of Nombre de Dios Bay.

Tags: 15th-16th Century, Historical Conflicts

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