|
On September 26, 1580, Francis Drake sailed hsi ship, the Golden Hinde, into Plymouth harbor ont he southwest coast of England. He had long been given up for lost, and rumors quickly circulated about where he had been on his three-year round-the-world voyage, and about the plunder he had brought home to fill Queen Elizabeth's treasury. However, a veil of secrecy was immediately imposed on the expedition: Drake's journals and charts were impounded, never to be seen again, and his men were forbidden to divulge where they had been--especially during the summer of 1579, when they had dropped from sight in the North Pacific. Drake's journey was arguably the greatest sea voyage of all time. With only the crudest of navigational instruments to guide through vast, uncharted oceans, he became the first captain to circumnavigate the globe. In a ship barely 100 feet long, he sailed more than 40,000 miles disrupted the Spanish Empire in the New World, encountered often hostile native peoples on four continents, and narrowly escaped disaster on numerous occasions. This book masterfully recounts the drama of this historic expedition, offering intriguing insight into life at sea in the 16th century--from the dangers of mutiny and the lack of knoweldge about wind and current to the arduous physical challenges faced every day by Drake's men. But the author's assertion of Drake's whereabouts in the summer of 1579 gives this book even greater originality.
|
