Admiral Ledesma was not obligated to tell his king the whole truth—that Drake himself had sunk the Swan because her smallness was holding him back and, as a gesture of extreme decency, had given his Pasha to a group of Spanish prisoners he had been forced to detain. Nor did he explain that what he dismissed as ‘whatever mean ships he could muster’ was really one of His Majesty’s finest galleons.
But Ledesma was careful in his letter to point out that the notable victories over Drake had been made possible only by the remarkable performances of several members of the Ledesma family. The king in his next instructions to Cartagena promoted seven of them.
Now came those watershed years when in the lives of great nations some begin to ascend, others to decline. At first none is aware that the shift in power is under way, for the signals are so slight that only a speculative genius could detect their significance. Six men in a small town in the Netherlands finally dare to oppose their Spanish governor and are executed. In the distant Celebes a sultan acquires unexpected power and decides to trade with whatever European ships struggle into his domain. In a small German town a man devises a better way to cut type, and at his press books are printed faster.
In the 1580s, Spain and England were involved in this shift of power, for in the dark, gloomy rooms of the Escorial, King Philip II slowly, patiently conceives and perfects a massive operation which he calls only ‘The Enterprise of England.’ By it he intends to settle once and for all his decades-long competition with his sister-in-law, Queen Elizabeth.
But she is not idling away her time, waiting for the enemy to strike. Under the inspired direction of John Hawkins, she is assembling a fleet of swift, small ships of a radical new design, and assembling the great heroes of England to man them: Howard, Frobisher, Hawkins and, above all, Drake. Every nation in Europe who had spies in either Spain or England knew that an immense confrontation between Spain and England, between Philip and Elizabeth, was imminent.
Governor Ledesma, safe within his walled capital of Cartagena, received news of crucial events that were about to determine the fate of Europe via two ways: reports from Spain alerting him to this possible danger, or warning him about real ones, or simply conveying empire gossip; he also entertained travelers making their way from one Spanish possession to another, and often these men and women provided insights that not even the king in Madrid would have had, or would have listened to if he did have them.
In early January 1578, one of King Philip’s swift postal frigates arrived in Cartagena with a copy of the somewhat confused instructions which were being delivered to all Caribbean cities:
Some things we know for certain, others are obscure. On 15 November 1577, Captain Francis Drake sailed from Plymouth with five ships, the Pelican, 100 tons as admiral, the Elizabeth, 80 tons as vice-admiral. Exact complements are unknown, but among his five ships he can have no more than 160 men, sailors and all.
Where he is heading and what his mission is we have been unable to determine. Our men in Plymouth trapped one of his sailors and shipped him to Cádiz, but protracted tortures revealed nothing and his jailers believe he and the other sailors were not instructed as to their destination. But from the size and care with which the fleet was put together we must assume that he is heading for some major target in your domain. Española? Puerto Rico? Cuba? Cartagena? Panamá? Beware.
The timetable of reaction was identical in all the sites mentioned. First month: keen apprehension. Second month: some relief in knowing that if Drake was in the Caribbean, at least he wasn’t attacking our city. Third month: total perplexity, with everyone asking: ‘Where can that El Draque be?’
It was almost a year before intelligence from Spain finally dispelled the mystery:
We now know for certain that Captain Francis Drake has taken his fleet into the Pacific Ocean, but in passing the Strait of Magellan he seems to have lost all but one of his ships, his admiral originally christened Pelican but now renamed the Golden Hind.
Drake caused considerable disruption along the coasts of Chile and Peru but seems to have spared Panamá. No man knows where he will head next, but several of our loyal servants he took prisoner and then released say that while he held them in his power he talked much and freely of sailing either far north to find the lost passage, or far west to China and the Spice Islands, or back through Magellan for a major attack upon the Caribbean. Be alert.
But in early 1579 there came to Cartagena from Panamá via one of the treasure ships sailing from Nombre de Dios, a Señora Cristóbal, sister-in-law of the famous shipowner San Juan de Anton, merchant and government official of Lima in Peru, and she was talkative. As a friend of Don Diego’s wife, she naturally stayed at the residence of the Ledesmas, and while there, she spoke incessantly of great events along the west coast of South America, reporting on diverse incidents about which King Philip apparently did not know.
‘Contradictions! Contradictions! You, Admiral Ledesma, know better than most what a cruel monster El Draque is supposed to be, how he burns and slays, so that Spanish children are warned to be obedient lest El Draque come for them. A thousand tales are told at night about his evil acts. But I can tell you as a principal authority, for I was there and I met scores who had dealings with him, that in neither Chile nor Peru did he burn or slay. Two hundred sailors and merchants will testify that when they and their ships were captured on the high seas or while dozing in some hidden port, he gave them back their ships after valuables had been transferred to his and saw to it that they had ample food to reach home. Of course, he sometimes chopped down their masts, and on one occasion he wrapped all their sails around their anchor chains and tossed the whole to the bottom of the sea lest they try to follow him or speed ahead to warn others of his coming. He is a terror, no question about that, but he is not a brutal savage like a Frenchman and he does obey the established laws of the sea.’
Prompted by Don Diego, she went on to relate her version of what happened at Santiago in Chile: ‘All official reports about what happened there are filled with lies. Out of the blue, Drake in his Golden Hind arrived at Valparaíso, the port city near Santiago, and within a few minutes had captured the place, which is not surprising, since at the first sight of the strange English ship, everyone in the harbor town, and I do mean everyone, for later I talked with many of these people, fled into the hills. Valparaíso was completely sacked but not burned, and no lives were lost. But what has been kept secret so far is that from Valparaíso, and the settlements leading to Santiago, Drake took a fortune in wealth of all kinds. One English sailor told my brother-in-law while he was a captive on Drake’s ship: “We took so much loot at Valparaíso that we could have turned back at that spot and gone home wealthy men, all of us,” and as a joke Drake allowed Don San Juan to go down into the hold of the Golden Hind and see for himself the great bales of stolen wealth loaded at that port. My brother-in-law said it was tremendous, enough, as he expressed it, “to adorn a dozen cathedrals.” And remember, Valparaíso was only one of his many stops along the coast. Heaven knows what he stole at other towns I haven’t even heard of.’
Admiral Ledesma, leaning forward in his chair, was mesmerized by what his visitor was saying, for he could not hear enough about the behavior of his mortal enemy: ‘Tell me, what happened when Drake captured your family’s ship, the Cacafuego?’ At the mention of this famous vessel, Señora Cristóbal threw up her hands and chortled: ‘It was, as I’m sure you know better than me, properly christened Señora de la Concepción, a name singing with piety and grace. It was a noble ship, still is, because although Drake captured it, he handed it back to Don San Juan. It was known, still is, I believe, as the Glory of the Pacific, none bigger, none grander. I sailed on it several times, Lima to Panamá and back, and my cabin was better equipped than my bedroom at home. The name by which it became vulgarly known, Cacafuego, is such a terrible embarrassment that I am ashamed even to say it. Who knows how it got such a disgraceful name, I’m sure I don’t. Our beautiful ship, besme
ared so horribly.* But that’s what they call it and that’s what Drake called it when he dogged it for five days on its way to Panamá with riches …’
Here Señora Cristóbal broke down, but after sniffling for a while, resumed with this information: ‘A fair portion of what that damned Drake stole from the Cacafuego … I mean, it took him three full days to move the stuff from our ship to his … I call it our ship because certainly a fair part does belong to my husband and me. Our sailors have told me, because as you may know, Drake set them all free to sail the Cacafuego back to Panamá after the cargo was transferred from our ship to his. One sailor told me that when the Golden Hind broke away to resume its exploration for the Northwest Passage, its cargo of stolen treasure was so great that the ship rode perilously low, and that he had heard one of Drake’s sailors remark: “If we manage to get this leaky basket back to Plymouth, we can all buy estates in Devon”—because the tremendous treasure would be shared by less than a hundred and thirty men. That’s all there were on Drake’s ship, and to think that these few stormed so many of our seaports, captured so many of our ships, stole so much of our wealth!’
When she composed herself Señora Cristóbal continued: ‘Did you know, Don Diego, that when Drake captured the Cacafuego he first gave its owner, my brother-in-law, a fine cabin aboard the Golden Hind, with instructions to his crew that Don San Juan was to be given exactly the same amenities that they would give Drake? And that later he allowed him to return to his more spacious quarters on the Cacafuego, where the two men conversed, night after night? Did the reports say that? And when the time came for the two ships to part, Drake gave every sailor on the Cacafuego a present of some kind, and he was thoughtful enough to take the presents from the loot he had taken at Valparaíso and not from what he had stolen from their own ship. Some of the presents were quite valuable, tools and things like that which men prize. When he gave Don San Juan three lovely pieces of jewelry for his wife, my brother-in-law said: “I have a sister-in-law, part owner of this ship you could say, and she adores pretty things,” and Drake sent me these two emerald brooches, also from Valparaíso.’
Señora Cristóbal’s prolonged monologue had contradictory effects upon Don Diego. On the one hand he was relieved that Drake was demonstrating his demonic power in other parts of the Spanish empire: ‘Now maybe those governors will appreciate what we had to put up with. Maybe they’ll recognize what we did in holding him within bounds.’
But then, perversely, he felt a sense of deprivation to think that Drake was performing these daring raids and gigantic thefts in a new area, and he felt deprived of an additional opportunity to frustrate this greatest of the English pirates: ‘In our ocean we never allowed him to steal a Cacafuego.’ It was as if he and Drake had been destined to duel in the Caribbean, and to change suddenly the definitions of the contest was unfair. Sometimes, when caught in these confusions, he visualized Drake and himself as medieval jousters, himself the designated hero of a great king, Drake the champion of a beautiful queen, but such imaginings fell apart when he remembered what a mean-spirited king Philip was and how epically ugly Elizabeth was to be a queen.
Don Diego was fascinated when he learned from Madrid that Drake had completed his journey around the world. ‘Proves he’s as obdurate a man as I said in my dispatches,’ he told members of his government. And to himself he said: I must be the only man in the world who has defeated Drake four times.
He was further pleased in 1581 when broadsheets from Europe arrived in the Caribbean, showing Queen Elizabeth in great lace ruffs about her neck standing on the deck of the Golden Hind while Drake knelt before her to receive his knighthood. That flamboyant act, a thumbing of the English nose at the Spanish king, as if she were saying: ‘See, Philip, how I honor your principal enemy!’ seemed to make Drake and Ledesma equal, the former now an English knight, the latter a Spanish admiral.
But Don Diego was not altogether happy when the lisping grandchildren in his family began chanting in the gardens of Cartagena the Spanish version of a new nursery rhyme honoring Drake’s promotion:
‘This man will make
The oceans quake
When he comes to take
Our Spanish Lake …’
At this point one of the children would shout: ‘What man?’ and the others would reply in screaming unison: ‘SIR FRANCIS DRAKE!’
And then, in late August 1585, King Philip’s postal frigates again darted through the Caribbean with ominous dispatches:
Admiral Drake in command of twenty-one ships, nine above 200 tons, including two owned by the queen and manned by practiced seamen like Frobisher, Fenner and Knollys, preparing for some great adventure, we know not what. But from what our spies inform us about the provisioning of said ships, we conclude they must be headed for your seas and your capital cities.
The guess was a shrewd one, for at the end of January 1586 a young Spanish officer arrived with an incredible tale, which he revealed in stammering syllables as he sat with Don Diego in the governor’s quarters: ‘On the first day of the New Year, Drake’s fleet sailed arrogantly into our harbor at Santo Domingo on Española, and this time everything was different, for he landed not adventurous sailors but a real army clad in armor. I’m ashamed to report that time and again our troops took one look at those fierce Englishmen, fired their muskets, mostly in the air, and fled, the leaders of our city having done so earlier. By nightfall, Santo Domingo lay completely open to Drake, who came ashore on 3 January to stake his claim to the town and everything in it.’
Ledesma was shaken by this appalling news concerning a city he had often visited and with whose governor he had cooperated: ‘It was no meager town of wooden buildings and grass shacks that Colón and Ocampo knew at the beginning of the century. This was a city of carved stone, broad avenues. If Drake could subdue it, what might he do here at Cartagena?’ His lips dry, he asked the messenger: ‘You mean that after only one day of fighting …’
‘More like one morning, Excellency.’
‘And Drake was in control of everything—buildings, homes, churches?’
‘Everything. He was especially hard on the churches. Carted away anything of value, and raged when he learned that the priests had sequestered the jewels and other treasures deep in the surrounding woods.’
‘But why? I know this man. He’s not like that.’ Ledesma was not so much protecting Drake’s reputation as he was striving to escape the painful realization that Drake, if he was so changed, represented a much graver danger than before, and the stuttering messenger added fuel to that thought: ‘To a group of military officers engaged in negotiation with him, he sent his reply in the hands of a little black boy, but one of our officers shouted scornfully: “I do not accept communications from niggers,” and in his rage he ran his sword clean through the boy’s body. The wound was fatal, but the boy did not die before crawling back to Drake, where he gave the officer’s answer and died.’
‘And what did Drake do?’
‘On the spur of the moment he grabbed from a holding cell filled with Spanish prisoners two of our monks and had them hanged on the spot. He then sent a prisoner to inform the officers that unless they produced the man who had slain the black boy, he would hang two more monks every morning and afternoon.’
‘Did you produce him?’ Ledesma asked, and the young man said: ‘We did, and Drake refused to hang him. He threw the culprit back at us officers and said: “You hang him,” and we did.’
‘But why is he suddenly so bitter against our church?’ Ledesma asked, and the officer said: ‘I heard Drake say: “Your Inquisition burns alive any English sailor they catch, if he admits he respects the new faith in England. Many of my men have perished that way.” ’
‘What did he do with Santo Domingo? If there was no treasure from the churches, no ransom money?’
‘He said he would wait three days, and when no money came back from the people who had fled, he began to burn down the city … one area each day. The stone buildi
ngs that would not easily burn he destroyed by pulling down the walls.’
‘How did you escape?’
‘We have always kept our frigates hidden in estuaries, far from town.’
‘So Santo Domingo is destroyed?’
‘No. After three weeks, even Drake tired. The burning had stopped before I left. About half the city still stands.’
‘Get some rest. Tomorrow I want you to go fast to Nombre de Dios. To warn them to prepare.’
On the afternoon of 9 February 1586, Admiral Sir Francis Drake led his twenty-one ships smartly past the western walls of Cartagena, and disappeared to the south as if ignoring the city and the futile shots fired at him from its forts. But just when Governor Ledesma and his military leaders were congratulating themselves that they had escaped the fearful El Draque, he turned sharply to port and entered Boca Chica, whose narrow entrance he had forced before. Without slowing his speed, he came into the big Southern Bay, where he anchored in familiar waters, just as if he were back home at Plymouth. Soon his twenty companions were anchored near him and it was obvious that the great siege of Cartagena had begun.
Governor Ledesma asked those about him: ‘Will he be able to force his way into the city?’ and they assured him that the only causeway into the town was much too narrow to permit the entry of soldiers, especially when guns upon the walls would be aimed directly at them. ‘We’re safe,’ his men repeated, ‘and since we have adequate food inside the walls and deep wells, there’s nothing Drake can do.’
But there was. Placing his army troops under the direction of the forceful general who had subdued Santo Domingo so easily, he moved his ships first into the spacious Middle Bay and then into the close-in Northern Bay, from where a few foot soldiers could be put ashore for a flanking attack on the causeway. Then, with great daring, he moved some of his larger ships boldly into the small Inner Bay that gave directly on the approaches to the city.