looked upon as the first discoverer of the Golden State. Even to this
day there are those who give him all the credit. Queen Elizabeth
knighted him for his services in this and his previous expeditions;
telling him, as his chronicler records, "that his actions did him more
honor than his title." Her Majesty seems not to have been much impressed
by his tales of the riches of the New World--if, indeed, they ever came
to the royal ear,--for she made no effort to develop the resources of
her territory. No adventurous argonauts set sail for the Pacific coast
in search of gold till two hundred and seventy years later.

There seems to have been a spell cast over the land and the sea. We are
sure that Sir Francis Drake did not enter the Bay of San Francisco, and
that he had no knowledge of its existence, though he was almost within
sight of it. In one of the records of his voyage we read of the chilly
air and of the dense fogs that prevailed in that region; of the "white
banks and cliffs which lie toward the sea"; and of islands which are
known as the Farallones, and which lie about thirty miles off the coast
and opposite the Golden Gate.

In 1587 Captain Thomas Cavendish, afterward knighted by Queen Elizabeth,
touched upon Cape St. Lucas, at the extremity of Lower California. He
was a privateer lying in wait for the galleon laden with the wealth of
the Philippines and bound for Acapulco. When she hove in sight there was
a chase, a hot engagement, and a capture by the English Admiral. "This
prize," says the historian of the voyage, "contained one hundred and
twenty-two thousand _pesos_ of gold, besides great quantities of rich
silks, satins, damasks, and musk, with a good stock of provisions." In
those romantic and adventurous days piracy was legalized by formal
license; the spoils were supposed to consist of gold and silver only, or
of light movable goods.