the colonists who had been left by Sir Richard Greenville in 'Virginia.'
Drake had offered either to furnish them with stores, and to leave them
a ship, or to take them home. The former was accepted: but a furious
storm which ensued caused them to change their minds. They recognized
in it the hand of God, whose will it evidently was that they should no
longer be sojourners in the American wilderness; and the first English
settlement of 'Virginia' was abandoned accordingly.

Ten years afterwards (1595) Drake was again at the head of a similar
expedition. The second command was given to his old associate Hawkins,
Frobisher, his Vice-Admiral in 1585, having recently died of the wound
received at Crozon. This time Nombre de Dios was taken and burnt, and
750 soldiers set out under Sir Thomas Baskerville to march to Panama:
but at the first of the three forts which the Spaniards had by this time
constructed, the march had to be abandoned. Drake did not long survive
this second failure of his favourite scheme. He was attacked by
dysentery a fortnight afterwards, and in a month he died. When he felt
the hand of death upon him, he rose, dressed himself, and endeavoured to
make a farewell speech to those around him. Exhausted by the effort, he
was lifted to his berth, and within an hour breathed his last. Hawkins
had died off Puerto Rico six weeks previously.

The following narrative is in the main the composition of Walter Biggs,
who commanded a company of musketeers under Carlile. Biggs was one of
the five hundred and odd men who succumbed to the fever. He died shortly
after the fleet sailed from Carthagena; and the narrative was completed
by some comrade. The story of this expedition, which had inflicted such
damaging blows on the Spaniards in America, was eminently calculated to
inspire courage among those who were resisting them in Europe. Cates,
one of Carlile's lieutenants, obtained the manuscript and prepared