One thing is certain, that he received sufficient help to fit out five
small vessels, with one hundred and sixty-four men. With these he sailed
from Falmouth, England, in December of 1577. With the exception of
perhaps one or two of the rich men who had helped him, no one, not even
his men, knew of his plans.

After a long and interesting voyage in which one vessel was lost and the
others, though he did not know it, had deserted him, he found himself
with but one ship beating his way up the coast of Lower California. This
was his flagship Pelican, which he had rechristened the Golden Hind. It
was then so laden with rich booty, that it was like a hawk which had
stolen too heavy a chicken, driven this way and that by the winds,
scarcely able to reach its nest.

In addition to a good store of Chile wines and foods of various kinds,
there were packed away in the hold of the Golden Hind, twenty-five
thousand pesos of gold, eight thousand pounds of English money, and a
great cross of gold with "emeralds near as large as a man's finger."
From one vessel Drake had taken one hundred-weight of silver; from a
messenger of the mines, who was sleeping beside a spring on the Peruvian
coast, thirteen bars of solid silver; off the backs of a train of little
gray llamas, the camels of the Andes, eight hundred pounds of silver;
and besides all these were large quantities of gold and silver that were
not recorded in the ship's list, and stores of pearls, diamonds,
emeralds, silks, and porcelain.

The last prize taken was the Spanish treasure ship Cacafuegos. Drake had
transferred its cargo and crew to his own vessel and, for a time, manned
it with some of his men. Its noble commander, St. John de Anton, who had
been wounded in the attack, received every possible attention on the