fall to idlenesse and to great extremytie. Her Majesty’s pleasure
therefore ys that those kinde of people should be sent forth of the
lande, and for that purpose there ys direction given to this bearer
Edwarde Banes to take of those blackmoores that in this last voyage under
Sir Thomas Baskervile were brought into this realme the nomber of tenn, to
be transported by him out of the realme. Wherein wee require you to
be aydinge and assysting unto him as he shall have occacion, and
thereof not to faile.^20The voyage Elizabeth references, the “last [i.e., latest] voyage” of Thomas
Baskerville (of 1595 – 96 ), is now more often known as the final voyage of John
Hawkins and Francis Drake.^21 Both Hawkins and Drake died during the ex-
pedition, and Baskerville, who had been commissioned as colonel-general of
the land troops, ended up in charge.^22 Initially, the venture was designed to
recharge England’s waning efforts against the Spanish. Drake and Hawkins
proposed sending ships to the isthmus of Panama to intercept the silver Spain
was bringing from Peru and so to cripple the Spanish economically and mil-
itarily.^23 Elizabeth, however, was troubled about rumors that the Spanish were
advancing on England and insisted on a project closer to home. As a compro-
mise, Drake and Hawkins scaled back their plans, and the queen agreed to a
raid on a Spanish ship grounded in San Juan de Puerto Rico, loaded with “tow
myllyons and a hallf of tresure.”^24
Despite its limited aims, the mission in San Juan failed, and Hawkins, in
the meantime, died. Drake then turned to the coast of what early maps de-
picted as the West Indian mainland and waged an assault on the town of Rio
de la Hacha, “a pearl-fishing settlement consisting of about fifty houses,” oc-
cupied by the Spanish.^25 According to the account in Hakluyt, the Spanish
governor, Manso de Contreras, tried to negotiate a ransom for the town, but
apparently not to Drake’s liking.^26 As a result, while Baskerville stormed a
main outpost, “the Generall,” Drake, “with some hundreth and fiftie men
went by water sixe leagues to the Eastward, and tooke the Rancheria a fisher
towne, where they drag for pearle. The people all fled except some sixteene or
twenty souldiers, which fought a little, but some were taken prisoners, besides
many Negros, with some store of pearles and other pillage” ( 10 : 234 ; emphasis
added). Again the Spanish governor attempted to set a ransom, as, he later ad-
mitted, a stalling tactic to buy time for other towns to prepare for the attacks
of the English. When he finally announced that “he cared not for the towne,
neither would he ransome it,” Drake allowed the Spanish to clear out, and
104 chapter four