Two years later he made a most daring attempt to take the town of Nombre de Dios, and would probably have succeeded had he not been wounded.  He fainted from loss of blood.  His men carried him back on board and suspended the attack.  On his recovery he met with complete success, and returned to Plymouth in 1573 with a large amount of treasure openly torn from a nation with which England was at peace, arriving at the very time that Philip’s ambassador to Queen Elizabeth was negotiating a treaty of peace.  Drake had no letters of marque, and consequently was guilty of piracy in the eyes of the law, the penalty for which was hanging.  The Spaniards were naturally very angry, and clamored for restitution or compensation and Drake’s punishment, but the queen, who shared the pirate’s hatred of the Spaniards, sent him timely advice to keep out of the way.

In 1580 he returned from another voyage in the West Indies, just when a body of so-called papal volunteers had landed in Ireland.  They had been brought by a Spanish officer in Spanish ships, and the queen, pending a satisfactory explanation, refused to receive Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, and hear his complaints of Drake’s piracies.  When his ships had been brought round in the Thames, she visited him on board and conferred on him the honor of knighthood.  From this time onward he became a servant of the crown.[38]

It was this redoubtable sea-rover who, according to advices received early in 1595, was preparing an expedition in England for the purpose of wresting her West Indian possessions from Spain.  The expedition was brought to naught, through the disagreements between Drake and Hawkyns, who both commanded it, by administrative blunders and vexatious delays in England.  The Spaniards were everywhere forewarned and goaded to action by the terror of Drake’s name.

Notwithstanding this, the island’s fate, seeing its defenseless condition, would, no doubt, have been sealed at that time but for a most fortunate occurrence which brought to its shores the forces that enabled it to repulse the attack.  Acosta’s annotations on Abbad’s history contains the following details of the events in San Juan at the time: 

“General Sancho Pardo y Osorio sailed from Havana March 10, 1595, in the flagship of the Spanish West Indian fleet, to convoy some merchantmen and convey 2,000,000 pesos in gold and silver, the greater part the property of his Majesty the king.  The flagship carried 300 men.

“On the 15th, when in the Bermuda channel, a storm separated the convoy from the other ships, sent her mainmast overboard, broke her rudder, and the ship sprang a leak.  In this condition, after a consultation among the officers, it was decided to repair the damage as well as possible and steer for Puerto Rico, which they reached on the 9th of April.  The treasure was placed in security in the fort and messengers despatched to the king to learn his Majesty’s commands.