the fugitive townsfolk whose flight showed that the governor meant to make a stand, though he had said the embargo had been lifted and that all the English prisoners were at liberty to go.  Some English sailors, however, were still being held; so Drake sent in an armed party and brought them off, with a good pile of reprisal booty too.  Then he put to sea and made for the Spanish Main by way of the Portuguese African islands.

The plan of campaign drawn up for Burleigh’s information still exists.  It shows that Drake, the consummate raider, was also an admiral of the highest kind.  The items, showing how long each part should take and what loot each place should yield, are exact and interesting.  But it is in the relation of every part to every other part and to the whole that the original genius of the born commander shines forth in all its glory.  After taking San Domingo he was to sack Margarita, La Hacha, and Santa Marta, razing their fortifications as he left.  Cartagena and Nombre de Dios came next.  Then Carleill was to raid Panama, with the help of the Maroons, while Drake himself was to raid the coast of Honduras.  Finally, with reunited forces, he would take Havana and, if possible, hold it by leaving a sufficient garrison behind.  Thus he would paralyze New Spain by destroying all the points of junction along its lines of communication just when Philip stood most in need of its help for completing the Great Armada.

But, like a mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his stride during the preliminary canter before the great race.  The wind being foul for the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde archipelago and captured Santiago, which had been abandoned in terror on the approach of the English ‘Dragon,’ that sinister hero of Lope de Vega’s epic onslaught La Dragontea.  As good luck would have it, Carleill marched in on the anniversary of the Queen’s accession, the 17th of November.  So there was a royal salute fired in Her Majesty’s honor by land and sea.  No treasure was found, French privateers had sacked the place three years before and had killed off everyone they caught; the Portuguese, therefore, were not going to wait to meet the English ‘Dragon’ too.  The force that marched inland failed to unearth the governor.  So San Domingo, Santiago, and Porto Pravda were all burnt to the ground before the fleet bore away for the West Indies.

San Domingo in Hispaniola (Hayti) was made in due course, but only after a virulent epidemic had seriously thinned the ranks.  San Domingo was the oldest town in New Spain and was strongly garrisoned and fortified.  But Carleill’s soldiers carried all before them.  Drake battered down the seaward walls.  The Spaniards abandoned the citadel at night, and the English took the whole place as a New Year’s gift for 1586.  But again there was no treasure.  The Spaniards had killed off the Caribs in war or in the mines, so that nothing was now dug out.  Moreover the