On November 15, 1577, the Pelican and her consort sailed out of Plymouth Sound.  The elements frowned on their start.  On the second day they were caught in a winter gale.  The Pelican sprung her mainmast, and they put back to refit and repair.  But Drake defied auguries.  Before the middle of December all was again in order.  The weather mended, and with a fair wind and smooth water they made a fast run across the Bay of Biscay and down the coast to the Cape de Verde Islands.  There taking up the north-east trades, they struck across the Atlantic, crossed the line, and made the South American continent in latitude 33 deg.  South.  They passed the mouth of the Plate River, finding to their astonishment fresh water at the ship’s side in fifty-four fathoms.  All seemed so far going well, when one morning Mr. Doughty’s sloop was missing, and he along with her.  Drake, it seemed, had already reason to distrust Doughty, and guessed the direction in which he had gone.  The Marigold was sent in pursuit, and he was overtaken and brought back.  To prevent a repetition of such a performance, Drake took the sloop’s stores out of her, burnt her, distributed the crew through the other vessels, and took Mr. Doughty under his own charge.  On June 20 they reached Port St. Julian, on the coast of Patagonia.  They had been long on the way, and the southern winter had come round, and they had to delay further to make more particular inquiry into Doughty’s desertion.  An ominous and strange spectacle met their eyes as they entered the harbour.  In that utterly desolate spot a skeleton was hanging on a gallows, the bones picked clean by the vultures.  It was one of Magellan’s crew who had been executed there for mutiny fifty years before.  The same fate was to befall the unhappy Englishman who had been guilty of the same fault.  Without the strictest discipline it was impossible for the enterprise to succeed, and Doughty had been guilty of worse than disobedience.  We are told briefly that his conduct was found tending to contention, and threatening the success of the voyage.  Part he was said to have confessed; part was proved against him—­one knows not what.  A court was formed out of the crew.  He was tried, as near as circumstances allowed, according to English usage.  He was found guilty, and was sentenced to die.  He made no complaint, or none of which a record is preserved.  He asked for the Sacrament, which was of course allowed, and Drake himself communicated with him.  They then kissed each other, and the unlucky wretch took leave of his comrades, laid his head on the block, and so ended.  His offence can be only guessed; but the suspicious curiosity about his fate which was shown afterwards by Mendoza makes it likely that he was in Spanish pay.  The ambassador cross-questioned Captain Winter very particularly about him, and we learn one remarkable fact from Mendoza’s letters not mentioned by any English writer, that Drake was himself the executioner, choosing to bear the entire responsibility.