They recognized in it the hand of God,
whose will it evidently was that they should no longer be sojourners
in the American wilderness; and the first English settlement of
'Virginia' was abandoned accordingly.
Ten years afterwards (1595) Drake was again at the head of a similar
expedition. The second command was given to his old associate Hawkins,
Frobisher, his Vice-Admiral in 1585, having recently died of the wound
received at Crozon. This time Nombre de Dios was taken and burnt, and
750 soldiers set out under Sir Thomas Baskerville to march to Panama:
but at the first of the three forts which the Spaniards had by this
time constructed, the march had to be abandoned. Drake did not long
survive this second failure of his favourite scheme. He was attacked
by dysentery a fortnight afterwards, and in a month he died. When he
felt the hand of death upon him, he rose, dressed himself, and
endeavoured to make a farewell speech to those around him. Exhausted
by the effort, he was lifted to his berth, and within an hour breathed
his last. Hawkins had died off Puerto Rico six weeks previously.
The following narrative is in the main the composition of Walter Biggs,
who commanded a company of musketeers under Carlile. Biggs was one of
the five hundred and odd men who succumbed to the fever. He died
shortly after the fleet sailed from Carthagena; and the narrative was
completed by some comrade.
