ABSTRACT
Four years after Sir Francis Drake returned from his voyage of circumnavigation, and more than three years before the Armada left Spain, Drake was preparing for a new expedition, ultimately the West Indies venture of 1585-86. This enterprise, which included a stop on the Spanish coast, raids on towns in the Caribbean region and Florida, and a call at Roanoke, is viewed not merely as a voyage of exploration but also as a chapter in the developing antagonism between England and Spain in the New World and in the Old. While Drake was away tales of his exploits filtered back to England, mostly by way of Spain, 1 and in less than a year after his return late in July 1586 Thomas Greepe's newsballad, The True and Perfecte Newes . .. 1587, published along with news of the latest venture at Cadiz, 2 was extolling Drake's achievements in the West Indies. Presently there followed a longer prose narrative, A Summarie and True Discourse, issued in the Armada year at Leyden in both French and Latin, and in 1589 in English, with Captain Waiter Bigges designated as the principal author.3 This is the account which Richard Hakluyt included in his second edition of the Principal Navigations, in 1600.4 It became the basis
1 'Advertisements' from Spain, often exaggerated, were circulating as early as January I58s/6. See Julian S. Corbett, ed., Papers Relating to the Navy during the Spanish War (Navy Records Society XI, London, I898), pp. 56-69. This will be referred to hereafter as Corbett, Sp. War. Other examples are in The Fugger News-Letters ... 1568-1605, ed. by Victor von Klarwill, First series, London [I924, I928]; second series, London [ 1926].
