Francis Drake the Younger · 1628 · sea

The account published in 1628 by Drake's nephew from the chaplain's notes: the second circumnavigation, 1577 to 1580, and the first by a commander who survived it. A voyage sold to the crew as a trip to Alexandria, which returned three years later with enough Spanish silver to clear the entire national debt.

1. 1
   Plymouth

   December 1577, and five ships leave on a voyage the crews are told is bound for Alexandria - the Queen having invested privately in something she can disown, which is the whole basis of the enterprise.

2. 2
   Mogador

   The Moroccan coast, and the first prizes taken - Drake's method from the start being to sail as an explorer, act as a pirate, and keep the paperwork ambiguous enough to survive an inquiry.

3. 3
   Port St Julian

   Patagonia, and Thomas Doughty tried for mutiny and beheaded on the beach where Magellan had hanged his own mutineers fifty-eight years earlier - Drake pointing out the coincidence to the assembled crews.

4. 4
   The Strait of Magellan

   Sixteen days through, faster than anyone before or for long after - and then a storm on the far side that scatters the fleet, loses one ship and sends another home, leaving Drake alone in the Pacific.

5. 5
   Valparaiso

   Up a coast where no enemy has ever appeared, taking towns and shipping that have no defences because nobody has ever needed any - the most profitable stretch of piracy in the sixteenth century.

6. 6
   Lima

   Callao, and the news of a treasure ship a fortnight ahead - the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, nicknamed Cacafuego, taken off Ecuador with so much silver aboard that it took six days to tranship.

7. 7
   Guatulco

   The last Spanish port sacked, on the Mexican coast - after which Drake turns north-west and disappears from every record kept by anyone who might have reported him.

8. 8
   Nova Albion

   A bay somewhere on the California coast, careening the Golden Hind for five weeks and claiming the country for England with a brass plate - and the location argued over ever since.

9. 9
   Ternate

   The Moluccas, and a treaty with the Sultan for cloves - six tons of it loaded, which is the cargo that turns the voyage from a raid into the most profitable investment in English history.

10. 10
    Java

    South round the archipelago, having run the Golden Hind onto a reef off Sulawesi and got her off by throwing three tons of cloves and eight guns overboard - the closest the voyage came to ending.

11. 11
    Sierra Leone

    Across the Indian Ocean, round the Cape and up the Atlantic - watering on the African coast with fifty-nine men left of the hundred and sixty-four who sailed.

12. 12
    Plymouth

    26 September 1580, and the first question shouted from the Golden Hind to a fishing boat in the Sound is whether the Queen is still alive - because if she is not, the whole crew are pirates.