The expression is good-humoured, but absolutely inflexible, not a
weak line to be seen. He was of middle height, powerfully built, perhaps
too powerfully for grace, unless the quilted doublet in which the artist
has dressed him exaggerates his breadth.
I have seen another portrait of him, with pretensions to authenticity,
in which he appears with a slighter figure, eyes dark, full, thoughtful,
and stern, a sailor's cord about his neck with a whistle attached to it,
and a ring into which a thumb is carelessly thrust, the weight of the
arms resting on it, as if in a characteristic attitude. Evidently this
is a carefully drawn likeness of some remarkable seaman of the time. I
should like to believe it to be Drake, but I can feel no certainty about
it.
We left him returned home in the Judith from San Juan de Ulloa, a ruined
man. He had never injured the Spaniards. He had gone out with his cousin
merely to trade, and he had met with a hearty reception from the
settlers wherever he had been. A Spanish admiral had treacherously set
upon him and his kinsman, destroyed half their vessels, and robbed them
of all that they had. They had left a hundred of their comrades behind
them, for whose fate they might fear the worst.
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