The _Elizabeth_ was commanded by Captain
Winter, a Queen's officer, and perhaps a son of the old admiral.
We may credit Drake with knowing what he was about. He and his comrades
were carrying their lives in their hands. If they were taken they would
be inevitably hanged. Their safety depended on speed of sailing, and
specially on the power of working fast to windward, which the heavy
square-rigged ships could not do. The crews all told were 160 men and
boys. Drake had his brother John with him. Among his officers were the
chaplain, Mr. Fletcher, another minister of some kind who spoke Spanish,
and in one of the sloops a mysterious Mr. Doughty. Who Mr. Doughty was,
and why he was sent out, is uncertain. When an expedition of consequence
was on hand, the Spanish party in the Cabinet usually attached to it
some second in command whose business was to defeat the object. When
Drake went to Cadiz in after years to singe King Philip's beard, he had
a colleague sent with him whom he had to lock into his cabin before he
could get to his work. So far as I can make out, Mr. Doughty had a
similar commission. On this occasion secrecy was impossible. It was
generally known that Drake was going to the Pacific through Magellan
Straits, to act afterwards on his own judgment.
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