Name Index

To

Sir Francis Drake

London, Macmillan, (1911), portrait, vi, 209 pp.

by

Julian Stafford Corbett

Prepared by Michael Steer

The author was a prominent naval historian and geo-strategist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works helped shape the Royal Navy's reforms of that era. One of his most famous works is Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, which remains a classic among students of naval warfare. Corbett was chosen to write the official history of British Naval operations during World War I. The renowned subject of the present biography was sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician in the Elizabethan era. Drake carried out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete it as captain and leader of the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588, and died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico. His exploits were legendary, making him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards to whom he was known as El Draque. King Philip II was said to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats (about £4 million by modern standards), for his life. This rare and much sought-after book was produced digitally by Google from a copy in the University of California Library collection and can be downloaded from HathiTrust. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.