VOC,
Michael Turner, wh is the source of information on the web site you quote, is a nice chap, but like many others, he accepts the official Hakluyt account of Drake's voyage as if it were written in stone. This account places Drake's anchorage in the region of San Francisco, but it is very easy to demonstrate that it is unreliable, and was falsified in a number of places for political reasons. This was because the Queen and Drake wanted to keep secret from arch-rivals Spain the fact that Drake had been searching for the Pacific entrance to the fabled North West Passage. In fact, Drake believed that he had found the start of the Passage, and immediately he got back to England, he began to organize a return trip to the Pacific. He was promising investors 7 times their investment, and saying that he would make the trip in less than one year because he had found a short way back. I am pretty certain that what he did was to sail into the Juan de Fuca Strait that separates Vancouver Island from the US-Canadian mainland, and went reached Georgia Sound, before giving up the search, because he could not find the next stage of the Passage. This is because it did not exist in that area, of course. He spent teh summer at Whale Cove, on the Oregon Coast, repairing the Golden Hind, and when he went back to England with most of the treasure he had captured from the Spanish, he left behind the small Spanish ship that he had captured off Costa Rica, along with a crew opf about two dozen, so that they could winter on the Oregon Coast, and then resume the exploration of the Passage early in the spring.
When Drake got back to England, a great veil of secrecy was thrown around his voyage. All his logs and charts were confiscated by the Queen and never seen again, his crew were sworn to secrecy about tehir movements, under pain of death, and no accounts of the voyage were allowed to be published for about ten years. When the official account was published in 1589, the Queen was still not willing to reveal details of Drake's search for the Northwest Passage, so the account was falsified. The most northerly latitude quoted was 42 degrees, and his anchorage as 38 degrees.
However, in teh British Library, there are two hand-written accounts of the voyage saying that Drake went as far as 48 degrees searching for the Passage, but being unable to find it, returned to 44 degrees, which is on the Oreggon coast, where he repaired his ship. These accounts were not published in Drake's time, so were not subject to the same Royal censorship as the Hakluyt account. Hakluyt worked for the Queen's devious Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, who was responsible for relations with Spain. Part of the reason for the secrecy was also to protect the crew that Drake had left behind, though I think they were long dead by then. I think I know where the wreck of their ship is, and sets of skeletons were found there eighty years ago.
There is evidence that Drake wanted to publish his own account of the voyage in 1592, but the Queen would not allow it, so the secret died with Drake and the Queen.
I published this theory in the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society way back in July 1981, and a few years ago, a guy called Sam Bawlf, who was a business associate of my brother, published a book called "The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake" in which he extensively plagiarized my research and findings. (The b*****d)
I am only now getting round to putting my research onto a web-site.
Incidentally, Drake did the same thing about his discovery that the Atlantic and Pacific met below the southern tip of South America. If you read Hakluyt's account, you would not know this. At that time, it was generally believed that the south bank of the Magellan Strait was the start of a large Antarctic continent. Finding that there was an alternative sea route south of the Strait was far too important a discovery to share with Spain.
Hands up anybody who thinks that a Government would never put out a false account of an important discovery!
As I said in a previous post, I will provide details of the web site in about a week's time. Meanwhile, don't believe everything you read.
Mariner
Michael Turner, wh is the source of information on the web site you quote, is a nice chap, but like many others, he accepts the official Hakluyt account of Drake's voyage as if it were written in stone. This account places Drake's anchorage in the region of San Francisco, but it is very easy to demonstrate that it is unreliable, and was falsified in a number of places for political reasons. This was because the Queen and Drake wanted to keep secret from arch-rivals Spain the fact that Drake had been searching for the Pacific entrance to the fabled North West Passage. In fact, Drake believed that he had found the start of the Passage, and immediately he got back to England, he began to organize a return trip to the Pacific. He was promising investors 7 times their investment, and saying that he would make the trip in less than one year because he had found a short way back. I am pretty certain that what he did was to sail into the Juan de Fuca Strait that separates Vancouver Island from the US-Canadian mainland, and went reached Georgia Sound, before giving up the search, because he could not find the next stage of the Passage. This is because it did not exist in that area, of course. He spent teh summer at Whale Cove, on the Oregon Coast, repairing the Golden Hind, and when he went back to England with most of the treasure he had captured from the Spanish, he left behind the small Spanish ship that he had captured off Costa Rica, along with a crew opf about two dozen, so that they could winter on the Oregon Coast, and then resume the exploration of the Passage early in the spring.
When Drake got back to England, a great veil of secrecy was thrown around his voyage. All his logs and charts were confiscated by the Queen and never seen again, his crew were sworn to secrecy about tehir movements, under pain of death, and no accounts of the voyage were allowed to be published for about ten years. When the official account was published in 1589, the Queen was still not willing to reveal details of Drake's search for the Northwest Passage, so the account was falsified. The most northerly latitude quoted was 42 degrees, and his anchorage as 38 degrees.
However, in teh British Library, there are two hand-written accounts of the voyage saying that Drake went as far as 48 degrees searching for the Passage, but being unable to find it, returned to 44 degrees, which is on the Oreggon coast, where he repaired his ship. These accounts were not published in Drake's time, so were not subject to the same Royal censorship as the Hakluyt account. Hakluyt worked for the Queen's devious Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, who was responsible for relations with Spain. Part of the reason for the secrecy was also to protect the crew that Drake had left behind, though I think they were long dead by then. I think I know where the wreck of their ship is, and sets of skeletons were found there eighty years ago.
There is evidence that Drake wanted to publish his own account of the voyage in 1592, but the Queen would not allow it, so the secret died with Drake and the Queen.
I published this theory in the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society way back in July 1981, and a few years ago, a guy called Sam Bawlf, who was a business associate of my brother, published a book called "The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake" in which he extensively plagiarized my research and findings. (The b*****d)
I am only now getting round to putting my research onto a web-site.
Incidentally, Drake did the same thing about his discovery that the Atlantic and Pacific met below the southern tip of South America. If you read Hakluyt's account, you would not know this. At that time, it was generally believed that the south bank of the Magellan Strait was the start of a large Antarctic continent. Finding that there was an alternative sea route south of the Strait was far too important a discovery to share with Spain.
Hands up anybody who thinks that a Government would never put out a false account of an important discovery!
As I said in a previous post, I will provide details of the web site in about a week's time. Meanwhile, don't believe everything you read.
Mariner
