Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the World

Overview

About thirty pages, a firsthand account of Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of 1577 to 1580, printed by Richard Hakluyt in The Principal Navigations in 1589 and attributed to Francis Pretty, a gentleman on the voyage. It describes the passage through the Strait of Magellan and the execution of Thomas Doughty at Port St Julian.

The account continues with the plunder of Spanish ships and towns along the Pacific coast of the Americas, the landing in what Drake named Nova Albion in California, the crossing to the Moluccas and the return to Plymouth by the Cape of Good Hope.

What happens

Through the Strait of Magellan. Drake’s fleet passes through the treacherous Strait of Magellan, a considerable navigational achievement opening the way into the Pacific for what would become the first English circumnavigation of the globe.

Doughty’s execution at Port St Julian. At Port St Julian, Drake orders the execution of Thomas Doughty, a fellow Englishman and former friend condemned for alleged mutiny and witchcraft, exposing command’s brutal underside within the expedition.

Plundering the Pacific coast. Drake’s fleet plunders Spanish ships and towns along the Pacific coast of the Americas, a sustained campaign of privateering violence against Spanish colonial possessions running throughout this stretch of the voyage.

Naming Nova Albion. Drake lands in California and names the territory Nova Albion, staking a symbolic English claim on the Pacific coast decades before any sustained English colonization there would actually begin.

Crossing to the Moluccas. Drake’s fleet crosses the Pacific to the Moluccas, the spice islands, continuing the voyage’s considerable geographical reach into waters largely unfamiliar to English navigators at the time.

Return to Plymouth. Drake completes his circumnavigation by returning to Plymouth via the Cape of Good Hope, concluding the first English voyage to successfully circle the entire globe.

How to read it

Read the execution of Thomas Doughty, a fellow Englishman Drake condemned for alleged mutiny and witchcraft, as exposing command’s genuinely brutal underside during a voyage otherwise celebrated for its unprecedented navigational achievement, complicating any simple heroic narrative.

Pay close attention to how naming California Nova Albion stakes an English territorial claim on the Pacific coast decades before sustained English colonization there actually began, a symbolic gesture asserting future ambition beyond what contemporary English power could then practically back.

Notice how the systematic plunder of Spanish ships and towns along the Pacific coast reframes what popular memory often celebrates as heroic circumnavigation as simultaneously a sustained campaign of privateering violence, profit and patriotic aggression inseparably intertwined throughout the voyage.

Consider that this account, attributed to Francis Pretty, a gentleman who actually sailed on the voyage and witnessed these events directly, and preserved through Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, gives readers genuine participant testimony rather than later secondhand reconstruction.

Read this account beside Nichols’s later Sir Francis Drake Revived: that narrative covers Drake’s earlier 1572 raid on the Spanish Main, so together the two texts trace how the same captain’s methods of privateering and alliance developed into the considerably more ambitious circumnavigation recorded here.

Questions it raises

• Does Thomas Doughty’s execution at Port St Julian represent justified discipline necessary for maintaining command during a genuinely dangerous voyage, or does this episode reveal troubling brutality that complicates any straightforward celebration of Drake’s leadership and achievement?
• How should a reader weigh the systematic plunder of Spanish possessions against the voyage’s considerable navigational and geographical achievement? Does circumnavigation’s genuine accomplishment excuse or simply coexist uncomfortably with sustained privateering violence throughout the journey?
• What does naming California Nova Albion accomplish beyond simple geographical labeling? Does this symbolic territorial claim reveal genuine English colonial ambition, or does it function more as momentary gesture without practical follow-through at the time?
• How does this account’s attribution to Francis Pretty, an actual participant in the voyage, shape its reliability and perspective compared to accounts compiled later from secondhand reports? Does firsthand participation guarantee greater accuracy, or does it also risk self-serving bias?
• Given that Hakluyt preserved this account within his broader Principal Navigations collection, what does this editorial context suggest about how English readers of the period understood Drake’s voyage within a larger narrative of national maritime achievement and expansion?
• What does the considerable geographical range covered, Strait of Magellan to California to the Moluccas to the Cape of Good Hope, suggest about the actual scope of English maritime ambition and capability during this specific historical period?