ake returned to England, August 9, 1573. In dividing the treasure he
showed the strictest honor, and even generosity; yet his share was
large enough to pay for fitting out three ships, with which he served
as a volunteer in Ireland, under the Earl of Essex, and "did excellent
service both by sea and land in the winning of divers strong forts."
In 1577, he obtained a commission from Queen Elizabeth to conduct a
squadron into the South Seas. What was the purport of the commission
we do not find; it appears from subsequent passages that it gave to
Drake the power of life and death over his followers; but it would
seem from the queen's hesitation in approving his proceedings, that it
was not intended to authorize (at least formally) his depradations on
Spanish property.

With five ships, the largest the Pelican, of one hundred tons burden,
the smallest a pinnace of fifteen tons, manned in all with only 164
men, Drake sailed from Plymouth, November 15, 1577, to visit seas
where no English vessel had ever sailed. Without serious loss, or
adventure worthy of notice, the fleet arrived at Port St. Julian, on
the coast of Patagonia, June 20, 1578. Here the discoverer Magellan
had tried and executed his second in command on the charge of mutiny,
and the same spot did Drake select to perform a similar tragedy. He
accused the officer next to himself, Thomas Doughty, of plots to
defeat the expedition and take his life; plots undertaken, he said,
before they had left England. "Proofs were required and alleged, so
many and so evident, that the gentleman himself, stricken with
remorse, acknowledged himself to have deserved death;" and of three
things presented to him, either immediate execution, or to be set on
shore on the main, or to be sent home to answer for his conduct, he
chose the former; and having at his own request received the
sacrament, together with Drake, and dined with him in further token
of amity, he cheerfully laid his head on the block, according to the
sentence pronounced by forty of the chiefest persons in the fleet.
Such is the account published by Drake's nephew, in "The World
Encompassed," of which we shall only observe, without passing judgment
on the action, that Drake's conduct in taking out a person whom he
knew to be ill affected to him, was as singular as is the behavior and
sudden and acute penitence attributed to Doughty. But we have no
account from any friend of the sufferer. It is fair to state the
jud