Spain it was held the
queen city of the colonial empire. The moral effect of its capture would
be profound, and, besides, from Virginia the governor of Raleigh's new
colony had sent home a fabulous report of its wealth. Drake was fully
alive to the gravity of the task before him. His dispositions had never
been so elaborate, and they evince at least a touch of that military
genius which the strategists of the next century denied him. While the
sick were recruiting he sent forward a squadron to reconnoitre, and, if
possible, to open communications with the maroons who infested the
hills. For three days the garrison was thus exhausted with constant
alarms, and then on January 1, 1586, the whole fleet appeared in the
bay.

Night fell, and, as darkness closed the eyes of the harassed garrison,
with the fleet all was activity. In boats and pinnaces the troops were
being rapidly embarked, and soon Drake in person was piloting the
flotilla for the surf-beaten shore. At a point within the bay, but some
ten miles from the town, a practicable landing-place had been found.
Watch-houses overlooked it, but watchmen there were none. Drake had got
touch with the maroons. By his directions a party of them had stolen
down from the hills, and as the sentries came out from the city in the
evening, swiftly and silently they had been every one despatched. Thus,
unseen and unmolested, the troops were successfully landed, and then,
with pious and cheery farewells to Carleill, Drake returned to the fleet
to prepare the ground for the surprise.

In the morning he anchored in the road, ran out his guns, and proceeded
to threaten a landing at a point close to that side of the town upon
which Carleill was stealthily approaching in two parallel columns. As
the Spaniards saw the fleet preparing the advance of the boats and
pinnaces, the whole of the horse and a large force of foot marched out
of the town to oppose the threatened attack, and took up a position
fronting the sea, with their left resting on the town and the other
flank exposed in the line of Carleill's advance. It was exactly what had
been foreseen, and, ere the Spaniards had discovered that the movement
from the fleet was merely a feint, the horse which were covering their
exposed flank were flying before Carleill's musketeers.

The surprise was complete. Taken in flank by Carleill, and threatened in
the rear by his second column under Powell, the chief of the staff, the
infantry co