Sidebar: A Pirate’s Tale

The History of the Americans

Back in April 2021, as we traveled the Florida Keys for a vacation much-deserved by my wife, who has been working very hard, and not-at-all deserved by me, I read a good part of Samuel Bawlf’s book “The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580.” This was part of my advance reading for Drake’s exploration of the west coast of the United States on, well, a secret mission for Queen Elizabeth I of England. The book includes a prelude chapter that I thought so good, and so evocative of the tradition of privateering in exactly the part of the country in which I was vacationing, that I am going to read it aloud. Herewith, a pirate’s story, with another remarkable story of survival in the New World toward the end. Selected references for this episode Samuel Bawlf, The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580 John Toohey, "The Long, Forgotten Walk of David Ingram" Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation