DAWN AND THE DONS 14
and had added the Philippine Islands to the Spanish Dominions. Cabrillo, in a vain search for the Strait of Anian, had discovered and given Spain the far flung shore line of California. These were Spain’s Pacific jewels, to guard which she desired to advance her frontier northward along the Californian coast to a point where Spanish settlement and occupation would afford some measure of protection against the movements of rival nations.
The need for just such protection had become abundantly apparent. Sir Francis Drake, with at least the tacit consent of his British sovereign, sailed across the Atlantic, through the Straits of Magellan, and into the Pacific in 1579. Drake’s ship, the Golden Hind, was most sump DRAKE tuously and luxuriantly fitted out and supplied, and Drake himself, clad in gorgeous dress, assumed a lordly air. This was largely to impress the people he should encounter.
Drake’s purposes were two-fold; to prey upon Spanish commerce, and to lay the foundation for British territorial expansion. After plundering Spanish towns and ships, and filling his own ship with accumulated treasure, he sailed northward along the Californian coast,
