Doug Collins

THERE WERE plenty of wonders to be seen at Expo the
other day — space capsules and all that, plus the Viscount
spreading its beautiful wings overhead. But those weren't the
things that thrilled me most. What caused my toes to tingle
was peering and poking around the replica of that glorious lit-
tle ship the Golden Hinde. the original of which sailed round
the world 400 years ago.

She was Sir Francis Drake's
craft, of course. In her he dared un-

® get this straight ®

In TS88 he beat the hell out of the
Spanish Armada, ind as kids we
would listen bug-eved as the history
teachers recounted his exploits.

He died at sea, and three cen-
turies later Henry Newbolt wrote a
poem about him — Drake's Drum.
Here's a verse from it:

Drake he waa Devon man ane
sailed the Devon Seas,

(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there
below?)

Rovin’ though his death fell. he
went with heart at case,

ela’ dreamine art the tine o°
Plymouth Hoe,

Pte tae gL ee

Take my drum to Enyland, hany
et by the shore,

Sutke et when your powder's
runnin’ low,

For tf the Dons sight Devon, Vi
quit the port of Heaven,

Aa? drum them up the Channel
as we drummed them long avo.

charted waters and looted treasure
ships on the fabulous Spanish
Main. He also singed the beard of
the King of Spain at Cadiz. No
wimp, Sir Francis. We could do
with someone like him in Ottawa,
but all we have is Joe Clark.

Like its copy, the aptly-named
Golden Hinde had a mere 100 tons
burthen, was only 75 feet at the
waterline and 20 feet in the beam
Yet Drake packed 116 men into her.
To look at her, though, you woula
think she couldn't take many more
than the 12 who sailed her here
from) England, using Drake’s
original route through the Strait of
Mageflan.

For his achievement — and for
delivering so much booty — this
great captain was knighted on the
deck of his ship by Queen Elizabeth
1. And while on this side of the
world he teft an inscribed — brass
plate on the Californian shore.
Miraculously, the pigte was found
in 1936 on a beach 20 miles from
San Francisco. He may also have
come up this coast. { like to think
he did, but no one knows for sure.

At that time, they hadn't in-
vented longitude. Even the humble
hammock was unknown, Drake
himself must have had a bed of
sorts, but the officers had to pig it
and the men slept between the guns
or on any patch they could find.
They didn’t even have straw, that
being a fire hazard when battle
began.

There was no plumbing, cither.
The officers’ ‘‘washroom" was a
grill over the ocean at the rear of
the ship, while the men used the
small ‘‘beakhead’’ behind the
bowsprit, which must have been a
bit crowded at times. (The word
“‘beakhead’’ was later shortened to
“head’’, a shipboard term that is
still with us.)

Mr. Roddy Coleman, co-owner
of the Golden Hinde, tells me the
original ship didn’t require a crew
of 116. Drake took that many so
that he'd have enough men to sail
captured vessels, and to allow for
death and injury. When she put in
at Plymouth after her great voyage,
there were 65 on board,

Cramped quarters and hard
decks weren't the only discomforts
Elizabethan sailors had to put up
with. Scurvy and other diseases
were also the norm, proper ship-
board diet not having been in-
vented, either. But the Devon men
of those days needed no enticing to
sail with the greatest English sailor
of his age. If they were unlucky, of
course, they became dead; if lucky,
rich.

In 1580, when Drake got back
from the voyage that had started in
1577, the humblest man on board
walked away with 8,000 pounds, a
huge sum in those days.

Do they still teach the kids about
Drake in our schools?) Prabably
not. [ft wouldn't be good for
multiculk. If they mention him at atl
they probably put him down as a
war criminal or something, our
world having become so delicate.
For Drake was, above all, a fighter.

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