Pirates and pirates
or one man’s pirate is another man’s privateer- ie gives the cash to the Queen.
2 of England’s most famous pirates/privateers
Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer and privateer best known for making the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580 (being the first English expedition to accomplish this). He is also known for participating in the early English slaving voyages
In 1572, he set sail on his first independent mission, privateering along the Spanish Main. Drake's circumnavigation began on 15 December 1577. He crossed the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and laid claim to New Albion, plundering coastal towns and ships for treasure and supplies as he went. He arrived back in England on 26 September 1580. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581.
Drake was a member of parliament (MP) but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque ("The Dragon" in old Spanish).[1] He died of dysentery in January 1596.
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In 1562, the West African slave trade was a duopoly dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish. In 1567, Drake accompanied Hawkins on their next and last joint voyage.[28] The crew attempted to capture slaves around Cape Verde, but failed. Hawkins allied himself with two local kings in Sierra Leone who asked for help against their enemies in exchange for half of any captives they took. Attacking from both sides, they took several hundred prisoners, though Kelsey says the kings kept "the larger share of slaves and dared Hawkins to do anything about it".[29]
Among Drake's adventures along the Spanish Main, his capture of the Spanish silver train at Nombre de Dios on 1 April 1573[48] made him rich and famous.[49] Near Cabo de Cativas he encountered a French privateer, Guillaume Le Testu, who was in command of the 80-ton warship Havre, and joined forces with him in a combined fleet. Drake had determined to intercept the mule train at the Campos River, two leagues from Nombre de Dios, and instructed the captains of his pinnaces to meet them at the Francisca River on 3 April to carry them off after the raid. The combined English and French raiding parties marched through the forest towards the trail, to within a mile of the city while the Cimarróns performed reconnaissance. The next morning, 1 April, they surprised the mule convoy and seized more than 200,000 pesos' worth of treasure.[48]
After their attack on the richly laden mule train, Drake and his party found that they had captured around 20 tons of silver and gold. They buried much of the treasure, as it was too much for their party to carry, and made off with a fortune in gold.
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Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found 36 kilograms (80 lb) of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests of silver reals and 26,000 kilograms (26 long tons) of silver.
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Drake was also to confront and attack the Spanish Armada had it already sailed for England. When arriving at Cádiz on 19 April, Drake found the harbour packed with ships and supplies as the Armada was readying and waiting for a fair wind to launch the fleet to attack. In the early hours of the next day, Drake pressed his attack into the inner harbour and inflicted heavy damage. Claims of the exact Spanish ship losses vary: Drake claimed he had sunk 39 ships, while the Spanish admitted the loss of only 24.
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In Valparaíso, Chile, folklore associates a cave known as Cueva del Pirata (lit. 'Cave of the Pirate') with Francis Drake. A legend says that when Drake ransacked the port, he was disappointed with the scant plunder, and proceeded to enter the churches in fury to sack them and urinate on the chalices.
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Sir Walter Raleigh[a] (/ˈrɔːli, ˈræli, ˈrɑːli/; c. 1553 – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland, helped defend England against the Spanish Armada and held political positions under Elizabeth I.
In 1591, he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without the Queen's permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London.
After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for being involved in the Main Plot against King James I, who was not favourably disposed towards him. In 1616, he was released to lead a second expedition in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, men led by his top commander sacked a Spanish outpost, in violation of both the terms of his pardon and the 1604 peace treaty with Spain. Raleigh returned to England and, to appease the Spanish, he was arrested and executed in 1618.
In 1577 and again in 1579 Raleigh made voyages in attempts to find a Northwest Passage.[12] They failed to find a passage, but succeeded in raiding Spanish ships.[12]
He was present at the siege of Smerwick, where he led the party that beheaded some 600 Spanish and Italian soldiers who had surrendered.[17][18]
In 1585, Raleigh received 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) (approximately 0.2% of Ireland)
Raleigh was beheaded in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster on 29 October 1618. "Let us dispatch", he said to his executioner. "At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quaked from fear." After he was allowed to see the axe that would be used to behead him, he mused: "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries." According to biographers, Raleigh's last words, spoken to the hesitating executioner, were: "What dost thou fear? Strike, man, strike!"[62][63]
Having been one of the people to popularise tobacco smoking in England, he left a small tobacco pouch, found in his cell shortly after his execution.
While imprisoned in the Tower, Raleigh wrote his incomplete The History of the World.[55
Several people have suggested Raleigh was the real writer of Shakespeare’s plays.
(see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-nine_Articles#Six_Articles_(1539)
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Of Philip Raleigh's daughters, Anne and Elizabeth both died unmarried.[94] The eldest daughter, Frances, married William Honywood. Her many descendants include the present Lord Mountbatten and the actor Hugh Grant.[95]
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potatoes potato famine
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see also Bob Newhart and tobacco
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Orwell on Raleigh and truth and totalitarianism
“4 February 1944
George Orwell
WHEN Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London, he occupied himself with writing a history of the world. He had finished the first volume and was at work on the second when there was a scuffle between some workmen beneath the window of his cell, and one of the men was killed. In spite of diligent inquiries, and in spite of the fact that he had actually seen the thing happen, Sir Walter was never able to discover what the quarrel was about: whereupon, so it is said—and if the story is not true it certainly ought to be—he burned what he had written and abandoned his project.
This story has come into my head I do not know how many times during the past ten years, but always with the reflection that Raleigh was probably wrong. Allowing for all the difficulties of research at that date, and the special difficulty of conducting research in prison, he could probably have produced a world history which had some resemblance to the real course of events. Up to a fairly recent date, the major events recorded in the history books probably happened. It is probably true that the battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, that Columbus discovered America, that Henry VIII had six wives, and so on. A certain degree of truthfulness was possible so long as it was admitted that a fact may be true even if you don’t like it. Even as late as the last war it was possible for the Encyclopædia Britannica, for instance, to compile its articles on the various campaigns partly from German sources. Some of the facts—the casualty figures, for instance—were regarded as neutral and in substance accepted by everybody. No such thing would be possible now. A Nazi and a non-Nazi version of the present war would have no resemblance to one another, and which of them finally gets into the history books will be decided not by evidential methods but on the battlefield.
During the Spanish Civil War I found myself feeling very strongly that a true history of this war never would or could be written. Accurate figures, objective accounts of what was happening, simply did not exist. And if I felt that even in 1937, when the Spanish Government was still in being, and the lies which the various Republican factions were telling about each other and about the enemy were relatively small ones, how does the case stand now? Even if Franco is overthrown, what kind of records will the future historian have to go upon? And if Franco or anyone at all resembling him remains in power, the history of the war will consist quite largely of ‘facts’ which millions of people now living know to be lies. One of these ‘facts’, for instance, is that there was a considerable Russian army in Spain. There exists the most abundant evidence that there was no such army. Yet if Franco remains in power, and if Fascism in general survives, that Russian army will go into the history books and future schoolchildren will believe in it. So for practical purposes the lie will have become truth.
This kind of thing is happening all the time. Out of the millions of instances which must be available, I will choose one which happens to be verifiable. During part of 1941 and 1942, when the Luftwaffe was busy in Russia, the German radio regaled its home audience with stories of devastating air raids on London. Now, we are aware that those raids did not happen. But what use would our knowledge be if the Germans conquered Britain? For the purpose of a future historian, did those raids happen, or didn’t they? The answer is: If Hitler survives, they happened, and if he falls they didn’t happen. So with innumerable other events of the past ten or twenty years. Is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a genuine document? Did Trotsky plot with the Nazis? How many German aeroplanes were shot down in the Battle of Britain? Does Europe welcome the New Order? In no case do you get one answer which is universally accepted because it is true: in each case you get a number of totally incompatible answers, one of which is finally adopted as the result of a physical struggle. History is written by the winners.
In the last analysis our only claim to victory is that if we win the war we shall tell less lies about it than our adversaries. The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits atrocities but that it attacks the concept of objective truth: it claims to control the past as well as the future. In spite of all the lying and self-righteousness that war encourages, I do not honestly think it can be said that that habit of mind is growing in Britain. Taking one thing with another, I should say that the press is slightly freer than it was before the war. I know out of my own experience that you can print things now which you couldn’t print ten years ago. War resisters have probably been less maltreated in this war than in the last one, and the expression of unpopular opinions in public is certainly safer. There is some hope, therefore, that the liberal habit of mind, which thinks of truth as something outside yourself, something to be discovered, and not as something you can make up as you go along, will survive. But I still don’t envy the future historian’s job. Is it not a strange commentary on our time that even the casualties in the present war cannot be estimated within several millions?”
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Orwell- the truth