They say history's written by the victors, and reading Richard Hakluyt's, The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe, written first hand in the late 16th century, it is. Our view of Francis Drake, and his contemporaries, would appear to be somewhat sugar coated, indeed purposefully deceptive; it seems that rather than the dashing explorers and gentleman adventurer types, Drake and his ilk were little more than a bunch marauding bandits and pirates, who with his men, and with the blessing of the Queen, robbed everybody they came across; makes you proud to be British. Thomas Candish on another voyage around the world; was even worse than Drake; Candish was even more brutal. In essence Hakluyt's accounts of his journeys with Drake and Candish read; saw a ship, boarded it, robbed it, killed some folk, sunk it; visited a port, landed, robbed it, burnt it, killed some folk; saw some fellows, robbed them, possibly kidnapped, tortured or killed them; saw some native types, exploited them and maybe killed them; returned home ladened with riches for tea and cake. No wonder so many peoples hated us so, essentially we were bullies; okay, I know, this was all undertaken in the context of a period of war with Spain, but still, clearly the British were somewhat different to decent wholesome heroic chaps which our history books portray; they were morally indifferent to friend or foe at best.
Still, I'm loving these Penguin little black classics; they're great!.
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