Raiding cities, capturing and plundering treasure ships, discovering new lands, and helping to defeat the juggernaut that was the Spanish Armada were just some of the amazing deeds of the British privateer Sir Francis Drake. Through the previously mentioned actions, Sir Francis Drake established a foundation for the birth and maturing of the newly formed British Empire, and consequentially triggered the eventual downfall and destruction of the once glorious Spanish Empire. After he was ambushed by the Spanish on his second slave trading voyage to the West Indies, Drake developed a perpetual rancor for the Spanish which he would express through his raiding and capturing of Spanish ships (Britannica Online). The majority of Drake 's time assaulting …show more content…
Finally, Drake helped in the English victory against the juggernaut that was the Spanish Armada. In 1587, after reports came to Queen Elizabeth about a Spanish Invasion, she bestowed upon Drake the command of a fleet of thirty ships. Drake led these ships down to the port of Cadiz, Spain, and proceeded to destroy and damage a majority of the Spanish fleet anchored there. While this courageous action was a major victory for the British, it only served to delay the Spanish invasion for a year (Trueman C.N.). After rebuilding from Drake 's earlier raid on Cadiz, Spain sent its invasion force against England in 1588. During the following battle, Drake was vice admiral under Lord Charles Howard, and he also commanded a large group of warships from aboard the Revenge (Biography) (Delpar Helen 323). Once Drake found out that the Spanish fleet commander had anchored his fleet off of the Spanish coast to carry a land invasion force, Drake organized a number of fire ships that he sent among the Spanish fleet. This action prompted to the Spanish to scatter and sail up into the North Sea, where Mother Nature finished them off (Biography). Consequentially, through the stealing of precious materials from the Spanish, capturing of Spanish outposts, claiming of land, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Sir Francis Drake established the beginning of the British Empire and was a thorn in the sole of the Spanish