Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Medal commemorating the voyage of Sir Francis Drake

Medal commemorating the voyage of Sir Francis Drake

c1589
Silver
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
DN / M 1144 / Item a

In 1577 the English explorer and adventurer Francis Drake was secretly commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I and her ministers to raid Spanish ports and merchant ships along the Pacific coast of the Americas.

This fine silver medal is the earliest dated map of Drake's daring and profitable voyage, which generated enormous riches for the queen’s treasury and made Drake the second European to circumnavigate the world (the first was Magellan). It was engraved by the Dutch cartographer and instrument maker Michael Mercator, grandson of the great cartographer and mathematician Gerard Mercator. The eastern hemisphere is shown on one side of the medal, and the western hemisphere on the other. The base maps are derived from a map of the Americas which had been published in Hakluyt’s De Orbe Novo, (On the New World) in 1587. The medal is believed to be one of nine still in existence.

At least 80 men died as Drake’s expedition sailed through the Straits of Magellan, many from cold, hunger and disease. Twenty men were lost when the Marigold disappeared without a trace. Another 24 seem to have perished in the light boats (pinnaces), usually used as messenger boats between the larger ships.

Drake is credited with the European discovery of the upper Californian coast, which he named New Albion. ‘Albion’, derived from ‘alba’ (meaning white) after the cliffs of Dover, is an early and literary name for England.

The profits earned by investors from Drakes voyage were extraordinary, and have been estimated at 4600 percent (£47 for each £1 invested).

Drake sailed from Plymouth on 13 December 1577 with a fleet of five ships: Drake's own ship the Pelican, renamed Golden Hind; the Elizabeth, commanded by John Winter; and three smaller vessels named the Marigold, Swan and Benedict.

Weighing 27.48 g (or 424 grains) the Library’s medal is possibly the heaviest of the nine known versions of this medal. The other examples vary in weight from 260 grains.

Sailing up the Pacific coast, Drake encountered fierce resistance from the local Indian tribes. He was wounded by an arrow beneath his right eye and another grazed his head.

Drake’s ‘liberated’ treasure from Spanish and Portuguese merchant ships and ports included many thousands of pesos in silver and gold, wine, spices, bars of silver, silks and linens, crates of fine china, and maps and charts detailing the Spanish ports on the Pacific coast.