As he neared Lima, Drake quickened his pace lest the great annual treasure ship of 1579 should get wind of what was wrong.  A minor treasure ship was found to have been cleared of all her silver just in time to balk him.  So he set every stitch of canvas she possessed and left her driving out to sea with two other empty prizes.  Then he stole into Lima after dark and came to anchor surrounded by Spanish vessels not one of which had set a watch.  They were found nearly empty.  But a ship from Panama looked promising; so the pinnace started after her, but was fired on and an Englishman was killed.  Drake then followed her, after cutting every cable in the harbor, which soon became a pandemonium of vessels gone adrift.  The Panama ship had nothing of great value except her news, which was that the great treasure ship Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion, ‘the chiefest glory of the whole South Sea,’ was on her way to Panama.

She had a very long start; and, as ill luck would have it, Drake got becalmed outside Callao, where the bells rang out in wild alarm.  The news had spread inland and the Viceroy of Peru came hurrying down with all the troops that he could muster.  Finding from some arrows that the strangers were Englishmen, he put four hundred soldiers into the only two vessels that had escaped the general wreck produced by Drake’s cutting of the cables.  When Drake saw the two pursuing craft, he took back his prize crew from the Panama vessel, into which he put his prisoners.  Meanwhile a breeze sprang up and he soon drew far ahead.  The Spanish soldiers overhauled the Panama prize and gladly gave up the pursuit.  They had no guns of any size with which to; fight the Golden Hind, and most of them were so sea-sick from the heaving ground-swell that they couldn’t have boarded her in any case.

Three more prizes were then taken by the swift Golden Hind.  Each one had news which showed that Drake was closing on the chase.  Another week passed with every stitch of canvas set.  A fourth prize, taken off Cape San Francisco, said that the treasure ship was only one day ahead.  But she was getting near to Panama; so every nerve was strained anew.  Presently Jack Drake, the Captain’s page, yelled out Sail-ho! and scrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake had promised to the first lookout who saw the chase.  It was ticklish work, so near to Panama; and local winds might ruin all.  So Drake, in order not to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the stern to moderate his pace.  At eight o’clock the jars were cut adrift and the Golden Hind sprang forward with the evening breeze, her crew at battle quarters and her decks all cleared for action The chase was called the ‘Spitfire’ by the Spaniards because she was much better armed than any other vessel there.  But, all the same, her armament was nothing for her tonnage.  The Spaniards trusted to their remoteness for protection; and that was their undoing.