Elizabeth Island (Cape Horn)

In 1578 Drake, with a small flotilla, was seeking to enter the Pacific to attack Spanish trade there. In August 1578 he arrived at the Straits of Magellan. By September he had found his way through and entered the Southern Ocean, only to be blown south in a series of storms. Parted from his consorts, Drake and his ship, Pelican, were at latitude 57 S (from Nuno da Silva; according to Richard Hakluyt "57 and a terce", i.e. 57°20') when, on 28 October, they encountered an island, and found shelter in a haven on its eastern shore.[1] Drake remained three or four days, gathering wood and water, and "herbes of grete virtue", before setting out for the coast of South America.[1]

The island was described by Francis Fletcher (the expedition's chaplain) who left sketches and a map, and by da Silva, the navigator. From this marine historian Felix Riesenberg produced a composite; an island 30 miles from north to south, almost square, without a peak, with a lake at its centre; and he hypothesizes that it was the crater of an extinct volcano. He surmises a high shore, or cliff, on its southern shore, and a haven on the east. This place, named on later maps as Port Sir Francis Drake, was sheltered harbour, with a depth of 20 fathoms and "a cannon shot" (about a mile) to the shore.[2] Fletcher also reported finding "plenty of the small berry which we named currants", and that he had left a memorial to Queen Elizabeth with the date and year of their visit.[3]

In a later account by Richard Hawkins, Drake reported that he had made his way to the southernmost point of the island, and, stretching out over the edge, was able to claim that he had been 'more further south than... any man as yet known'.[4]

Elizabeth Island, and Port Sir Francis Drake appeared on maps as late as that of Emanuel Bowen in 1747, but neither place was visited or seen again. Later writers have contended, because of this, that Drake actually landed at Cape Horn, from an account of the voyage, The World Encompassed by Drake's nephew, in 1628. However, Riesenberg points out that Horn Island lacks wood, or fresh water, or a safe haven, or any other feature that Drake described,[5] and offered an alternative suggestion. He notes that the position of the island is that of the Pactolus Bank, a seamount rising to within 70 fathoms of the surface, and suggests that the bank is the remnant of the island, disappeared in some volcanic eruption, or erosion by icebergs.[6] The bank was discovered in 1885 by Capt. WD Burnham of the American ship Pactolus, but more recent surveys have been unable to find the bank either, suggesting that it too may be a phantom island. Historian Mateo Martinic consider however Sars Bank, 350 km south of Diego Ramírez Islands, as the best fit for Elizabeth Island.[7]

Another Elizabeth Island in the Straits of Magellan was named and claimed for England by Drake on 24 August 1578.[8] Further confusing the issue, the entire Tierra del Fuego archipelago was called the Elizabethides or Elizabeth Islands.

Elizabeth Island would be significant as one of the first English territorial claims in the New World, preceding Drake's claim of New Albion in 1579 and Humphrey Gilbert's claim of Newfoundland in 1583.[9] Only Martin Frobisher's claims in Baffin Island and Greenland were earlier.[10]

• Bowen's 1747 map of the world, showing Port Sir Francis Drake west of Cape Horn (zoomable)
• Bowen's 1747 map of the Americas, showing "Port discover'd by Sir Francis Drake"
• Moll's 1720s map of the world, Port Sir Francis Drake marked southwest of Tierra Del Fuego, but no location (zoomable)