After the Spanish betrayal at San Juan de Ulúa, Drake privately declared war on Spain, concluding that piracy against Spain's weakly defended American treasure routes was far more profitable than trade.

19:02Drake is left feeling very humiliated both by the defeat, the fact that the the English have been pulverized by the Spanish, but also because he had escaped the battle before Hawkins did. And so there are rumors that he had been guilty of cowardice. And it seems possible that Hawkins himself believed this. And certainly when they return, there's an element of bad blood between the the cousins. And I think Drake therefore

19:29feels he has massive amounts to prove. And it compounds the sense of anger and outrage that he feels specifically towards the Spanish. And he has a kind of gunslinger in a spaghetti western resolve to be avenged, right? you know, he he he wants to go back and take his anger and his frustration and his sense of shame out on the people that he blames for the humiliation that he'd

19:57experienced as San Juan dea. So he he he's returned to um to England kind of limping in in his battered ship >> the early weeks of 1569 and he's obviously hoping that maybe he could appeal to Elizabeth's government that maybe they would kind of rally around help him out financially um rally to the cause. But this is never going to happen because Elizabeth is very very nervous about offending the Spanish. She

20:25doesn't want to go to war. She hates war. And essentially the Spanish are right. I mean Drake had been operating pretty much as a pirate. And so when Drake finds out that he's not going to get any support from Elizabeth's government for his campaign of reprisal against the Spanish, he takes an amazing course. He thinks, "Okay, well I will declare war on the Spanish myself." And this might seem like a mad thing to do,

20:51but the truth is that Drake is a very, very shrewd and opportunistic operator. And while he was in the Indies, he had been taking very careful note of what he was seeing there. >> Mhm. >> And these observations have led him to a conclusion that no one else, not just in England, but basically anywhere in Europe, has quite arrived at. And this is that trying to break the

21:21Portuguese monopoly on slave trading or indeed any of the the Portuguese or Spanish monopolies of trading in the in the Atlantic is a mug's game. The real money is to be found in piracy because despite the disaster at San Juan de Ola, Drake has noted that Spain's defenses in the Indies and on the Spanish main are actually very weak because they are not expecting to be attacked.

21:49>> Yeah. >> No one from Europe has actually sailed there with the aim of attacking these ports, these fortresses in in the Americas. And so Drake is thinking, well, with boldness and good planning, we could take the Spanish completely by surprise. >> And if we do that, they have so much treasure coming through. All this kind of silver which is coming up from Peru, all the gold and the other treasure from

22:19the from Mexico, you know, we could just take it. And this is the start of what will become, I I guess the most devastating piracy in English history. You say of piracy, but we would I mean all the the children's books I used to read about Francis Drake said he was not a pirate. He was a privateeer which is very different. Uh did he see himself as