[4][10] War had already been declared by Philip II of Spain after the Treaty of Nonsuch in which Queen Elizabeth I had offered her support to the rebellious Protestant Dutch rebels.

[12] English anger responded with the release of a large number of privateers in reprisal and took precautions against other merchant ships’ being caught in Spain.

[9] Sir Humphrey Gilbert, provided with patent letters from the Queen had landed in St John's in August 1583, and formally took possession of Newfoundland for England[13][14] Bernard Drake (distant kinsman of Sir Francis Drake), had become associated with Gilbert, through his relatives Richard Grenville and Walter Raleigh.

[15] In 1585, Drake had joined with Raleigh and Gilbert’s brother, John, in activities connected with the Roanoke Island Colony, in present-day North Carolina.

[16] They dropped plans for a privateering voyage to the West Indies en route for Roanoke, where a colony was to be settled by Sir Richard Grenville who had left Plymouth in April.

[19] As news spread of the raid, Spanish fishing ships then tended to frequent the island’s south coast, mainly on the Avalon peninsula, away from the English area of dominance.

[19] Soon the lack of prizes in the region became more apparent and Drake met up and joined forces with another of Raleigh’s associates, George Raymond in the Red Lion, who had sailed with Grenville on the way to Roanoke.

[9] The voyage was both successful and profitable,[21] in addition the result of depriving the Spanish navy and merchant marine of 60,000 quintals or 3,000 tons of the dried fish so important to the victualling of ocean-going ships.

[22] Bernard Drake died too in Crediton on 10 April 1586, and was buried two days later while his son John inherited the profits of the Newfoundland voyage.

[25] As a result of Drake's huge success and the impact it had, this enabled the establishment of English and French (Basque) domination in North America and therefore colonial settlement in the early part of the 17th century.