In 1575, Queen Elizabeth I summoned a veteran sailor named Francis Drake for a meeting deeply shrouded in secrecy. Details regarding this meeting were hidden from the public for many years, until well after Francis Drake's death. This meeting was so secret that the Queen specifically ordered Drake to keep this secret even from one of her most trusted advisors, Lord Treasurer Burghley. The Queen ordered that no one involved discuss the details with anyone under penalty of death. Bawlf, the author of The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, provides a detailed account of what happened during this mysterious voyage as well as the events preceding and following it. The 400-page book chronicles the life and death of the English sailor, explorer, adventurer, privateer and eventual knight, Sir Francis Drake. Highlighting Drake's greatest achievements at sea, Bawlf is able to capture the image of a compassionate yet stern captain, respected by his comrades and loved by all of England. In addition to the approval gained from his queen and country, Drake was also infamous in Spain as a privateer who specifically preyed on Spanish merchant fleets in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific. The Spanish would not hesitate to consider Drake a pirate. Bawlf uses his past experience on the ocean, traveling along the northwest coast of North America from Alaska to San Francisco, as well as his love of maritime history to lend credence to his point unique view. His journey also serves to offer the reader a particular style of writing in order to shed new light on the journey which remained secret, to almost everyone, well after the death of Francis Drake in 1596. The book is subdivided into ...... middle of paper ...... and cataloged in a page that lists all of his citations and sources. All of these are neatly organized under the “Notes” and “Bibliography” sections. This book left me with a new admiration and curiosity for Sir Francis Drake. A man commonly considered by the Spanish as a pirate who treated his captors with such respect to pay them would not deserve such a title. However, the political climate of the time led to propaganda by the Spanish and a cover-up by the English. Whether one admires or despises Sir Francis Drake, it is difficult to doubt his worldliness and overlook his contributions to the maritime cartography of the northwest of the North American continent, even though the details written in his journals have since been lost and not taken into account. first revealed until after his death. Works Cited on The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake