"In The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, Samuel Bawlf masterfully recounts the drama of this historic expedition, offering intriguing insight into life at sea in the sixteenth century - from the dangers of mutiny and the lack of knowledge about wind and current to the arduous physical challenges faced every day by Drake's men. But it is Bawlf's asertion of Drake's whereabouts in the summer of 1579 that gives this book even greater originality. From an intensive study of maps of the period, Bawlf shows with certainty that Drake sailed all the way to Alaska - much farther than anyone has heretofore imagined - thereby rewriting the history of exploration in North America. He was, Bawlf claims, in search of the western entrance to the fabled Northwest Passage, at which he planned to found England's first colony, which could wrest control of the Pacific, and the wealth of the East Indies, from Spain. Drake's voyage was so far ahead of its time that another 200 years would pass before the eighteenth-century explorers of record reached the northwest coast of North America."--BOOK JACKET.