Bond, the Merchant Adventurer

Non Sufficit Orbis - The World is Not Enough

PELICAN and PEGASUS

Mention of the Pegasus ‘crest’ which leads to the Bond family ‘motto’ warrants an explanation, and I assume this is where Sir Francis Drake may have become involved on two counts. Firstly, I have to say, that to the best of knowledge, Drake was never related to any Bond, but it would appear he might have established affinity with the family, both in London and Devon. Drake was born at Tavistock in 1543, which is only 12 to 15 miles away from Trematon and Earth, so he may well have personally known members of the Bond family from nearby.

Anyway, the naval connection was probably well established in London in 1572 (according to Dr.Bond), when a William Bond, (the London Alderman who claimed descendency from Earth) was believed to be part of the LONDON BOND’S, the Merchant Adventurers, who owned many ships. Five of which actually took part in the Roanoke Voyages and/or against the ARMADA, in 1588. They were ‘The JONAS’, ‘The FORTUNE,’ ‘The PRIMROSE’ (300 tuns) part owned by John Hawkins (Drakes cousin) and Captained by Martin Frobisher, the ‘The BARKE BOND’, (120-150 tuns) which was owned partly by William Hawkins and Captained by Robert Crosse, - this barke was finally used as one of the eight ‘Fireships’ that got the Spanish fleet out of Calais harbour, and ‘The SALOMAN’ which was a "very hot ship", owned chiefly by William Bond (died 1576), this ship was used by Hawkins on his first voyage to the Coast of Guinea. Mr William Bond, the master shipwright, built or at least was paid for the fitting out of the Henry VIII's great ship, the Henri Grace a Dieu, probably more affectionately known as ‘The GREAT HARRY’, the first real battleship built in England with a crew of 700.

One of the most famous ships built by William Bond was of course the ‘PELICAN’. This ship had the misfortune of being captured by French pirates off the Cherbourg peninsular. The pirates killed the crew, and took the cargo of some four thousand pounds sterling in value. The identity and home port of the pirate and the receiver to whom he sold the ship were perfectly well known, thus William and his associate adventurers spent a thousand pounds suing in the parliament of Brittany for redress; this proved useless, so finally it was decided that they "preferred to leave all in the hands of God rather than prosecute any more suits in France."

Two years later however, this dependence on Providence was justified when off Plymouth the ‘Pelican’ was retaken by Francis Drake, she was laden with fish and other freight from Newfoundland. Drake liked her ‘cut’, she was so swift and very stable, he liked her so much that she was refitted and became his ship. Drake decided that on his voyage round the world, the great circumnavigation expedition in 1577,‘The Pelican’ would now be his grand flagship. It was during this voyage in the freedom of the seas against the power of Spain, that one of his right hand men Thomas Doughty became mutinous. Off the south American coast, Drake dealt with the problem swiftly, - by execution, and to complete the episode he gave ‘The Pelican’ the brand new name of the ‘Golden Hinde”, this in compliment to Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest a golden hind was, and who had partly financed the venture, and further to indicate to the crew that a Golden future now lay ahead. On returning from the momentous journey round the world in 1580, the ‘Golden Hinde’ was much admired, she was the only ship out of five to complete the journey, and deserved her safe harbour as a national shrine at Deptford.

The ‘Golden Hinde’ remained at Deptford for over 100 years, and when she wearied a chair was made from her oak timbers and placed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Today, replicas of this ship remain. Firstly, in Torbay at Brixham, which is a lovely old fishing Port, there is one anchored which had been built on top of an old ammunitions barge. It is a fine example, but unfortunately not as such sea worthy. Anyway, I always enjoy visiting Brixham on my holidays in Devon, and wonder every time I see this replica of that great ship, perhaps the greatest galleon ever built, and one built by a Bond. The photographs displayed were taken during my holidays, and visit to Earth Barton. The second replica is glorious, it is a real full scale galleon, built in 1971-73 at the Appledore Shipyard in Devon by J.Hinks & Son, and like the replica of ‘Mayflower’ she did make a successful crossing of the Atlantic, in fact she has circumnavigated the world, visited San Francisco, Hong Kong, the West Indies, Vancouver and even via Hawaii to Japan, featuring in the television series Shogun playing the role of ‘Erasmus’. This replica, being a real sailing galleon, became a sailing Museum in the early 1990’s, and is now at Saint Mary Overie Dock, Bankside, London, berthed between London Bridge and the new replica Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre near Southwark Cathedral. The second instance concerning Drake was in 1585; Drake captured the capital city and palace of the Spanish King Philip at the West Indian Saint Domingo (now the Dominican Republic). According to one of Drake’s “Corsairs”, when they entered the Governor’s house, on top of the main stairway there was a large painted Scutcheon of the King of Spain’s coat of arms, and on the lower part was described a ‘Globe’ with a starred ‘Demi-Horse’ amount and a scroll streaming out of the mouth with the “Three Words of Flame and Fury”, namely, in Latin, ‘NON SUFFICIT ORBIS’, which is as much as to say “the World Sufficeth Not”. It goes without saying, that either a Bond ‘cadet’ was present alongside Drake at the time of the siege or Drake had conferred the ‘Pegasus ’ and ‘motto’ entitlement to the Bond family as an award for past services rendered. Perhaps “The Pelican” had something to do with this, who could say? The ‘motto’ was adopted by the Bond’s of Earth, and ‘Pegasus’ has been seen engraved on the tablet to Thomas Bond at Fulham, 1600, it also appears on the floor slab to Joan Bond at St. Stephens Church, Saltash, dated 1641, and I can but add, that I must make a point of visiting the church, when it is open! . Final point regarding ‘Pegasus’, so great did Sir Francis Drake hold this starred horse with wings high in his estimation, that before he died, he named a ship in his fleet ‘The Pegasus’.

Peter. W. Bond

Ó Copyright

Rev. 16.04.06