Given that lives were at risk in any armed contest, Drake’s raid on the Pacific coast of South America was remarkably bloodless. None of his prisoners was killed, although those who acted disingenuously, who attempted to withhold information or valuables, were sometimes dealt with severely indeed. Today, this brutality stimulates revulsion, but Drake lived in a world very different from our own, and he cannot fairly be judged by the ethics of the late twentieth century. We must locate his behaviour within the context of sixteenth-century conflict.

John Sugden, Sir Francis Drake, loc. 517