Sir Francis Drake, the Elizabethan privateer who had circumnavigated the globe and helped defeat the Spanish Armada, died of dysentery off Portobelo, Panama, during an unsuccessful final expedition against Spanish American ports. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin, which has never been found despite repeated searches.
By 1596, Francis Drake was no longer the swashbuckling terror of the Spanish Main he had been in his prime. His final expedition to the Caribbean, launched with his old comrade John Hawkins, went badly from the start: an assault on San Juan, Puerto Rico, failed, Hawkins died of illness, and Drake's own health collapsed as dysentery spread through the fleet anchored near Portobelo.
Drake died aboard his ship in the early hours of the morning, and, as was custom, his body was sealed in a lead coffin and lowered into the sea near the Panamanian coast he had raided for decades — a fitting, if grim, end for a man whose entire career had been built on Spain's American treasure routes. Treasure hunters and marine archaeologists have searched for his coffin for years without success. His death effectively closed the era of Elizabethan sea dogs, the buccaneering adventurers whose raids had helped England punch above its weight against the Spanish empire.