Question: Who was an English sea captain and privateer of the Elizabethan era, carrying out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition and claiming California for the English? A: Francis Drake
Context: Sir Bernard Drake (c.1537 – 10 April 1586) of Ash in the parish of Musbury, Devon, was an English sea captain.  He himself refuted any familial relationship with his contemporary the great Admiral Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596), as their dispute concerning armorials reveals. The West Country men were a group of wealthy individuals in Elizabethan England who advocated the English colonisation of Ireland, attacks on the Spanish Empire and overseas colonial expansion.  The group included Humphrey Gilbert, Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane.  Several of these prominent figures originated in the far southwest of Britain known as the Westcountry, particularly associated with the sea ports of Devon including Plymouth. The Battle of Guadalupe Island, also known as the Battle of Guadalupe, was a naval action that took place off Guadalupe Island (French: "Guadeloupe"), Caribbean Sea, on November 8, 1595, between a Spanish force of five frigates commanded by Don Pedro Tello de Guzmán and Don Gonzalo Méndez de Cancio (who was appointed Admiral on August 19, 1595), and an English squadron of nine ships (rear of Francis Drake's fleet), during the unsuccessful English military expedition of 1595 against Spain and their possessions, led by Sir Francis Drake himself, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Thomas Baskerville, as the context of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). The Raid on St. Augustine was a military event during the Anglo-Spanish War in which the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine was captured in a small fight and burnt by an English expedition fleet led by Francis Drake.  This was part of Francis Drake's "Great Expedition" and was the last engagement on the Spanish main before Drake headed north for the Roanoke Colony.  The expedition also forced the Spanish to abandon any settlements and forts in present-day South Carolina. Auguste was a full rigged sailing ship which sank at Aspy Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1761 while carrying exiles from the fall of New France.  "Auguste" was a former French privateer ship which had been captured by the British and converted to a merchant ship.  In September 1761, she was hired by the British government to transport French exiles and prisoners of war from Montreal to France.  For the voyage, she was under the command of Joseph Knowles, an English sea captain.  The ship was unarmed and carried 121 passengers and crew.  Almost immediately upon clearing the mouth of the St. Lawrence on October 28, she encountered a week of contrary winds followed by a nor'west gale and heavy seas which badly damaged the ship.  Leaking heavily with an exhausted crew and damaged rigging, the captain sought a sheltered harbour in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  However Knowles was unable to find a safe refuge as "Auguste" carried only charts of the French coast.  The ship struck land on the northeastern side of Cape Breton Island near an inlet known as Aspy Bay.  Only seven of the 121 made it to shore alive.  These included the captain, the merchant Luc de la Corne, two soldiers, two servants, and one discharged soldier. Sir Francis Drake (aka The Adventures of Sir Francis Drake) is a 1961-1962 British adventure television series starring Terence Morgan as Sir Francis Drake, commander of the sailing ship the "Golden Hind".  As well as battles at sea and sword fights, the series also deals with intrigue at Queen Elizabeth's court. Sir Thomas Cavendish (19 September 1560 – May 1592) was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavigating the globe.  While members of Magellan's, Loaisa's, Drake's, and Loyola's expeditions had preceded Cavendish in circumnavigating the globe, it had not been their intent at the outset.  His first trip and successful circumnavigation made him rich from captured Spanish gold, silk and treasure from the Pacific and the Philippines.  His richest prize was the captured 600 ton sailing ship the Manila Galleon "Santa Ana" (also called "Santa Anna").  He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England after his return.  He later set out for a second raiding and circumnavigation trip but was not as fortunate and died at sea at the age of 31. Sir Francis Drake High School is a secondary school located in San Anselmo, California.  It is named after the English privateer and naval hero Sir Francis Drake, who purportedly landed in the area in 1579.  The school's mascot is a pirate named Petey. Vice Admiral Sir Francis Drake (  1540  – 28 January 1596) was an English sea captain and privateer of the Elizabethan era.  Drake carried out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete the voyage as captain while leading the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation.  With his incursion into the Pacific Ocean, he claimed what is now California for the English and inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish on the western coast of the Americas, an area that had previously been largely unexplored by western shipping. Woodes Rogers ("ca."  1679 – 15 July 1732) was an English sea captain and privateer and, later, the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas.  He is known as the captain of the vessel that rescued marooned Alexander Selkirk, whose plight is generally believed to have inspired Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe".
Answer: Francis Drake