On November 3, 1579 a ship dropped anchor at Ternate, the Spice Islands, guided by fishermen in canoes off the island of Siau, north of Celebes. Onboard, its captain was one of the best-known pirates of his generation, and he had just sailed across the ocean from the coast of South America. The Chinese Lim Ah Hong had just a few years before vanished from historical records. Here was a pirate from another line, that of the Anglo-Saxons: Francis Drake. At Ternate, Drake met with Sultan Baab, himself recently victorious at having ousted the Portuguese, and they regaled each other with tales and traded for spices.

Drake avoided the nearby island of Tidore, where a Spanish position would easily have recognized him. Drake was emblematic of a new presence in the Pacific, coming not across the Indian Ocean, but across the Pacific by the Straits of Magellan. This presence was Dutch and British, arriving for exploration, but more, for the specific purpose of preying upon the empire of the powerful Spanish Crown by capturing its treasure ships, the fabulous Spanish galleons.