<P> On 1 March 1579, now in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Ecuador, Golden Hind challenged and captured the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción . This galleon had the largest treasure captured to that date: over 360,000 pesos (equivalent to around £ 480m in 2017). The six tons of treasure took six days to transship and included 26 tons of silver, half a ton of gold, porcelain, jewellery, coins, and jewels . </P> <P> On 26 September 1580, Francis Drake sailed his ship into Plymouth Harbour with 56 of the original crew of 80 left aboard . The ship was unloaded at Saltash Castle nearby, where the treasure offloading was supervised by the Queen's guards . </P> <P> Over half of the proceeds went to the Queen and country and were used to pay off the annual debt in its entirety . Queen Elizabeth I herself went aboard Golden Hind, which was then permanently at Deptford on the Thames Estuary, where she had requested it be placed on permanent display as the first' museum ship' . There, she shrewdly asked the French ambassador to bestow a knighthood on Drake . Her share of the treasure came to at least £ 160,000: "enough to pay off her entire government debt and still have £ 40,000 left over to invest in a new trading company for the Levant . Her return, and that of other investors, was more than £ 47 for every £ 1 invested, or 4,700% ." </P> <P> After Drake's circumnavigation, Golden Hind was maintained for public exhibition at the dockyard at Deptford, London . The ship remained there from 1580 to around 1650, 45 years after Queen Elizabeth had died, before the ship eventually rotted away and was broken up . In 1668, the keeper of the stores at Deptford, John Davies of Camberwell, had the best remaining timber of Golden Hind made into a chair which was presented to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, where it remains (with a replica in the Great Hall, Buckland Abbey, Devon, Drake's home and now maintained by the National Trust). </P>

A replica of the golden hind galleon is here