Belfrey 5 June 1721, was admitted Trapp's scholar at Lincoln College, Oxford, 6 Nov. 1739, and graduated B.A. 2 June 1743, M.A. 4 July 1746. In 1746 he was elected fellow of Magdalen, and proceeded B.D. 25 May 1754, D.D. 1 July 1773. He was lecturer of Pontefract and vicar of Womersley, Yorkshire. In 1767 he was instituted to the vicarage of St. Mary, Beverley, and in 1775 to the rectory of Winestead in Holderness, which he retained until his death at Doncaster on 2 Feb. 1795 (Lincoln College Register; Gent. Mag. vol. lxv. pt. i. p. 174; Bloxam, Reg. of Magd. Coll., Oxford, vi. 234, 235, 237, vii. 4, where Francis Drake is confounded with the Drake family of Malpas and Shardeloes, Cheshire).
In person Drake was 'tall and thin.' Although reserved before strangers, insomuch that he 'never did or could ask one subscription for his book,' among friends he was good company (Cole MS. vol. xxvi. ff. 3b, 4b; York Courant, 19 March 1771). A portrait of him painted in 1743 by the Berlin artist, Philip Mercier, which hangs in the mansion house at York, gives a pleasing impression of his appearance. A later portrait was painted by his relative, Nathan Drake, who published an engraving of it in mezzotinto, by Valentine Green. This print, which was not issued until June 1771, a few months after Drake's death, is frequently found inserted in 'Eboracum.' A sturdy Jacobite in politics, he could not always disguise his opinions even in the sober pages of his history. Having persistently refused to take the oaths to government, he was called upon in 1745 to enter into recognisances to keep the peace, and not to travel five miles from home without license. He was moreover superseded in the office of city surgeon, at a meeting held by the corporation on 20 Dec. It was not until July 1746 that he obtained a discharge from his recognisances.
'Eboracum,' though on many questions obsolete and superseded by the works of later and more critical writers, contains much that would otherwise have been forgotten, and is exceedingly valuable upon points of pure topography. A copy, extensively illustrated and inlaid in 6 vols. atlas folio, was sold at Fauntleroy's sale in 1824 for 136l. 10s., when it was purchased by Mr. Hurd. It subsequently fell into the hands of H. G. Bohn, who offered it at the price of 80l. (Guinea Catalogue, 1841, p. 1369). The work having become scarce and dear, the York booksellers 'published an abridgment in 1785 (3 vols. '12mo), and again in 1788 (2 vols. 8vo). Finally, in 1818, William Hargrove professed to give in the compass of two moderate 8vo volumes 'all the most interesting information already published in Drake's "Eboracum," enriched with much entirely new matter from other authentic sources.' The portion relating to York Minster had been pirated during the author's lifetime, fol. London, 1755 (with Dart's 'Canterbury Cathedral,' also abridged), reprinted at York, 2 vols. 12mo, 1768, and afterwards (Gough, British Topography, ii. 423-4). The copy of Sir Thomas Widdrington's manuscript history of York ('Analecta Eboracensia'), which Drake used and believed to be the original manuscript, as appears from his remarks at f. l, is in the British Museum, Egerton MS. 2578.
[Davies's Memoir in the Yorkshire Archæological and Topographical Journal, iii. 33-54, see also iv. 42; Stukeley's Diaries and Letters (Surtees Soc.), i. 405, 406, 407-8; Nichols's Lit. Anecd.; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit.; Hargrove's Hist. of York, ii. 412-15; Watson's Hist. of Halifax, p. 250; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. xii. 312; [Gough's] List of Society of Antiquaries, 1717-96, pp. 5, 8, 13; Sloane MS. 4043, ff. 150-60; Birch MSS. 4305 f. 29, 4435 f. 176; Addit. MSS. 6181 ff. 24-8, 6210 ff. 41, 49, 28536 f. 141.]
DRAKE, Sir FRANCIS SAMUEL (d. 1789), rear-admiral, youngest brother of Sir Francis Henry Drake, the last baronet in the line of succession from Thomas, the brother and heir of Sir Francis Drake [q. v.], after serving as a lieutenant in the Torrington and the Windsor, was on 30 March 1756 promoted to the command of the Viper sloop, and on 15 Nov. was posted to the Bideford. On 11 March 1767 he was appointed, in succession to his second brother, Francis William, to the Falkland of 50 guns, which he commanded for the next five years; in the West Indies under Commodore Moore in 1757-8; at St. Helena for the protection of the homeward-bound trade in the spring of 1759, and in the autumn on the south coast of Bretagne, under Captain Robert Duff [q. v.], with whom he was present at the defeat of the French in Quiberon Bay ; in the St. Lawrence with Commodore Swanton in the summer of 1760; with Lord Colville on the coast of North America, and with Sir James Douglas at the Leeward Islands in 1761, continuing there under Sir George Rodney in 1762, when he was moved into the Rochester, which he commanded till the peace. In 1766 he commanded the Burford; 1772-5 the Torbay of 74 guns, guardship at Plymouth, and in the spring of 1778 was appointed to the Russell, one of the squadron which sailed for America under the command of Vice-admiral John Byron [q. v.] The Russell, having sustained great damage in the gale which scattered the
