Sir Francis Drake, Courageous Privateer or Scandalous Pirate?

Sir Francis Drake is a prominent figure that can be found all throughout history textbooks. These texts reflect on his naval prowess and paint him to be a virtuous commander that is loyal to his home country serving the queen dutifully. However, like most things in life there is another side of the story. Under the Black Flag makes Sir Francis Drake out to be a legendary privateer who preyed on the Spanish near the treasure port of Nombre de Dios and returning all of his spoils loyally back to queen Elizabeth in England. It describes the bounty as being worth over 68 million dollars in today's day and age. It then goes on to say that he deposited 5 tons of silver into the Royal English courts even though he really kept 21 tons for himself. This begs the question, "Was Sir Francis Drake really as noble as history likes to say he is?" It is a hard question to answer because of the sheer variation of facts about Sir Francis Drake but in my opinion based on the fact that he kept the vast majority of the silver that he was supposed to claim for his queen and country prove to me that he is more of a textbook pirate that a textbook nobleman.