Will he or won't he be "Toppled"?

Without doubt, the future of this statue of Plymouth's most famous son,

 is up for discussion because of his involvement  with Slave Trade.

The Guardian newspaper included him in a list of "National Heroes" 

whose role in British history is being reassessed, where they write ....

"Sir Francis Drake

Drake, the famed Elizabethan explorer, and a vice-admiral in the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada, was also a slave trader, making three voyages to Guinea and Sierra Leone that enslaved between 1,200 and 1,400 Africans between 1562 and 1567 – a figure that probably meant the deaths of around three times as many, according to contemporary estimates.

A petition calling for the removal of statues in his honour in Tavistock (his birth place) and Plymouth, (where he served as Mayor)  and demanding that schools better reflect his role in the slave trade, has gained more than 1,400 signatures. The local councils have stopped short of agreeing that the statues should be removed but both issued statements acknowledging “the great wrongs of the past”. Plymouth’s council leader, Tudor Evans, promised to ensure the monument was accompanied by information about Drake’s role in the slave trade."