CHAPTER XXVIII.
POLICY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH—THOMAS CAVENDISH—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—EXPLOITS UPON THE AFRICAN AND BRAZILIAN COASTS—PORT DESIRE—PORT FAMINE—BATTLES WITH THE ARAUCANIANS—CAPTURE OF PAITA—ROBBERY OF A CHURCH—REPEATED ACTS OF BRIGANDAGE—CAPTURE OF THE SANTA ANNA—THE RETURN VOYAGE—CAVENDISH'S ACCOUNT OF THE EXPEDITION—THE SPANISH ARMADA—PREPARATIONS IN ENGLAND—THE CONFLICT—TOTAL ROUT OF THE INVINCIBLES—PROCESSION IN COMMEMORATION OF THE EVENT.
Queen Elizabeth had found it to her advantage to encourage displays of public spirit in private individuals, and to excite the nobles and persons of fortune who were ambitious of distinction, as well as the indigent in search of employment, to hazard, the one their wealth, the other their lives, in the national service. She thus derived benefit from a class of people who had been of little use in any other reign. Many gentlemen of rank and position devoted a portion of their means to harassing the Spanish at sea, to prosecuting discovery in distant quarters, and to planting colonies upon savage coasts. Among the most distinguished of these was Thomas Cavendish, of Trimley, near Ipswich.
CAVENDISH IN BRAZIL.
This gentleman was of an honorable family, and possessed a large estate. He equipped, in 1586, three ships of the requisite burden,—the largest, the Desire, being of one hundred and forty tons, the lesser, the Content, being of sixty, and the least, the Hugh Gallant, a bark of forty tons. He provisioned them for two years, and manned them with one hundred and twenty-three officers and men, some of whom had served under Sir Francis Drake. His patron, Lord Hunsdon, procured him a commission from Queen Elizabeth, thus assimilating his vessels to those of the navy, and rendering his contemplated piracies legitimate. Cavendish sailed from Plymouth on the 21st of July, directing his course to the south and touching upon the coasts of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Here the crew destroyed a negro town, in revenge for the death of one of their men, whom the inhabitants had killed with a poisoned arrow. Their course across the Atlantic to the Brazilian shore offers no remarkable features. They erected their forge upon an island, where they healed their sick and built a pinnace. Anchoring in a harbor on the Patagonian coast, Cavendish named it Port Desire, after his flag-ship,—a name which it still retains. He seems to have considered the savages to be giants, and asserts that he saw footprints eighteen inches long. He entered the Strait at the commencement of January, 1587, and soon discovered a miserable and forlorn settlement of Spaniards. These numbered twenty-three men, being all that remained of four hundred who had been left there three years before, by Sarmiento, to colonize the Strait. They had lived in destitution for the last eighteen months, being able to procure no other food than a scanty supply of shell-fish, except when they surprised a thirsty deer or seized an unsuspecting swan. They had built a fortress, in order to exclude all other nations but their own from the passage of the Strait, but had been compelled to leave it, owing to the intolerable stench proceeding from the carcasses of their unhappy companions who died of want or disease. Cavendish took the survivors on board, and named the spot upon which the fortress was built Port Famine.
PORT FAMINE.
Cavendish entered the Pacific late in February, after a tempestuous passage from the Atlantic side. Landing upon the Chilian coast, in the country of the Araucanians, he received a warm reception from the natives, who mistook his men for Spaniards, by whom the territory had been repeatedly invaded in search of gold. He afterwards undeceived them, and found them willing to satisfy his wants when convinced that they did not belong to that avaricious and cruel people. In another place, inhabited by a Spanish colony, he fought a pitched battle with two hundred horsemen, driving those who were not slain back to the mountains. At another spot farther north, the Indians brought him wood and water on their backs. In May he captured two prizes, taking out of them twenty thousand pounds' worth of sugar, molasses, calico, marmalade, and hens, and then burning them to the water's edge. He seized upon the town of Paita, which he ransacked and burned, carrying off a large quantity of household goods and twenty-five pounds' weight of pieces-of-eight, or Spanish dollars. Off the island of Puna he fell in with a ship of two hundred and fifty tons; but, being disappointed at finding her empty, he sank her out of sheer spite. The inhabitants of Puna were Christians, having followed the example of their cacique, who had married a Spanish woman and had thereupon made a profession of her religion. They were rich and industrious. Cavendish pillaged the island, burned the church, and carried off its five bells. Being attacked by the Spaniards and natives combined, he fought a long and bloody battle, after which he ravaged the fields and orchards, burned four ships on the stocks, and left the town of three hundred houses a heap of rubbish. He took a coasting-ship, rifled and scuttled her, and compelled her captain to become his pilot. He continued this course of brigandage and piracy all along the South American and Mexican coasts, destroying towns, pillaging custom-houses, and burning vessels.
Early in November, Cavendish, who had been told by the pilot he had taken that a vessel from the Philippines was expected, richly laden, at Acapulco, lay in wait for her off the headland of California. She was discovered on the 4th, bearing in for the Cape. She was the Santa Anna, of seven hundred tons, belonging to the King of Spain, and commanded by the Admiral of the South Sea. Cavendish gave chase, and, after a broadside and a volley of small-arms, boarded her. He was repulsed, but renewed the action with his guns and musketry. The Spaniard was soon forced to surrender, and her officers, going on board the Desire, gave an account of her contents,—which they stated at thirty thousand dollars in gold, with immense quantities of damasks, silks, satins, musk, and provisions. This glorious prize was divided by Cavendish, a mutiny being very nearly the result: it was, however, prevented by the generosity of the commander. The prisoners were set on shore with sufficient means of defence against the Indians; the Santa Anna was burned, together with five hundred tons of her goods; and Cavendish then set sail for the Ladrone Islands, five thousand five hundred miles distant.