Thomas Cavendish, elated by the splendid success of that first expedition in which, with three slender barks of insignificant size carrying only one hundred and twenty-three persons of every degree, he had plundered the whole coast of New Spain and Peru, burned Paita and Acapulco, and captured a Spanish admiral of seven hundred tons, besides many other vessels taken or burned;—then crossed the great South Sea, and circumnavigated the globe in the shortest time in which that exploit had yet been performed;—set sail again in August 1591 on a second voyage. But this time, when his far greater force and more adequate preparations of every kind seemed to promise results still more profitable and glorious, scarce any thing but disasters awaited him. He took indeed the town of Santos in Brazil, which was an acquisition of some importance; but delaying here too long, he arrived at a wrong season in the Straits of Magellan, and was compelled to endure the winter of that inhospitable clime; where seeing his numbers thinned by sickness and hardship, and his plans baffled by dissentions and insubordination, he found it necessary to abandon his original design of crossing the South Sea, and resolved to undertake the voyage to China by the Cape of Good Hope. First, however, he was fatally prevailed upon to return to the coast of Brazil, where he lost many men in rash attempts against various towns, which expecting his attacks were now armed for their defence, and a still greater number by desertion. Baffled in all his designs, worn out with fatigue, anxieties, and chagrin, this brave but unfortunate adventurer breathed his last far from England on the wide ocean, and so obscurely that even the date of his death is unknown.
At this period, a peculiar education was regarded as not more necessary to enable a gentleman to assume the direction of a naval expedition than the command of a troop of horse; and it is probable that even by Cavendish, whose exploits we read with amazement, but a very slender stock of maritime experience was possessed when he first embarked on board the vessel in which he had undertaken to circumnavigate the globe. He was the third son of a Suffolk gentleman of large estate; came early to court; and having there consumed his patrimony in the fashionable magnificence of the time, suddenly discovered within himself sufficient courage to attempt the reparation of his broken fortunes by that favorite resource, the plunder of the Spanish settlements. On his return from his first voyage he sailed up the Thames in a kind of triumph, displaying a top-sail of cloth of gold, and making ostentation of the profit rather than the glory of the enterprise. He appears to have been equally deficient in the enlightened prudence which makes an essential feature of the great commander, and in that lofty disinterestedness of motive which constitutes the hero; but in the activity, the enterprise, the brilliant valor, which now form the spirit of the English navy, he had few equals and especially few predecessors; and amongst the founders of its glory the name of Cavendish is therefore worthy of a conspicuous and enduring place.
By the failure of the late attempt to seat don Antonio on the throne of Portugal, the sovereignty of Philip II. over that country and its dependencies had finally been established; and in consequence its trade and settlements in the East offered a fair and tempting prize to the ambition or cupidity of English adventurers.
The passage by the Cape of Good Hope, repeatedly accomplished by circumnavigators of this nation, had now ceased to oppose any formidable obstacle to the spirit of maritime enterprise; and the papal donation was a bulwark still less capable of preserving inviolate to the sovereigns of Portugal their own rich Indies. The first expedition ever fitted out from England for those eastern regions, where it now possesses an extent of territory in comparison of which itself is but a petty province, consisted of three "tall ships," which sailed in this year under the conduct of George Raymond and James Lancaster. After doubling the Cape and refreshing themselves in Saldanha Bay, which the Portuguese had named but not yet settled, the navigators steered along the eastern coast of Africa, where the ship commanded by Raymond was lost. With the other two, however, they proceeded still eastward; passed without impediment all the stations of the Portuguese on the shores of the Indian ocean, doubled Cape Comorin, and extended their voyage to the Nicobar isles, and even to the peninsula of Malacca. They landed in several parts, where they found means to open an advantageous traffic with the natives; and, after capturing many Portuguese vessels laden with various kinds of merchandise, repassed the Cape in perfect safety with all their booty. In their way home they visited the West Indies, where great disasters overtook them; for here their two remaining ships were lost, and Lancaster, with the slender remnant of their crews, was glad to obtain a passage to Europe on board a French ship which happily arrived to their relief. But as far as respected the eastern part of the expedition, their success had been such as strongly to invite the attempts of future adventurers; and nine years after its sailing, her majesty was prevailed upon to grant a charter of incorporation with ample privileges to an East India company, under whose auspices Lancaster consented to undertake a second voyage. Annual fleets were from this period fitted out by these enterprising traders, and factories of their establishment soon arose in Surat, in Masulipatam, in Bantam, in Siam, and even in Japan. The history of their progress makes no part of the subject of the present work; but the foundation of a mercantile company which has advanced itself to power and importance absolutely unparalleled in the annals of the world, forms a feature not to be overlooked in the glory of Elizabeth.
These long and hazardous voyages of discovery, of hostility, or of commerce, began henceforth to afford one of the most honorable occupations to those among the youthful nobility or gentry of the country, whose active spirits disdained the luxurious and servile idleness of the court: they also opened a welcome resource to younger sons, and younger brothers, impatient to emancipate themselves from the galling miseries of that necessitous dependence on the head of their house to which the customs of the age and country relentlessly condemned them.
Thus Shakespeare in his Two Gentlemen of Verona,
..."He wondered that your lordship
Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,
While other men of slender reputation
Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
Some to the wars to try their fortune there;
Some to discover islands far away;
Some to the studious universities.
For any or for all these exercises,
He said, that Protheus your son was meet:
And did request me to importune you
To let him spend his time no more at home;
Which would be great impeachment to his age,
In having known no travel in his youth."
But the advancement of the fortunes of individuals was by no means the principal or most permanent good which accrued to the nation by these enterprises. The period was still indeed far distant, in which voyages of discovery were to be undertaken on scientific principles and with large views of general utility; but new animals, new vegetables, natural productions or manufactured articles before unknown to them, attracted the attention even of these first unskilful explorers. Specimens in every kind were brought home, and, recommended as they never failed to be by fabulous or grossly exaggerated descriptions, in the first instance only served to gratify and inflame the vulgar passion for wonders. But the attention excited to these striking novelties gradually became enlightened; a more familiar acquaintance disclosed their genuine properties, and the purposes to which they might be applied at home;—Raleigh introduced the potatoe on his Irish estates;—an acceptable however inelegant luxury was discovered in the use of tobacco; and somewhat later, the introduction of tea gradually brought sobriety and refinement into the system of modern English manners.
Many allusions to the prevailing passion for beholding foreign, or, as they were then accounted, monstrous animals, may be found scattered over the works of Shakespeare and contemporary dramatists. Trinculo says, speaking of Caliban, "Were I but in England now... and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian." And again; "Do you put tricks upon's with savages and men of Inde?" &c. The whole play of the Tempest, exquisite as it is, must have derived a still more poignant relish, to the taste of that age, from the romantic ideas of desert islands then floating in the imaginations of men.