In 1577 Francis Drake, the colleague of Hawkins, and alike famous and notorious, undertook his memorable voyage round the world.[143] Two years before Oxenham had, it is true, but unknown to Drake, built a pinnace in which he sailed down one of the streams flowing into the Pacific, and had the honour of being the first English navigator who had ventured upon the waters of that great ocean; to Sir Francis, however, is due the credit of its more complete exploration. For this distant and hazardous voyage he had been provided with five vessels: the Pelican, of one hundred tons, commanded by himself as admiral, the Elizabeth of eighty tons, the Swan of fifty, the Marigold of thirty, and the Christopher, a pinnace, of fifteen tons; the crew of the whole amounting to one hundred and sixty-four men. With these small vessels, having cleared out ostensibly for Alexandria in Egypt, on the 3rd of December, 1577, he reached the river La Plata on the 14th of April, 1578, and entered Port St. Julian, where Magellan’s fleet had anchored a few years before, on the 20th of June of the same year, and having passed the Straits of Magellan was driven back southwards to Cape Horn.
His piratical acts, and return home, 1580.
It is not our province, much less our pleasure, to furnish details of Drake’s piratical proceedings on the coasts of Chili and Peru. We may merely state that the capture of a Spanish vessel with 150,000l. of silver on board, off Payta, crowned all his previous successes of that character. Resolving to return home by a north-west passage, he sailed one thousand four hundred leagues without seeing land, a marvellous expedition in those days, until, in 48° north latitude, he fell in with the American continent, making thence one of the Pellew Islands and the eastern coast of Celebes. After encountering many perils, and failing of course to find any passage to the North, he reached the Cape of Good Hope, and finally arrived in England on the 3rd of November, 1580. A large portion of the treasure he had captured was sequestered by government at the instance of the Spanish ambassador, and restored to its rightful owners, but a considerable surplus remained to satisfy the exploring freebooter, and to stimulate the cupidity of fresh adventurers.[144]
The success of Drake paved the way to a new and more brilliant epoch in the history of maritime commerce. The love of adventure mingled with hopes, however vain, of obtaining incalculable wealth, combined with the knowledge that the Queen, shutting her eyes to Drake’s heinous delinquencies, had dined on board his ship and conferred on him the honour of knighthood,[145] all tended to incite hosts of enterprising mariners to offer to undertake remote and hazardous expeditions. In the course of sixteen years from the date of his return, no fewer than six of these were equipped and despatched to the southern seas, the commanders mingling the peaceful pursuits of trade with the depredations of pirates whenever circumstances tempted them to plunder; but by these successive voyages the general outline of the main continents of Asia and America became tolerably well understood.
First emigration of the English to America.
Somewhere about this period Sir Walter Raleigh[146] furnished the first accurate information respecting the eastern sea-board of North America. In an expedition consisting of two small barks, fitted out by him, Sir Richard Greville, and others, the configuration of the coasts of Florida and Virginia became known, and as these districts were represented as “scenes laid open for the good and gracious Queen to propagate the gospel in,” the natives being “soft as wax, innocent, and ignorant of all manner of politics, tricks, and cunning,” a fresh expedition, headed by Sir Richard Greville, himself laid the foundation of many practical plans for their colonisation. These were happily attended, even in their infancy, with considerable success. Indeed the many inducements offered in the shape of a rich soil, pliable natives, hopes of gold, and of the propagation of the Protestant faith could hardly fail to encourage emigration on, for those times, a tolerably extensive scale.
Discovery of Davis’s Strait.
1585.
Davis directs his attention to India.
It was also about this period that John Davis made the discovery of the straits which bear his name, Convinced that a north-west passage to India must sooner or later be discovered, the merchants of London fitted out two small vessels, the Sunshine of fifty tons with twenty-three hands, commanded by Davis himself, and the Moonshine of thirty-five tons and nineteen men, commanded by Captain William Bruton. These vessels sailed from Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 1585, and reached as far north as latitude 66° 40´, discovering the straits justly named after him. A second voyage during the following summer inspired Davis with such hopes of success that he wrote to one of his owners, William Sanderson, a mathematical instrument maker, “that he had gained such experience that he would forfeit his life if the voyage could not be performed, not only without further charge, but with certain profit to the adventurers.” In his third voyage, during which he sailed with open water up the same straits as far as 73° north latitude, he was equally sanguine of success, and on his return to England, after again failing in his object, he writes, “The passage is most probable, and the execution easy,” an opinion which, more or less, prevailed even until our own time. But his fourth voyage was altogether so unsuccessful that the owners of the ships under his charge were led to direct their attention to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and to these regions Davis made no less than five voyages, but was, unfortunately, killed in his last voyage by some Japanese pirates off the coast of Malacca, in December 1605.