the bravest of all those inhabiting the south-east part of the world, for they never feared any death.
Several Portuguese who were settled in this part of the island visited the ship, and, hearing that their King, Don Antonio, was a friend of the Queen of England, urged Cavendish to advise him to come out and found a kingdom which would comprehend the Moluccas, Ceylon, China, and the Philippines. A friendly reception was also promised to the English.
Firing a parting salute on the 16th of March, Cavendish took his departure, traversing for forty days that “mightie and vaste sea between the yle of Java and the main of Africa, observing the heavens, the crosiers or southern cross, the other starres, the fowles, which are marks unto seamen of fair weather or foul weather, approaching of lands or islands, the winds, the tempests, the rains and thunder, with the alterations of the tides and currents.”
On the 10th of May the Desire was overtaken by a terrific storm, but it calmed in a few hours, and the next day a look-out from the masthead saw land, which was supposed to be the Cape of Good Hope, but was ultimately proved to be False Cape.
It was not until the 16th of May that, with a brisk gale, the ship passed the Cape of Good Hope, and on the 8th of June she came in sight of the island of Saint Helena. Only four people were found upon the island, but it was abundantly stored with fruits and vegetables of all sorts, carefully cultivated, while there were numberless goats and hogs running wild among the mountains.
The Portuguese homeward-bound East Indian fleet, the smallest of which vessels were of eight or nine hundred tons burden, laden with spices, Calicut cloth, precious stones, pearls, and treasure, had called off there only twenty days before.
Having touched at the Azores on the 3rd of September, the Desire fell in with a Plymouth vessel coming from Lisbon, which gave the voyagers the glorious information of the overthrow of the Spanish Armada.
Directly afterwards the Desire encountered a terrific gale, which carried away the greater part of her remaining sails. To replace them others were manufactured from the Indian damasks, and the canvas made of the silk grass of the South Seas, which had a most lustrous appearance. One of her topsails was of cloth of gold, while her officers and crew were dressed in silk clothes, their own having probably long since worn out.
Thus equipped, on the 9th of September the Desire entered the long-wished-for port of Plymouth, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants, who, as they gazed at her, fancied that all her sails were of silk, supposing naturally that this betokened the value of her cargo. In this they were not far wrong, for the wealth Cavendish brought home was enough to buy a fair earldom.
He was received with great kindness by the Queen, who, considering that his exploit almost rivalled that of Drake, bestowed on him the honour of knighthood. He boasted to his patron, Lord Hunsdon, that he had burnt and sunk nineteen sail of ships, small and great; that all the villages and towns where he had landed he had burnt and spoiled, and had carried off a great quantity of treasure, his most profitable transaction being that of the capture of the Santa Anna, as her cargo was the richest that had ever floated on those seas, so that his ships could only contain a small portion.