of Drake's arrival, escapes from Vera Cruz, and from Cavallos to Spain, and so to England.

Every day at Dartmouth voyagers were landing fresh from grapples with Indians and Spaniards, their necks strung with pearls of the Pacific, or jewels from Brazil, carrying strange birds on their wrists from the woods of the Bermudas, or leading in leashes the hunting leopards of Hindostan.

But there were also disasters, for every sea is bounded by a shore of death. Sir Hugh Willoughby and all his crew were frozen in Lapland; Drake and Cavendish died of broken hearts, and Raleigh's schemes proved futile; thousands of Englishmen fell victims to Indian arrows and Spanish bullets; thousands pined away in the galleys of Bilboa, the prisons of the Inquisition, the mines of Peru, and the dockyards of Algiers; quicksands, whirlpools, reefs and shoals, had all their victims; and at this price we purchased our commercial greatness: deserts, mountains, rivers, and forests were burying-places for our travellers; but the survivors returned to widen our empire and buttress it with colonies.

Our voyagers explored Muscovy and Persia, and the Great Khan, and the Russian Emperor entered into an alliance with our nation. We rivalled Venice in energy, and Genoa in enterprise; our ships were in every

sea, and our foot-prints on every shore. English flags waved over the ports of Candia and Cyprus, Tripoli and Constantinople. English faces were to be seen among dusty images in the streets of Jerusalem and Alexandria, in Venice and Pegu, at Calicut, and at Rhodes. Quicksilver and plate, pegos and ducats, ingots and jewels, rolled together on the quays of the ports of Devon, coinstained with Spanish blood, and won by the sweat of Englishmen. The Emperor of Ethiopia, and the Lama of Thibet, had both heard of England, and seen the ambassadors of its Queen. Simple merchants of Exeter commenced a trade with Senegal and Guinea, and private enterprisers captured Spanish caricks, and plundered Indian cities.

In the tavern of any seaport town you might hear swarthy men, with scarred faces and gold earrings, narrate stories of Drake's Portugal voyage, or of Essex's capture of Cadiz, of the Earl of Northumberland's voyage to the Azores, or of the noble death of Sir Richard Greenvil. The navigators were never tired of justifying their intrepid piracies, by narrations of Spanish cruelty and aggression. Had not the Spaniards wasted 30,000 Indians in Hispanioles alone, besides many millions of a poor harmless people elsewhere; men, too, who might easily have been persuaded to have become Christians. Were the Spaniards

not ravenous strangers, greedily thirsting for English blood, men who hated us more than any nation in Europe, -who detested us, as Hakluyt says, "for the many overthrows and dishonours they have received at our hands, whose weakness we have discovered to the world, and whose forces at home, abroad, in Europe, in India, by sea and land, we have, even with handfuls of men and ships, overthrown and discomfited."

What burning patriotism shines out in the final words of the old travel writer:

"Let, therefore," he says, "any Englishman, of what religion soever, have no other opinion of the Spaniards but that those whom he seeketh to win of our nation, be esteemed base and treacherous, unworthy persons, or unconstant fools, and that he useth his pretence of religion to no other purpose but to bewitch us from the obedience of our natural prince, thereby hoping in time to bring us to slavery and subjection, and then no other shall be unto them so odious and disdained as the traitors themselves, who have sold their country to a stranger, and contrary to the humane and generall honour, not only of Christians, but of heathen and irreligious nations, but who have always sustained what labour soever, and embraced even death itself, for their country, prince, or commonwealth. To conclude, it hath ever to this day pleased God to

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prosper and defend her Majesty, to break the purposes of malicious enemies, of foresworn traitors, and of unjust practices and invasions. He hath ever been honoured of the worthiest kings, served by faithful subjects, and shall, by the favor of God, repell and confound all whatsoever attempts against her sacred person or kingdom. In the meantime, let the Spaniard and traitor vaunt of their success, and we be true and obedient vassals, guided by the shining light of her virtues, shall always love her, serve her, and obey her, to the end of our lives."

The following is such a yarn as might have been heard in a winter night at a tavern at Wapping:

"It is the voyage of Master William Parker, of Plimmouth, Gentleman, to Margarita, Jamaica, Truxillo, Puerto de Cavallos, situate within the bay of Honduras, and taken by Sir Anthony Sherley and him, as likewise up Rio Dolce; with his return from thence and his valiant and happie enterprise upon Campeche, the chief town of Yucatan, which he took and sacked with six and fifty men, and brought out of the harbour a frigat laden with the king's tribute, and surprised also the town of Sebo."

"In the yeere 1596, William Parker, of Plimmouth, Gentleman, being furnished with a tall ship and bark at his own expence; the ship called the Prudence, of 120 tonnes, wherein himselfe went captaine, and the bark

called the Adventure, of twenty-five tonnes, whereof was captaine one Richard Hen, departed from the foresaid haven of Plimmouth in the moneth of November, having 100 men in his company.

"The first place where we touched in the West Indies was the Isle of Margarita, on the coast of Tierra Firma, where we took a Spanish gentleman and others, who for his ransom set at liberty Master James Willis and five other Englishmen, which were prisoners in Cumana, who otherwise were never like to have come from thence. Thus passing from thence, we sailed over the Isle of Jamaica, where the second of March we met with Sir Anthony Sherley, who before our coming had taken the chief town in the island, and was now almost in a readenes to depart; and where consorting ourselves with him, we departed from Jamaica the sixt of March, and resolved to set upon the strong town of Truxillo, neer the mouth of the bay of the Honduras; and having sailed to Cape de Coorientes upon Cuba, to seek a bark of mine for our better strength, but not finding her, we went for the Cape Honduras, where we purposed to entrap the watch, and to have sacked the town of Truxillo. But the watch discovering us, made great fires, and the town presently shot off a great piece, and answered with fires. Notwithstanding, the next day being the 31st of March, we