THE SECOND ENGLISHMAN WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE GLOBE.
In the time of Queen Elizabeth it was not unusual for men of the
highest rank to devote their private fortunes and their personal
services to the advancement of what were considered national interests,
with the tacit understanding that the adventurers should consider
themselves at liberty to engage in operations fitted to serve their own
private interests, concurrently with those of the State. The morals of
the time were somewhat lax, and “sea divinity,” as Fuller terms it, was
taken to sanction extraordinary transactions in the appropriation and
treatment of property, especially such as was owned by the State or the
subjects of Spain. To spoil the Spaniards by all and every possible
means, seems to have been esteemed an object of honourable and
patriotic enterprise, in which Sir Francis Drake distinguished himself,
as he did also by much nobler and more disinterested service. Thomas
Cavendish was a contemporary of Drake, and in his wake plundered the
Spaniards, and he also followed him in circumnavigating the globe,--the
second Englishman who achieved that feat.
Thomas was a descendant of Sir William Cavendish; he was born at the
family mansion, Trimley, Suffolk, about the year 1560. His father died
while he was still a minor. Trimley, his birthplace, is situate on the
river Orwell, below Ipswich. The locality in which he spent his early
days probably induced a liking for the sea.
In April 1585, Cavendish accompanied Sir Richard Grenville in an
expedition to Virginia, its object being the establishment of a colony
as designed by Sir Walter Raleigh. The colony was a failure, and Drake,
as we have related in another place, subsequently brought home the
emigrants sent out to form it. Cavendish accompanied the expedition
in a ship that had been equipped at his own cost, and acquired
considerable nautical experience in the course of the voyage.
[Illustration: THOMAS CAVENDISH.]
On his return to England, Cavendish applied such means as he could
command to the equipment of a small squadron with which to commence
business as a buccaneer. He diligently got together all the existing
maps and charts accessible, and, through the influence of Lord
Hunsdon, he was so fortunate as to obtain a queen’s commission. The
“flag-ship” of Cavendish, admiral and commander, was the _Desire_, of
only 120 tons burthen; the others were, the _Content_, of 60 tons, and
the _Hugh Gallant_, a barque of 40 tons. The crews consisted of 123
officers, sailors, and soldiers, all told. The expedition sailed from
Plymouth on the 21st July 1586. The squadron first touched at Sierra
Leone, where they landed, and plundered and burned the town. Having
obtained supplies of water, fish, and lemons, the squadron sailed for
the coast of America, and reached in 48° S. a harbour on the coast
of Patagonia, in which they anchored, and which, in honour of the
admiral’s ship, they named Port Desire. Here the crews were enabled
to make an agreeable change in the ship’s dietary, by slaughtering
the sea-lions and the penguins that abounded on the coast; the flesh
of the young sea-lions, after a long course of salt junk, seemed to
the sailors equal to lamb or mutton. Towards the end of December the
squadron sailed southward for Magellan’s Straits, which were entered
on the 6th January 1587. At a short distance from the entrance, lights
were seen from the north shore that were supposed to be signals, and on
the morning following a boat was sent off for information. Unmistakable
signs were made, as the shore was approached, by three men waving such
substitutes as they could find for flags. It was found that they were
the wretched survivors of one of the colonies that the Spaniards had
attempted to plant, in order to intercept Drake on his expected return,
and to prevent, in the future, any buccaneer from ravaging the coast
as he had done. The crops of the perishing colonists had all failed;
they were constantly harassed by the natives, subject to unspeakable
hardships; out of four hundred men and thirty women landed by Pedro
Sarmiento, about seven years before Cavendish’s visit, only fifteen
men and three women survived. He offered the poor creatures a passage
to Peru. They at first hesitated to trust themselves with the English
heretic, but, after brief reflection on the misery and hopelessness
of their situation, eagerly accepted the offer,--but unhappily too
late. A favourable wind sprang up, of which Cavendish took advantage,
and set sail. Concern for the safety of his crew, desire to escape
as speedily as possible from the perilous navigation of the Straits,
and probably eagerness to make a beginning with the real objects of
the expedition--the acquisition of plunder--overbore any pity he may
have felt for the wretched colonists, whose heartless abandonment to
hopeless misery attached shame and infamy to the Spanish Government
responsible for sending them thither, rather than to the bold
buccaneer, with no humanitarian pretensions, who had come upon them
accidentally. He brought off one Spaniard, Tomé Hernandez, who wrote an
account of the colony.
On the 24th of February the squadron emerged from the Straits and
sailed northwards, reaching the island of Mocha about the middle of
March, but not before the little ships had been much knocked about, by
weather of extreme violence. The crews landed at several points, and
laid the natives under contribution for provisions. They were mistaken
for Spaniards, and were in some cases received with undisguised hatred,
in others with servility. On the 30th they anchored in the Bay of
Quintero, to the north of Valparaiso, which was passed by mistake,
without being “tapped.” Notice of the appearance of the suspicious
squadron seems to have reached some of the authorities. Hernandez,
the Spaniard, was sent ashore to confer with them. On returning, he
reported that the English might have what provisions they required.
Remaining for a time at their anchorage here, parties were sent ashore
for water and such provisions as could be obtained. In one of these
visits, the men were suddenly attacked by a party of two hundred
horsemen, who cut off, and took prisoners, twelve of the Englishmen.
Six of the English prisoners were executed at Santiago as pirates,
although, as has been said, with somewhat arrogant indignation, “they
sailed with the queen’s commission, and the English were not at open
war with Spain.”
Putting again to sea, the adventurers captured near Arica a vessel
laden with Spanish treasure. The cargo was appropriated, and the
ship--re-named the _George_--attached to the squadron. Several other
small vessels were taken and burned. One of these from Santiago had
been despatched to the viceroy, with the intelligence that an English
squadron was upon the coast. Before they were taken, they threw the
despatches overboard, and Cavendish resorted to the revolting expedient
of torture, to extort their contents from his captives. The mode of
torture employed was the “thumbikins,” an instrument in which the
thumb, by screw or lever power, could be crushed into shapeless pulp.
Having got what information he could wring out of his prisoners,
Cavendish burned the vessel and took the crew with him. One of them
was a Greek pilot, who knew the coast of Chili, and might be useful.
After a visit to a small town where supplies were obtained--not by
purchase--of bread, wine, poultry, fruit, etc., and some small prizes
taken, the adventurers proceeded to Paita, where they landed on the
20th May. The town, consisting of about two hundred houses, was
regularly built and very clean. The inhabitants were driven out, and
the town burned to the ground. Cavendish would not allow his men to
carry away as much as they could, as he expected they would need a
free hand to resist a probable attack. After wrecking the town and
burning a ship in the harbour, the squadron again sailed northwards,
and anchored in the harbour of the island of Puna. The Indian chief,
who lived in a luxuriously furnished palace, surrounded by beautiful
gardens, and the other inhabitants had fled, carrying as many of their
valuables with them as possible. The English visitors sank a Spanish
ship of 250 tons that was in the harbour, burned down a fine large
church, and brought away the bells.
[Illustration: PERILOUS POSITION IN THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN.]
On the 2nd June, before weighing anchor at Puna, a party of Cavendish’s
men, strolling about and foraging, was suddenly attacked by about
one hundred armed Spaniards. Seven of the Englishmen were killed,
three were made prisoners, two were drowned, and eight escaped. To
avenge this attack, Cavendish landed with as powerful a force as he
could muster, drove out the Spaniards, burned the town and four ships
that were building; he also destroyed the gardens and orchards, and
committed as much havoc generally as was in his power. Again proceeding
northwards to Rio Dolce, he sent some Indian captives ashore, and
sank the _Hugh Gallant_, the crew of which he needed for the manning
of the other two ships. On the 9th July a new ship of 120 tons was
taken; the sails and ropes were appropriated, and the ship burned. A
Frenchman, taken in this vessel, gave valuable information respecting
a Manilla ship, then expected from the Philippines. The record of the
proceedings of the squadron continues most inglorious, including the
burning of the town, the church, and the custom-house of Guatulco;
the burning of two new ships at Puerto de Navidad; capturing three
Spanish families, a carpenter, a Portuguese, and a few Indians,--the
carpenter and the Portuguese only being kept for present and future
use. On the 12th September the adventurers reached the island of St.
Andrew, where a store of wood and of dried and salted wild-fowl was
laid in, and the sailors, failing other supply, had a fresh meat
change in cooking the iguanas, which were found more palatable, than
inviting in appearance. Towards the end of September the fleet put
into the Bay of Mazattan, where the ships were careened, and water was
taken in. During October the fleet cruised, in wait for the expected
prize, not far wide of Cape St. Lucas. On the 4th November a sail was
sighted, which proved to be the _Santa Anna_, which was overtaken after
some hours’ chase, and promptly attacked. The Spaniards resisted with
determination and courage, although they had no more effective means
of defence than stones, which they hurled at the boarders, from behind
such defective shelters as they could improvise. Two separate accounts
of the action have been preserved, both written by adventurers who were
present. After receiving a volley of stones from the defenders, one
narrator proceeds: “We new-trimmed our sails and fitted every man
his furniture, and gave them a fresh encounter with our great ordnance,
and also with our small-shot, raking them through and through, to the
killing and wounding of many of their men. Their captain, still like
a valiant man with his company, stood very stoutly in close fights,
not yielding as yet. Our general, encouraging his men afresh, with the
whole voice of trumpets, gave them the other encounter with our great
ordnance and all our small-shot, to the great discouragement of our
enemies,--raking them through in divers places, killing and wounding
many of their men. They being thus discouraged and spoiled, and their
ship being in hazard of sinking by reason of the great shot which were
made, whereof some were made under water, within five or six hours’
fight, sent out a flag of truce, and parleyed for mercy, desiring our
general to save their lives and take their goods, and that they would
presently yield. Our general, of his goodness, promised them mercy, and
called to them to strike their sails, and to hoist out their boat and
come on board; which news they were full glad to hear of, and presently
struck their sails and hoisted out their boat, and one of their chief
merchants came on board unto our general, and, falling down upon his
knees, offered to have kissed our general’s feet, and craved mercy.”
It is satisfactory that this craven submission was not made by the
commander of the _Santa Anna_, who must have been a noble hero to
stand out, almost without arms of any kind, against the “great ordnance
and small-shot” of his enemy for five or six hours. The narrator
proceeds: “Our general graciously pardoned both him and the rest, upon
promise of their true-dealing(!) with him and his company concerning
such riches as were in the ship, and sent for their captain and pilot,
who, at their coming, used the like duty and reverence as the former
did. The general, out of his great mercy and humanity, promised their
lives and good usage.”
Cavendish and his crews must have been getting rather disgusted with
their hard and bitter experiences up to the time they fell in with the
_Santa Anna_. They were about sixteen months out from Plymouth; had
been much knocked about; had destroyed a great deal of property, but
had acquired very little. The _Santa Anna_ compensated for all their
hardships and disappointments. It was a ship of 700 tons burthen, the
property of the King of Spain, and carried one of the richest cargoes
that had ever floated up to that time. It had on board 122,000 pesos of
gold, _i.e._ as many ounces of the precious metal, with a cargo of the
finest silks, satins, damasks, wine, preserved fruits, musk, spices,
etc. The ship carried a large number of passengers, with the most
luxurious provision for their accommodation and comfort. The captors
entered with alacrity upon the unrestrained enjoyment of luxuries
such as many of them had never known before. Cavendish carried his
prize into a bay within Cape St. Lucas, where he landed the crew and
passengers,--about one hundred and ninety in all. He allowed them a
supply of water, a part of the ship’s stores, some wine, and the sails
of the dismantled prize to construct tents for shelter. He gave arms
to the men to enable them to defend their company against the natives.
He also allowed them some planks wherewith to build a raft, or such
craft as they might be able to construct for their conveyance to the
mainland. Among the passengers were two Japanese youths, both of whom
could read and write their own language. There were also three boys
from Manilla, one of whom, on the return of the expedition to England,
was presented to the Countess of Essex,--such an attendant being at
that time considered evidence of almost regal life and splendour. These
youths, with a Portuguese who had been in Canton, the Philippines, and
Japan, with a Spanish pilot, Cavendish took with him.
Much anger and discontent were excited in connection with the division
of the spoils, especially among the crew of the _Content_, who thought
Cavendish took more than a fair share for himself and the company
of the _Desire_--his own ship. The threatened mutiny was, however,
suppressed, and a grand gala was held on the queen’s day--17th
November, with eating and drinking, firing of guns, and a display of
fireworks, with as a grand set-piece the blazing _Santa Anna_, with all
of her precious cargo on board that the captors could not carry away
with them. They left the ship burned down to the water’s edge. After
they left the burning ship, the fire providentially freed the wreck
from the anchors, and the flood-tide carried her still burning into
the bay. The abandoned company were happily enabled to extinguish the
flames, and to save so much of the hull as with some fitting furnished
them with a means of escape from the inhospitable shore upon which they
had been cast.
After leaving Cape St. Lucas, the _Content_ fell behind, and was never
again seen by Cavendish, who set sail to cross the Pacific by a course
not very widely different from that taken by Drake.
In January 1588, Cavendish reached the Ladrone Islands, a few miles
from which an incident occurred that does not redound to his credit.
A fleet of fifty or more canoes surrounded the _Desire_ with cargoes
of fish, potatoes, plantains, etc., to exchange them, as they had been
accustomed to do with the Spaniards, for pieces of iron. The islanders
were importunate and rather troublesome, and, to get rid of them, “our
general” and five of his men fired a volley into them. The savages were
so expert as divers and swimmers that the sportsmen could not tell how
many they killed. These natives were of tawny colour, tall, stout, and
naked. Their canoes, six or seven yards in length, but very narrow,
were admirably made, and had carved figureheads. They had square and
triangular sails of a cloth made from rushes.
On the voyage, while in the vicinity of the Philippines, an important
secret oozed out. The Portuguese taken from the _Santa Anna_ let it
be known that the Spanish pilot had prepared a letter to be secretly
conveyed to the governor at Manilla, explaining how the _Desire_ might
be surprised and overpowered. The Spaniard was summarily hanged for his
patriotism. The further course of the homeward voyage was from Manilla
to the Moluccas, passed about the middle of February; Java; the Cape
of Good Hope; St. Helena, in June; to Plymouth, which was reached on
the 9th September 1588; Cavendish’s circumnavigation of the globe--the
third that had been accomplished--having been made in two years and
fifty days, a considerably shorter time than had been occupied by
either Magellan and his successors or Sir Francis Drake,--but mere
speed in getting back to a home port had not been an object with either
of the three distinguished navigators.
Accounts differ as to the style in which Cavendish made his return
entry into Plymouth. According to one account, he encountered, for four
days, a violent storm in the Channel, from which the tempest-tossed
adventurers happily escaped, and, says N. H., “on 10th September 1588,
like wearied men, through the favour of the Almighty, we got into
Plymouth, where the townsmen received us with all humanity.” Anyway,
his arrival, like that of Drake before him, caused a great sensation at
Plymouth.
[Illustration: ROUNDING THE CAPE DE BUENA ESPERANÇA.]
Cavendish was received as a hero, and appeared to consider himself
worthy of his fame and the honours conferred upon him. He had
acquired great wealth, albeit dishonestly, and his exploits had been
distinguished in many instances by wanton outrage and gratuitous
destruction of life and property. He, however, appeared to be
unconscious of having done anything to be ashamed of, and probably held
in accord with those avowed by the Rev. Dr. Thos. Fuller, prebendary
of Sarum, who, as apologist for Sir Francis Drake’s piratical
performances, considered that “his case was clear in sea divinity; and
few are such infidels as not to believe doctrines which make for their
own profit.” In a letter to his patron, Lord Hunsdon, he writes: “It
hath pleased Almighty God to suffer me to circumpass the whole globe
of the world, entering in at the Strait of Magellan, and returning by
the Cape de Buena Esperança; in which voyage I have either discovered
or brought certain intelligence of all the rich places in the world,
which were ever discovered by any Christian. I navigated along the
coast of Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I
burned and sank nineteen ships, small and great. All the villages and
towns that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled; and had I not been
discovered upon the coast, I had taken great quantity of treasure. The
matter of most profit unto me was a great ship of the king’s which I
took at California, which ship came from the Philippines, being one of
the richest of merchandise that ever passed those seas. From the Cape
of California, being the uttermost part of all New Spain, I navigated
to the islands of the Philippines, hard upon the coast of China, of
which country I have brought such intelligence as hath not been heard
of in these parts; the stateliness and riches of which country [China]
I fear to make report of, lest I should not be credited. I found out
by the way homeward the island of Santa Helena; and from that island
God hath suffered me to return unto England. All which services, with
myself, I humbly prostrate at Her Majesty’s feet, desiring the Almighty
long to continue her reign amongst us; for at this day she is the most
famous and victorious princess that liveth in the world.” Although
Cavendish contributed comparatively little to the sum of geographical
knowledge by accurate reports of any original discoveries he had made,
apart from the moral aspect of the principal incidents in his career,
he was indisputably a remarkable man, and rarely since the world began
has a young man of only twenty-eight years achieved such a record as he
had done, at the end of his circumnavigation, illustrative of daring
bravery, indomitable perseverance, and manly endurance.
The wealth with which Cavendish returned was considered sufficient to
have bought “a fair earldom”; but it was not to his taste to settle,
or found a family. His expedition had been undertaken to repair his
shattered fortunes, and had done so satisfactorily, but it was probably
“light come, light go” with him. The treasure of the _Santa Anna_ had
been put into “a bag with holes,” and what did not run through was
providently applied by Cavendish to fitting out another expedition
on an extended scale, which it was expected would do a much larger
business, and prove even a more pronounced success than the last. The
new squadron consisted of “three tall ships” and two pinnaces,--the
galleon _Leicester_, in which Cavendish sailed; the _Desire_, his old
ship, commanded by Captain John Davis; the _Roebucke_, the _Black
Pinnace_, and the _Daintie_. The expedition sailed from Plymouth on
26th August 1591, which was from the beginning a series of dreary,
unrelieved misery and disaster. The Straits of Magellan were reached
in April 1592, and passed through about half-way. Disagreements
arose among the crews, and Cavendish seemed to have lost his power
of command. He determined to return to Santos. The ships parted
company, and the last notice of Cavendish in the homeward voyage of the
_Leicester_ is his own notice of the death of his cousin John Locke in
8° N. latitude. Cavendish is supposed to have died on board a few days
later, the victim of grief and disappointment. While tossed about in
the _Desire_ after the ships had parted company, Captain Davis was, on
the 14th August 1592, “driven in among certain islands never before
discovered by any known relation, lying fifty leagues or better off the
shore, east and northerly from the Straits.” These were the Falkland
Islands, of which Captain Davis has certainly the honour of being the
original discoverer, although the discovery has been claimed by Sir
Richard Hawkins, and certain foreign navigators.[1] Several more or
less complete accounts of this last disastrous voyage of Cavendish
have been preserved; one of them, drawn up at sea by himself, is a most
affecting and depressing narrative. In this account he writes: “We had
been almost four months between the coast of Brazil and the Straits,
being in distance not above six hundred leagues, which is commonly run
in twenty or thirty days; but such was the adverseness of our fortune,
that in coming thither we spent the summer, and found the Straits in
the beginning of a most extreme winter, not endurable for Christians.
After the month of May was come in, nothing but such flights of snow,
and extremity of frosts, as in all my life I never saw any to be
compared with them. This extremity caused the weak men to decay; for,
in seven or eight days in this extremity, there died forty men and
sickened seventy, so that there were not fifteen men able to stand
upon the hatches.” Mr. John Lane, a friend of Captain Davis, writing
of their experiences in the middle of “charming May,” says: “In this
time we endured extreme storms, with perpetual snow, where many of our
men died of cursed famine and miserable cold, not having wherewith to
cover their bodies nor to fill their stomachs, but living by mussels,
water, and weeds of the sea, with a small relief from the ship’s stores
of meal sometimes.” He makes the shocking disclosure that “all the sick
men in the galleon” (Cavendish’s ship) “were most uncharitably put on
shore into the woods, in the snow, wind, and cold, when men of good
health could scarcely endure it, where they ended their lives in the
highest degree of misery.”
[1] Captain John Davis achieved in this early age deserved
celebrity as a navigator and discoverer. He made three
voyages, under the sanction and authority of the English
Government, in search of a North-West passage to the
Pacific. In the first, in 1585, he pushed his way round
the southern end of Greenland, across the strait that from
then until now has borne his name--Davis Strait--and along
the coast of what is now known as Baffin’s Land, to the
Cape of God’s Mercy, which he thus named in the belief that
his task was virtually accomplished. In the second voyage,
1586, he made little further progress; in the third, 1587,
he reached the entrance to the strait afterwards explored
by, and named after, Hudson. Davis, after other important
nautical services, was, when on his return from the East
Indies, killed by pirates off the coast of Malacca. Davis
was an author as well as a navigator.
Anthropology, natural history, or other scientific subjects, had no
attractions for the adventurers, whose attention, and such powers as
were left with them, were absorbed in their conflicts with storm and
tempest, cold, hunger, and nakedness. After parting company they never
again reunited, or in any of the separated ships made any attempt to
carry out the objects of the expedition. Almost all perished miserably.
It is stated that Davis, whom Cavendish charged with treachery and
desertion, did all that was possible to find and rejoin his leader,
but without success. Long after the separation of the fleet, Davis
returned to Port Desire, and three times attempted unsuccessfully to
pass through the Straits in search for Cavendish. Davis and a few more
survived their terrible hardships. Out of a crew of seventy-six men who
sailed from England, only a remnant of fifteen lived to return with
Davis, in misery and weakness so great that they could neither “take in
or heave out a saile.” Davis, with the distressed survivors, arrived
off Bearhaven, Ireland, on 11th June 1593, fully a year after the death
and burial of Cavendish at sea.
Cavendish was far from faultless. He was passionate and impetuous,
and was still young at the end of his adventurous life. He was a
University man, a bred aristocrat, a courtier, with a contempt for
humanitarian doctrines and practices. Society, as it was constituted
then, has to share the blame of his excesses, and especially his
recklessness of human life. It was a comparatively venial offence in
those days to fire into a crowd of South Sea Islanders with as little
hesitation as if they had been a flock of wild ducks. His high spirit,
courage, and intrepidity are, however, indisputable.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH,
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S FAVOURITE MINISTER.