world, new animals, new vegetables, natural productions and manufactured articles altogether unknown before. Potatoes, Tobacco, and somewhat later, Tea, were introduced. The results of these voyagings, the return of these bold and hardy captains, gave a new colour to the romantic features of the age. The Spaniards arrogated to themselves the sovereignty of the sea, and the sole dominion over the whole of the New World, which they called the Indies. The battle for the dominion of the waters was, therefore, fought by the representative navigators of either kingdom, and the sailors of England swept across every ocean, unlocked port after port, and turned the prows of their vessels to realms which Portuguese or Spaniard had not yet dared to attempt. Drake was the most distinguished of these rovers; he was born in Devonshire, of poor parents, and bound apprentice, like Captain Cook, at an early period to the master of a little coasting bark, when, says Fuller, "pain with patience in his youth knit the joints of his soul, and made them more solid and compact." One Sunday, in August, 1573, while all the townsfolk were in church, news was brought into Plymouth that he was returning from his voyagings in the Spanish Main; instantly the church was emptied, and

hurrying down to the harbour where the rovers were anchoring, the people received them with loud demonstrations of welcome and joy. There had never before been a voyage, sailed by an English captain, attended with such daring or enterprise; three vessels only, and frail barks they were, but they crossed the Isthmus of Darien, and plunged into the waters of the great Pacific; and immense were the piles of solid gold and silver which they found in the lands beyond those great deep seas; and every inch of the vessels was crammed with things wonderful, and rich, and rare. Men, like these, after discoveries like these, were not likely to stay long at home, and Drake soon started away again on a similar voyage, secretly sanctioned by Elizabeth; for they were but piratic expeditions against Spain, with whom Elizabeth professed to be at peace. This time Drake took five vessels, and one hundred and sixty four gentlemen of noble blood, to learn the art of navigation; and in the course of this voyage these nobles, beneath the sanction and leadership of their captain, made Spain to feel the weight of their arm in those coasts of Spanish America; they seized the ships of Spain; they burned the towns of Spain; they slaughtered the natives of Spain; and visited

the natives of the various countries through which they passed, with the tender manifestations of the loveliness and beauty of a christian people. When landing at Port Julian, being in some difficulty as to their whereabouts, Drake and his men were exceedingly comforted "by the discovery of a gibbet, as it was a proof that Christian people had been there before them." A more terrible satire, severe, though unintentional, was never uttered against Christianity; here, too, Drake improved the discovery of the gibbet to practical advantage, by the hanging of a gentleman, called Master Doughty, under circumstances which have been described as making it an act of "foul murder.” For two years and ten months were these travellers thus rambling over the earth; many an adventure, many a strange discovery was theirs. At last, after spending many months in the almost unknown south-western coast of America, after sailing right across the Indian Ocean from Java, and doubling the Cape of Good Hope, Drake once more re-appeared at Plymouth harbour, again laden with wealth. For a long time his ship was preserved as a monument of his skill and enterprise in the dockyard of Deptford. The queen banqueted on board of it, and conferred on Drake the honour

of knighthood. It is now long since broken up, but one of its planks, converted into a chair, is judged worthy of possession by the University of Oxford.

Another distinguished navigator we have already mentioned-Cavendish, a youthful adventurer who sought to repair on the seas the losses he had sustained from a life of gaiety at court. He was the first to point out the local advantages resulting from the occupancy of St. Helena by the English.

In a letter written by him on his return, to Lord Hundson, Elizabeth's chamberlain, and favourite, he thus enumerates his exploits :

66

I burnt and sunk nineteen sail of ships small and great, and all the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled."

Hawkins was another of these celebrated pirates; his ships were the first fitted out under the especial patronage of Elizabeth in the slave trade service.

But the power of Spain was curtailed still more materially by its own insanity,—though every measure which seemed to interfere with its own glory added to that of England, its youthful rival. Thus to one portion and another of the land the refugees from Holland were travelling: cut off from their own nation,

and from the exercise there of their religious duties, they fled to England,—and Elizabeth had in many instances liberality and perception enough to receive and entertain them after their deserts, for they brought along with them their trades and artifices; the greater number of them at length settled at Norwich; and when the queen visited that place, the minister of the Dutch church offered to her the grateful homage of his flock, for a place of worship had been given to them, "for the performance of public service in their own tongue, according to the form they most preferred; and encouragement was held out to them to establish themselves there with the branches of manufacture they had carried on previously, to great advantage at home. This accession of skill and industry soon raised the woollen fabrics of England to

pitch of excellence unknown in former ages, and repaid with usury to this country the exercise of public hospitality."*

All these circumstances extended the British sovereignty of the seas. Adventure was pushing its discoveries into distant seas and realms unknown and untried before: innumerable coasts were brought to light, and regions disclosed,

* Miss Atkin.