Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/27

Rh common prejudice of the period against the two great colonizing races. It was a passion which savoured of revenge for some dire injury done. As a mental equipment for a leader in an enterprise such as that to which we have referred, the mere despatch of which gave a direct challenge to Portuguese supremacy in the East, it was not to be equalled in stimulative force. Only the burning memory of wrongs suffered could, perhaps, have carried forward to a successful issue the great movement for widening the bounds of England's commerce of which Lancaster may be said to have been the pioneer. Another qualification of value in this connexion to which Lancaster could lay claim was the fact that he had served in the Armada fight directly under Drake. What that meant to a man of the Elizabethan adventurer class we cannot perhaps at this distance of time adequately realize. But by analogy drawn from the events of a more recent period it is possible to believe that the heroes of the classic contest carried with them in their undertakings a prestige which had its influence on friend and foe alike.

Lancaster in the expedition with which we are now dealing served as second in command under George Raymond, whose appointment as "General"—to adopt the phraseology of the time—had been secured by influence amongst the little coterie of London merchants who supplied the funds. There were three ships in all equipped for this formidable task of driving a wedge into the Portuguese Eastern trade monopoly. Raymond hoisted his flag on the Penelope, a vessel of somewhat over 300 tons burthen; Lancaster brought to the rendezvous the Edward Bonaventure, the ship of 300 tons which he had commanded in the Armada conflict; while a third craft of about