Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/241

 SIK FKANCIS DEAKE 187 " all the goods he hath in the world, whereby himself, his wife, and fifteen children are left to beg their bread, except God turn the stones at Dartford into his bread again." No miracle took place. After lying long in the Fleet Prison and failing in attempts to re-establish himself in life, Lok was in 1614 - 1615, at the age of eighty-three, still being prosecuted for debts incurred for the Cathay Company thirty-five years before. Meanwhile English explora- tion had not stood still. As the great struggle with Spain drew on, the Protestant spirit of Eng- land rose, and in 1578 Drake broke into the Pacific by the southwestern route and visited the Moluccas, all Papal Bulls not- withstanding. Elizabeth hesitated to follow up to its mercantile uses 8IR FRANCIS DRAKE. her privateering hero's voyage round the globe (1577- 1580). But during the recriminations which ensued with Spain, she found it necessary to challenge the Catholic monopoly of the Asiatic trade based on the Papal settlement of 1493. The Pope's award became a disputed " donation of the Bishop of Rome." " The use of the sea and air," she argued, " is common to all," " as neither nature, nor public use and custom permitteth any possession thereof." Drake's voyage into the forbidden oceans, and Elizabeth's challenge of the international system on which the interdict rested, opened up possibilities of a southern passage which