Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/132

 *ation for sufferings inflicted on English subjects by the Spanish Inquisition, and often without any professions at all, English merchants and English gentlemen, whose estates lay contiguous to the sea coast, or on the creeks and navigable rivers, fitted out vessels as traders, under vague and questionable commissions, and sent them forth, heavily armed, to plunder on the high seas whatever ships, including not unfrequently those of their own countrymen, they might consider worthy of their prey.

Indeed, men belonging to the best families in England then became lawless rovers, especially as one of them, Sir Thomas Seymour, had formed the idea of establishing a private sovereignty among the Scilly Islands, where, as on the coast of Ireland, there were numerous narrow channels affording safe and convenient rendezvous for any desperate cruiser, who levied war on his own account whenever he thought the government neglected its duty, or whenever, by a fortunate chance, richly laden vessels happened to cross his path. The annals of the period frequently mention traders which had sailed from Antwerp to Cadiz, never having reached their destination; no danger of the sea had impeded their progress, but, when hugging the land, they had met a mysterious stranger, who had ordered them to heave-to, and deliver their cargo: boats from the nearest shore in league with the cruiser, were frequently in attendance, and, during the course of the night, carts and waggons were ready at some sheltered nook on the beach to relieve the boats of their loads, and to convey bales of goods or tubs of spirits to the con-*