Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/169



It is not our province, much less our pleasure, to furnish details of Drake's piratical proceedings on the coasts of Chili and Peru. We may merely state that the capture of a Spanish vessel with 150,000l. of silver on board, off Payta, crowned all his previous successes of that character. Resolving to return home by a north-west passage, he sailed one thousand four hundred leagues without seeing land, a marvellous expedition in those days, until, in 48° north latitude, he fell in with the American continent, making thence one of the Pellew Islands and the eastern coast of Celebes. After encountering many perils, and failing of course to find any passage to the North, he reached the Cape of Good Hope, and finally arrived in England on the 3rd of November, 1580. A large portion of the treasure he had captured was sequestered by government at the instance of the Spanish ambassador, and restored to its rightful owners, but a considerable surplus remained to satisfy the exploring freebooter, and to stimulate the cupidity of fresh adventurers.

The success of Drake paved the way to a new and more brilliant epoch in the history of maritime commerce. The love of adventure mingled with hopes, however vain, of obtaining incalculable wealth, combined with the knowledge that the Queen, shutting her eyes to Drake's heinous delinquencies, had dined on board his ship and conferred on him the honour of knighthood, all tended to incite hosts of*