Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/171

 politics, tricks, and cunning," a fresh expedition, headed by Sir Richard Greville, himself laid the foundation of many practical plans for their colonisation. These were happily attended, even in their infancy, with considerable success. Indeed the many inducements offered in the shape of a rich soil, pliable natives, hopes of gold, and of the propagation of the Protestant faith could hardly fail to encourage emigration on, for those times, a tolerably extensive scale.

It was also about this period that John Davis made the discovery of the straits which bear his name, Convinced that a north-west passage to India must sooner or later be discovered, the merchants of London fitted out two small vessels, the Sunshine of fifty tons with twenty-three hands, commanded by Davis himself, and the Moonshine of thirty-five tons and nineteen men, commanded by Captain William Bruton. These vessels sailed from Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 1585, and reached as far north as latitude 66° 40´, discovering the straits justly named after him. A second voyage during the following summer inspired Davis with such hopes of success that he wrote to one of his owners, William Sanderson, a mathematical instrument maker, "that he had gained such experience that he would forfeit his life if the voyage could not be performed, not only without further charge, but with certain profit to the adventurers." In his third voyage, during which he sailed with open water up the same straits as far as 73° north latitude, he was equally sanguine of success, and on his return to England, after again failing in his object, he writes, "The passage is most probable,