Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/172

 *

and the execution easy," an opinion which, more or less, prevailed even until our own time. But his fourth voyage was altogether so unsuccessful that the owners of the ships under his charge were led to direct their attention to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and to these regions Davis made no less than five voyages, but was, unfortunately, killed in his last voyage by some Japanese pirates off the coast of Malacca, in December 1605.

The destruction of the Spanish Armada, somewhere about the close of Davis's last attempt to discover a north-west passage to India, had rendered the voyage to that favoured land by way of the Cape of Good Hope a much less perilous undertaking than it had previously been. England had now become "Mistress of the seas," and her people embraced the maritime position they had achieved in their characteristic manner. Many more freebooting expeditions were now launched than had previously been attempted. The fleets of Spain and Portugal having for the time been swept from the seas, the shipowners of London, who had lent their aid to destroy the Armada, quickly followed up the blow by an expedition on their own account against the country whose vessels of war they had destroyed. Other cities and towns, too, eagerly joined them in their daring adventures. Ipswich, Harwich, and Newcastle sent their quota of vessels, and Elizabeth herself, subscribing sixty thousand pounds, furnished six ships towards this very questionable expedition, the whole fleet numbering one hundred and forty-six vessels. Not satisfied with