Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/173

 ravaging the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and capturing a great number of the ships of the enemy, these too enterprising shipowners captured sixty sail of vessels belonging to the Hanse Towns destined for the Peninsula.

A private expedition of this character so deeply mortified the Spaniards that Elizabeth, though a very prominent participator in it, at first thought of releasing the vessels belonging to the Hanse Towns; but on ascertaining that the Hanseatic League meditated serious designs of revenge for the loss of their shipping privileges in England (having held a meeting at Lubeck to take hostile measures against England), she ordered the whole of the ships and property which had been captured to be condemned, with the exception of two of the smallest vessels, which were despatched to carry the unwelcome news to the Hanse Towns of the misfortunes of their comrades.

Amid the many cruises now made in search of gain not the least important, however unfortunate, was the voyage undertaken to the East Indies by Thomas Cavendish in 1591; its object, like most of the expeditions of the period, being to cruise against the Portuguese, who by this time had formed there important and valuable settlements, especially at