1577* EDAVARD FENTON. ^7 



bility of success. His repeated solicitations to be 

 employed on this enterprize, joined to the power- 

 ful interest of the Earl of Leicester, one of his 

 patrons, procured him at length an opportunity of 

 trying his fortune.^ 



A voyage was set forth, under the auspices, 

 and chiefly at the expense, of the Duke of Cum- 

 berland, the object of which, as would appear from 

 Fen ton's instructions, was of a two-fold nature : 

 namely, to proceed to the East Indies by one of 

 the usual routes, and from the Moluccas to endea- 

 vour to return by the north-east; or in other words, 

 to discover the north-west passage on the side of 

 the Pacific, then known by the name of the South 

 Seas ; butlhe real object w^as, in Sir William Mon- 

 son's opinion, to try his fortune in the Indian 

 seas, as Drake had already done with so much 

 success. But the king of Spain, having antici- 

 pated the design, sent a fleet to intercept him 

 in the strait of Magellan. Fen ton on his passage 

 out discovered this and thought it prudent to 

 return to England, but not before he had engaged 

 and sunk the Spanish Vice-Admiral, whom he met 

 with in a Portugueze port. After this he had the 

 command of the Mary Rose^ and behaved most 

 gallantly in the attack on the Spanish Armada in 

 1588. He died at Deptford in 1603, and was 

 buried in the parish church of that place, in which 



* Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 7^4. 

 VOL. I. H 



