1602. DISCOVERIES OF WEYMOUTH. l65 



chants of London determined to try their fortune bv 

 the former of these known passages ; not, however, 

 so much with the view of forming a legitimate 

 trade with the natives of the East, as of obtaining 

 wealth by the more cheap and expeditious mode 

 of plundering the Portuguezc, With this design, 

 Captain George Raymond, having fitted out a 

 ship of his own called the Penelope, and accom- 

 panied by two others, the Merchant-Royal and 

 Edward Bonaventure, set sail in 1591 for the East 

 Indies. The voyage, however, was most disastrous. 

 The Royal-Merchant returned from the Cape full 

 of sick men. The Penelope had scarcely doubled 

 the Cape when she w^as lost; and the Edw^ard 

 Bonaventure, commanded by Captain James Lan- 

 caster, after an unsuccessful voyage, was lost on 

 her return, in the West Indies. But Lancaster 

 sent home, or is supposed to have sent home, a 

 piece of information, which gave a new stimulus 

 to northern discovery. In a postscript to one of 

 his letters, he says, " The passage to the Indies is 

 in the north-west of America, in 62** 30' north." 

 But this postscript, then believed to be genuine, 

 h^s since been supposed to be an interpolation.''^ 



It served, however, to reviv^e the hopes of the 

 mercantile part of the nation; and, in 1602, the 

 worshipful merchants of the Muscovy and Tur- 

 }iey Companies fitted out, at their joint expense, 



* Burner's Voyages and Discoveries, 

 M 3 



