56 DISCOVERIES OF 1553. 



pinnace and a boat ; and Sir Hugh Wi lloughby, 

 Knight, as Captain General of the fleet, was 

 appointed to command her : the Edward Bonad- 

 venture, of 160 tons, with a pinnace and a boat, the 

 command of which was given to Richard Chan- 

 celor, Captain and Pilot-Major of the fleet, and 

 Steven Burough was master of the ship : and the 

 Bona Confidentia of 90 tons, having also a pinnace, 

 and a boat,of which Cornelius Durfoorth was master. 

 The number of persons in the first ship was thirty- 

 five, including six merchants ; in the second fifty, 

 including two merchants; and in the third twenty- 

 eight, including three merchants. 



This first regular expedition for discoveries 

 excited the most lively interest at the court and 

 in the capital; and so sanguine were the promoters 

 of the voyage of its success in reaching the Indian 

 seas, that they caused the ships to be sheathed 

 with lead as a protection against the worms which, 

 they had understood, were destructive of wooden 

 sheathing in the Indian climates,* and these are pro- 

 bably the first ships that in England were coated 

 with a metallic substance.! From the account of the 



•* Clement Adams's account of the voyage. Hakluyt, vol. 

 i. p. 243. 



-f Sheathing with lead was in use till the reign of Charles II. but 

 was discontinued on account of its wearing away irregularly and 

 so soon washing bare in places, as to let in the worms ; and 

 sheathing with wood was adopted in its place. In 1708, a pro- 

 posal was made to the Navy Board to sheath ships with copper, 



