THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



the time. Like Bassanio, in The Merchant of Venice^ he 

 had 



'disabled his estate 

 By something showing a more swelling port 

 Than his faint means would grant continuance ' ; 



and in 1586, encouraged by the success of Drake, he 

 furnished three ships to go in quest of the golden fleece. 

 His voyage round the world was completed in a shorter 

 time than Drake's; he returned in September, 1588, soon 

 after the repulse of the Armada. The nature of his 

 doings by the way is well set forth by himself in a letter 

 H'u methods, to Lord Hunsdon : — * I navigated alongst the coast of 

 Chili, Peru, and Nueva Espana, where I made great 

 spoils : I burnt and sunk nineteen sails of ships, small 

 and great. All the villages and towns that ever I landed 

 at, I burnt and spoiled ; and had I not been discovered 

 upon the coast, I had taken great quantity of treasure.' 

 This account is not complete. He also slaughtered the 

 Indians, devastated crops and orchards, and wherever he 

 could lay hands on the symbols of ancient Christianity, 

 crosses and images, he destroyed them with great zest. 

 His violent and petulant temper breaks forth in his last 

 melancholy letter, written when his second voyage, under- 

 taken in 1 59 1, had failed, and he was a broken man. 

 His crew are * hell-hounds' ; and John Davis, whose 

 ship had been separated from the others by storms, is 

 ' that villain, that hath been the death of me and the 

 decay of this whole action.' Boastful and brave, careless 

 of others, unflinching, unrelenting, unforgiving. Caven- 

 dish has yet that intensity and wholeness of purpose 

 which is the pith and marrow of great deeds. 



The greatest adventurer of them all lived on into the 



70 



