CHAPTER II 



MERCHANT ADVENTURERS 



THE hardy Norsemen were the pioneers of unnumbered 

 hosts of adventurers, fighters, and explorers who have 

 sailed the troubled waters of the grey North Sea. 

 Long after crude piratical swoops on our eastern 

 seaboard had ended, and many a fair Saxon maid and 

 tawny-bearded Viking had become the progenitors of 

 a new and warlike race, there arose a breed of men in 

 whom the spirit of enterprise was dominant and who 

 could not be satisfied with anything less than going 

 forth upon the waters. Two overmastering motives 

 prompted them to leave their homes and people the 

 lust of battle and the greed of gain. 



Musty records bear silent witness to their daring, 

 and in east coast towns and inland cities there are 

 ancient buildings which are linked with their romantic 

 deeds. Merchant adventurers in the old days sailed 

 away, many of them from the yellow Humber, to the 

 Near East, to fight and overcome the infidel, if God 

 favoured the enterprise, and to perish miserably in 

 captivity if Heaven frowned on the undertaking which 

 was a way that Heaven frequently had. 



One of the most illustrious pioneers of adventurous 

 seamen was William Cummins, of Hull, who flourished 



