THOMAS. CAVENDISH. 



289 



pie who had been of little use in any other reign. Many gentle- 

 men of rank and position devoted a portion of their means to 

 harassing the Spanish at sea, to prosecuting discovery in distant 

 quarters, and to planting colonies upon savage coasts. Among 

 the most distinguished of these was Thomas Cavendish, of 

 Trimley, near Ipswich. 



This gentleman was of an honorable family, and possessed a 

 large estate. He. equipped, in 1586, three ships of the requisite 

 burden, — the largest, the Desire, being of one hundred and forty 

 tons, the lesser, the Content, being of sixty, and the least, the 

 Hugh Gallant, a bark of forty tons. He provisioned them for 

 two years, and manned them with one hundred and twenty-three 

 officers and men, some of whom had served under Sir Francis 

 Drake. His patron, Lord Hunsdon, procured him a commis- 

 sion from Queen Elizabeth, thus assimilating his vessels to 

 those of the navy, and rendering his contemplated piracies 

 legitimate. Cavendish sailed from Plymouth on the 21st of 

 July, directing his course to the south and touching upon the 

 coasts of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Here the crew destroyed a 

 negro town, in revenge for the death of one of their men, whom 

 the inhabitants had killed with a poisoned arrow. Their course 

 across the Atlantic to the Brazilian shore offers no remarkable 



CAVENDISH IN BRAZIL. 



features. They erected their forge upon an island, where they 



healed their sick and built a pinnace. Anchoring in a harbor 



on the Patagonian coast, Cavendish named it Port Desire, after 

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