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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



The Spaniard was soon forced to surrender, and her officers, 

 going on board the Desire, gave an account of her contents, — 

 which they stated at thirty thousand dollars in gold, with im 

 mense quantities of damasks, silks, satins, musk, and provisions. 

 This glorious prize was divided by Cavendish, a mutiny being 

 very nearly the result : it was, however, prevented by the gene- 

 rosity of the commander. The prisoners were set on shore with 

 sufficient means of defence against the Indians ; the Santa Anna 

 was burned, together with five hundred tons of her goods; and 

 Cavendish then set sail for the Ladrone Islands, five thousand 

 five hundred miles distant. 



He arrived at Guam, one of the group, in forty-five days, and 

 from thence prosecuted his homeward voyage, through the Phi- 

 lippine Islands and the Moluccas, to Java. He passed the months 

 of April and May, 1588, in crossing the Indian Ocean to the 

 Cape of Good Hope. He touched at St. Helena early in June, 

 and, when near the Azores, in September, heard from a Flemish 

 ship the news of the total defeat of the great Spanish Armada. 

 He lost nearly all his sails in a storm off Finisterre, and re- 

 placed them by sails of silken grass, which he had taken from 

 his prizes in the South Sea. The voyage of Cavendish was the 

 third that had been performed round the world, and was the 

 shortest of the three, — being accomplished in eight months' less 

 time than that of Drake. 



Cavendish at once wrote a letter to Lord Hunsdon, in which 

 occurs the following brief relation of his achievements : — " It 

 hath pleased the Almighty to suffer me to encompass all the 

 whole globe of the world. I navigated along the coasts of 

 Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I 

 burned and sank nineteen sail of ships, great and small. All 

 the towns and cities that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled, 

 and, had I not been discovered upon the coast, I had taken 

 a great quantity of treasure. . . . All which services, together 

 with myself, I humbly prostrate at her majesty's feet, desiring 



