Such, then, was the happy ending to Foxe’s travels sixteen years after his ship had set forth from Portsmouth. He had shown himself not merely to be a man of exceptional physical endurance, but a man of considerable resource and a born leader of men in times of crisis and despair We may well relish the memory of such a fine character. CHAPTER IX THE STUART NAVY GOES FORTH AGAINST THE “PYRATS” After the death of Queen Elizabeth and the respite from the Anglo-Spanish naval fighting there was little employment for those hundreds of our countrymen who had taken to the sea during the time of Drake. Fighting the Spaniards or lying in wait for treasure ships bound from the West Indies to Cadiz was just the life that appealed to them. But now that these hostilities had passed, they felt that their means of livelihood were gone. After the exciting sea life with Drake and others, after the prolonged Armada-fighting, it would be too tame for them to settle down to life ashore. Fishing was not very profitable, and there was not sufficient demand for all the men to ship on board merchant ships. So numbers of these English seamen unfortunately took to piracy. Some of them, it would be more truthful to say, _resumed_ piracy and found their occupation haunting the English Channel, the Scillies being a notorious nest for pirates. Notwithstanding the number of these robbers of the sea who were always on the look out, yet, says our friend Smith of Virginia, “it is incredible how many great and rich prizes the little barques of the West Country daily brought home, in regard of their small charge.” But the strenuous measures which were being now taken in the narrow seas by the North European governments made piracy in this district less remunerative than hitherto. In the Mediterranean these unemployed seamen knew that piracy was a much better paid industry. They knew that the Moors would be glad to avail themselves of the services of such experienced seamen, so they betook themselves to Barbary. At first, be it remembered, these Englishmen had established themselves as North African pirates “on their own” without any connection with the Moors. Smith mentions that Ward, “a poore English sailor,” and Dansker, a Dutchman, here began some time before the Moors scarcely knew how to sail a ship. An Englishman named Easton made such a profit that he became, says Smith, a “Marquesse in Savoy,” and Ward “lived like a Bashaw in Barbary.” From these men the Moors learnt how to become good sea-fighters. Besides Englishmen there came also French and Dutch adventurers to join them, attracted by this mode of life, but very few Spaniards or Italians ever joined their throng. After a time, however, disagreements arose and the inevitable dissensions followed.