Many English voyages were also made to Guinea and the West Indies, and
twice English vessels followed in the track of Magellan, and
circumnavigated the globe. In 1577 Francis Drake, who had previously
served with Hawkins in the West Indies, undertook his celebrated
voyage round the world. Reaching the Pacific through the Strait of
Magellan, Drake proceeded northward along the west coast of America,
resolved to attempt the discovery of a northern passage from the
Pacific to the Atlantic. The coast from the southern extremity of the
Californian peninsula to Cape Mendocino had been discovered by Juan
Rodriguez Cabrillo and Francisco de Ulloa in 1539. Drake's discoveries
extended from Cape Mendocino to 48 deg. N., in which latitude he gave
up his quest, sailed across the Pacific and reached the Philippine
Islands, returning home round the Cape of Good Hope in 1580.
Thomas Cavendish, emulous of Drake's example, fitted out three vessels
for an expedition to the South sea in 1586. He took the same route as
Drake along the west coast of America. From Cape San Lucas Cavendish
steered across the Pacific, seeing no land until he reached the
Ladrone Islands. He returned to England in 1588. The third English
voyage into the Pacific was not so fortunate. Sir Richard Hawkins
(1593) on reaching the bay of Atacames, in 1 deg.N. in 1594, was
attacked by a Spanish fleet, and, after a desperate naval engagement,
was forced to surrender. Hawkins declared his object to be discovery
and the survey of unknown lands, and his voyage, though terminating in
disaster, bore good fruit. _The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins in
his Voyage into the South Sea_, published in 1622, are very valuable.
It was long before another British ship entered the Pacific Ocean. Sir
John Narborough took two ships through the Strait of Magellan in 1670
and touched on the coast of Chile, but it was not until 1685 that
Dampier sailed over the part of the Pacific where Hawkins met his
defeat.
The exploring enterprise of the Spanish nation did not wane after the
conquest of Peru and Mexico, and the acquisition of the vast empire of
the Indies. It was spurred into renewed activity by the audacity of
Sir John Hawkins in the West Indies, and by the appearance of Drake,
Cavendish and Richard Hawkins in the Pacific.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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