This return shows that almost two-thirds of the comparatively small force, which achieved in less than twenty-four hours the destruction of the Armada of Spain, consisted of merchant vessels, many of which must have been small craft, for though the number of vessels exceeded those of Spain, the tonnage and proportion of their crews were only about one half; yet so thoroughly complete was the defeat of the great fleet which Philip had been so many years in preparing, that out of the one hundred and thirty-eight sail despatched from the Tagus to invade England, only fifty-three returned to Spain, the remainder being either sunk, destroyed, captured, or wrecked upon the English coasts.[142] [Sidenote: Voyages of discovery by] While events were maturing which, with the assistance of Hawkins, ultimately led to the complete overthrow of the Spanish intrigues, English seamen were exploring seas then unknown, in search, it may be, of plunder, like their compeers in the English Channel, but professedly, though not in all cases ostensibly, to discover other lands, and to develop new sources of commerce. The spirit of enterprise which had fitted out fleets of privateers was equally ready to adapt itself to more laudable, if not in every instance to more legitimate sources of gain, and, during the whole of the disreputable exploits and expeditions to which we have briefly alluded, the rage in England for commercial adventure had become quite as great as that which had a century before prevailed in Spain and Portugal. [Sidenote: Johnson,] [Sidenote: Finner,] The voyages of Hawkins to the coast of Guinea and to the West Indies in 1562 and 1563 had given fresh vigour to the spirit of adventure. In 1565 Richard Johnson, Alexander Kitching, and Arthur Edwards were sent by the Russia Company into Persia by way of the Caspian Sea, a journey in those days of great peril and of the most tedious character, where they obtained for their employers numerous commercial privileges. In December of the following year, George Finner, a shipowner of Plymouth, set sail on his own account with three ships and a pinnace to Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands, where he had a desperate but successful encounter with seven large Portuguese vessels off Terceira. [Sidenote: and Martin Frobisher.]