It is not our province, much less our pleasure, to furnish details of Drake’s piratical proceedings on the coasts of Chili and Peru. We may merely state that the capture of a Spanish vessel with 150,000_l._ of silver on board, off Payta, crowned all his previous successes of that character. Resolving to return home by a north-west passage, he sailed one thousand four hundred leagues without seeing land, a marvellous expedition in those days, until, in 48° north latitude, he fell in with the American continent, making thence one of the Pellew Islands and the eastern coast of Celebes. After encountering many perils, and failing of course to find any passage to the North, he reached the Cape of Good Hope, and finally arrived in England on the 3rd of November, 1580. A large portion of the treasure he had captured was sequestered by government at the instance of the Spanish ambassador, and restored to its rightful owners, but a considerable surplus remained to satisfy the exploring freebooter, and to stimulate the cupidity of fresh adventurers.[144] The success of Drake paved the way to a new and more brilliant epoch in the history of maritime commerce. The love of adventure mingled with hopes, however vain, of obtaining incalculable wealth, combined with the knowledge that the Queen, shutting her eyes to Drake’s heinous delinquencies, had dined on board his ship and conferred on him the honour of knighthood,[145] all tended to incite hosts of enterprising mariners to offer to undertake remote and hazardous expeditions. In the course of sixteen years from the date of his return, no fewer than six of these were equipped and despatched to the southern seas, the commanders mingling the peaceful pursuits of trade with the depredations of pirates whenever circumstances tempted them to plunder; but by these successive voyages the general outline of the main continents of Asia and America became tolerably well understood. [Sidenote: First emigration of the English to America.] Somewhere about this period Sir Walter Raleigh[146] furnished the first accurate information respecting the eastern sea-board of North America. In an expedition consisting of two small barks, fitted out by him, Sir Richard Greville, and others, the configuration of the coasts of Florida and Virginia became known, and as these districts were represented as “scenes laid open for the good and gracious Queen to propagate the gospel in,” the natives being “soft as wax, innocent, and ignorant of all manner of politics, tricks, and cunning,” a fresh expedition, headed by Sir Richard Greville, himself laid the foundation of many practical plans for their colonisation. These were happily attended, even in their infancy, with considerable success. Indeed the many inducements offered in the shape of a rich soil, pliable natives, hopes of gold, and of the propagation of the Protestant faith could hardly fail to encourage emigration on, for those times, a tolerably extensive scale.