[Sidenote: Discovery of Davis’s Strait.] [Sidenote: 1585.] [Sidenote: Davis directs his attention to India.] It was also about this period that John Davis made the discovery of the straits which bear his name, Convinced that a north-west passage to India must sooner or later be discovered, the merchants of London fitted out two small vessels, the _Sunshine_ of fifty tons with twenty-three hands, commanded by Davis himself, and the _Moonshine_ of thirty-five tons and nineteen men, commanded by Captain William Bruton. These vessels sailed from Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 1585, and reached as far north as latitude 66° 40´, discovering the straits justly named after him. A second voyage during the following summer inspired Davis with such hopes of success that he wrote to one of his owners, William Sanderson, a mathematical instrument maker, “that he had gained such experience that he would forfeit his life if the voyage could not be performed, not only without further charge, but with certain profit to the adventurers.” In his third voyage, during which he sailed with open water up the same straits as far as 73° north latitude, he was equally sanguine of success, and on his return to England, after again failing in his object, he writes, “The passage is most probable, and the execution easy,” an opinion which, more or less, prevailed even until our own time. But his fourth voyage was altogether so unsuccessful that the owners of the ships under his charge were led to direct their attention to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and to these regions Davis made no less than five voyages, but was, unfortunately, killed in his last voyage by some Japanese pirates off the coast of Malacca, in December 1605. [Sidenote: Fresh freebooting expeditions.]