After securing the ships the next care was the selection of captains for the expedition. Many men of standing offered themselves for the headship. Among these most urgent for the appointment was Sir Hugh Willoughby, “a most valiant gentleman and well born.” Sir Hugh was chosen on account of his “goodly personage”—he appears to have been an exceptionally tall man—and for his “singular skill in the service of warre.” He had served under the Earl of Hertford, afterward the Duke of Somerset, in the expedition of 1544 against Scotland, and had received the honour of knighthood at Leith; and during the invasions of 1547–1549 he held a commission on the border, and was sometime captain of Lowther Castle. Afterward his “thoughts turned to the sea” through his association with naval men and his friendship with Sebastian Cabot. The title given him was captain-general of the Fleet. For second in command, also drawn from several candidates, Richard Chancellor was elected and named pilot-general. He was given the charge of the “Edward Bonaventure” as captain. Chancellor had been bred up in the household of Henry Sidney, the father of Sir Philip Sidney. He was strongly endorsed as a man of “great estimation for many good partes of wit in him.” In the prime of life, he had the advantage of an excellent reputation for knowledge of the sea with a genius for adventure. As masters of the several ships, William Gefferson was appointed for the “Bona Esperanza,” Stephen Borough (afterward chief pilot of England) for the “Edward Bonaventure,” and Cornelius Durfoorth for the “Bona Confidentia.” The captain-general, the pilot-general, the three ships’ masters, the minister—Master Richard Stafford—two of the merchants and one of the “gentlemen” joining the expedition, and the three masters’ mates, were designated a board of twelve counsellors for the voyage. An elaborate book of orders and instructions for the conduct of the fleet was compiled by Cabot; while the king provided a letter, written in Latin, Greek, and other languages, designed for presentation to any potentate whom the voyagers might come across in journeying “toward the mighty empire of Cathay,” but most liberally addressed “to all Kings, Princes, Rulers, Judges, and Governours of the earth, and all others having any excellent dignity on the same in all places under the universall heaven.”