reason for making the ship a much stouter, loftier and more formidable creature. Thus length, and beam, and draught increased; larger crews and more officers were needed, and as each expedition came home with strange products, merchant adventurers combined to fit out other expeditions to inaugurate trade even in such remote spots as had not yet seen a white man. And never a ship came home from her voyage without adding some valuable information in regard to trade or geography or navigation or pilotage. You have only to read the travels in Hakluyt, Purchase and elsewhere to see how keen these Elizabethans were not to omit a single piece of knowledge that would be useful for future voyages. They had been able, almost suddenly, to realise that, given pluck, determination, enterprise and endurance, the treasures of the world were theirs. They could follow the sea for a few long voyages and then return to build themselves comfortable mansions in Devonshire. And inasmuch as nothing succeeds like success, every time the crew came home and spread the wonderful tales of their experiences and showed the valuables they had managed to obtain, other men were anxious to go forth and do likewise. Nobles and gentlemen and city magnates invested heavily in these trading voyages, selected the ablest seamen, and thus, incidentally, were helping to build up the Mercantile Marine on a grand scale. Before Hawkins engaged in his trans-Atlantic voyages he was a Plymouth shipowner accustomed to sail to the ports of Spain and the Canary Islands with trade. At the Canaries he learns a good deal about the West Indies, then goes further south to the west coast of Africa, begins transporting niggers thence to America, returns to England with plenty of money, and sets every one in the west of England talking and anxious to have a share in this great new game. His relative, Francis Drake, owner of a small brigantine in which coastal trading has been carried on, is fired by Hawkins’ success, and accompanies him on one of his expeditions. Young Francis has learnt his seamanship in a rough school, having made friends with a shipmaster trading to the Channel ports and gone to sea with him, and thus acquired his knowledge, until finally the shipmaster dies and leaves him the brigantine in his will. Several years of coastal work had followed, Drake had acquired both money and reputation, and in the end could not resist selling the coaster and buying the brigantine _Judith_, fifty tons, and going with his relative across the Atlantic.