HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN R. SPEARS 
 
 LONDON 
 WILLIAMS & NORGATE 
 
 HENRY HOLT & Co., NEW YORK 
 CANADA: WM. BRIGGS, TORONTO 
 INDIA : R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD. 
 
HOME 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 or 
 
 MODERN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Editors : 
 
 HERBERT FISHER, MJL, P.B.A. 
 
 PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.UTT, 
 LL.D., F.B.A, 
 
 PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A. 
 PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWS7ER, M.A, 
 (COLUMBIA UXIVBRIITY, U.S.A.) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
MASTER 
 MARINERS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN R. SPEARS 
 
 Author of 
 
 1 The American Merchant Marine," etc 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 
 
 
 
 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED 
 LONDON AND NORWICH 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I WORK OF UNNAMED AND FORGOTTEN 
 
 MARINERS ..... 7 
 
 II MARINERS OF THE DARK AGES ... 38 
 
 III THE OPENING UP OF THE ATLANTIC . . 58 
 
 IV FROM COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN . . 85 
 
 V SHIFTING THE CENTRE OF MARITIME ENTER- 
 PRISE 116 
 
 VI THE OPENING UP OF NORTH AMERICA . . 142 
 
 VII WHEN THE DUTCH AND THE ENGLISH 
 
 CLASHED 169 
 
 VIII WARS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE . 195 
 
 IX FROM THE DAYS OF BOUGAINVILLE TO THE 
 
 DEATH OF NELSON .... 212 
 
 X SOME LATTER-DAY MARINERS . . . 228 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 253 
 
 INDEX 256 
 
MASTER MARINERS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WORK OF UNNAMED AND FORGOTTEN 
 MARINERS 
 
 IN the long history of the Seven Seas, the 
 story of the first really great voyage of which 
 a record remains, is told with most unsatis- 
 factory brevity ; it even fails to give the 
 name of the heroic captain who led the 
 expedition. Nevertheless, such details as we 
 have are of interest. Niku (Necho), 110, 
 who ruled Egypt from 610 to 594, B.C., 
 determined to open a canal across the Isthmus 
 of Suez to enable his Red Sea war fleet to 
 co-operate readily with the one he maintained 
 in the Mediterranean. A ditch of consider- 
 able depth, dug by preceding Pharaohs, 
 already extended from sea to sea, but the 
 7 
 
8 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 task nevertheless proved too great for Niku's 
 resources. Thereupon, in order to learn 
 whether it were practicable for the Red Sea 
 fleet to sail around Africa to the Mediter- 
 ranean, Niku " sent to sea " (to quote Herod- 
 otus) " a number of ships manned by Phoe- 
 nicians with orders to make for the Pillars of 
 Hercules [Strait of Gibraltar] and return 
 to Egypt through them and by the Medi- 
 terranean. The Phoenicians took their de- 
 parture from Egypt by way of the Erythraean 
 Sea [Indian Ocean], and so sailed into the 
 southern ocean. When autumn came they 
 went ashore, wherever they might happen to 
 be, and, having sown a tract of land with 
 corn, waited till the grain was fit to cut. 
 Having reaped it they again set sail ; and 
 thus it came to pass that two whole years 
 went by, and it was not till the third year 
 that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules and 
 made good their voyage home. On their 
 return they declared I for my part do not 
 believe them, but perhaps others may 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 9 
 
 that in sailing round Lybia [Africa] they had 
 the sun upon their right hand." l 
 
 In that dimly-seen age, when an abundant 
 supply of food and a kindly climate assisted 
 in the first awakening of the human intellect, 
 it is likely that man at once began to go 
 afloat. For this awakening occurred, it is 
 believed, along the River Euphrates, and the 
 river, as soon as man had observed that logs 
 would float, would offer the path of least 
 resistance whenever the migrating instinct of 
 man was aroused. A Phoenician myth says 
 that one Usous took a tree, " and having cleared 
 it of its boughs, was the first to venture upon 
 the sea." It also says that Chrysor was " the 
 discoverer of the hook and the bait and the 
 fishing line and the raft, and was the first 
 man to navigate ships." The myth locates 
 these men at the Phoenician city of Tyre, but 
 Tyre, though it was built in 1200 B.C. (per- 
 
 1 " Recently unearthed evidence in Egypt would seem 
 to confirm this story. 5 ' Johnston, " The Opening Up of 
 Africa." 
 
10 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 haps in 2000 B.C.), was established by 
 Phoenician sailors who had already been 
 trading upon the Mediterranean for centuries, 
 and had even gone forth upon the Atlantic as 
 far as the tin mines of Great Britain, it is said. 
 It appears that the Phoenician people, 
 the first deep-water sailors known to history, 
 originated on the shores of the Persian Gulf, 
 an ideal locality for developing a race of 
 seamen, for when they invented dugout 
 canoes and went paddling across the gulf they 
 found on occasion the waves slopping over 
 the brim ; bark or mats were then used 
 to keep out the water, and from that it was 
 easy to go forward to the use of planks, and 
 the building of hulls with keels, frames, and 
 planks. Having boats, the people naturally 
 began to exchange products with other people 
 living along the waterway. Pizarro found 
 the Peruvians transporting goods with rafts 
 along the coast of the Pacific, and Columbus 
 met a big trading canoe on the coast of 
 Central America. We may suppose, there- 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 11 
 
 fore, that when the navigators of the Persian 
 Gulf ventured forth upon the Indian Ocean 
 they found it a highway with winds that 
 invited them to seek adventures both to the 
 east and the west. A people who noted (as 
 did those on the borders of the Persian 
 Gulf) the course of the planets " the wan- 
 derers " among the fixed stars were sure 
 to observe and use the monsoons. There 
 are records showing that the coasts of India 
 have been navigated for at least 9,000 years. 
 This is not to say that the navigation was 
 continuous. Because of wars navigation was 
 often interrupted, no doubt, for long periods. 
 In the coasting trade of the Indian Ocean 
 the Phoenicians learned the arts of the sea. 
 The dawn of his'ory found them already 
 upon the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. 
 There was a Phoenician quarter in Memphis 
 in the year 1200 B.C. Manifestly the 
 Mediterranean trade proved more to their 
 liking than that of the Indian ocean, for they 
 migrated thence and built cities Tyre, Sidon, 
 
12 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 and others at points that afforded harbours 
 and were easily defensible. The land along 
 shore was also well adapted to the wants of 
 sea traders, for it was first of all fertile, and 
 it was walled in, at no great distance from 
 the beach, by a range of mountains (Lebanon) 
 that proved a discouraging barrier to preda- 
 tory enemies. 
 
 In their new home the Phoenicians en- 
 larged their carrying trade. Spices, incense, 
 precious metals, and jewels were still brought 
 from the East. The precious metals were 
 found, too, in mines along the north shore 
 of the Mediterranean ; tin was found in 
 Spain and in Britain, and slaves were to be 
 obtained everywhere. 
 
 It was inevitable that these mariners 
 should begin at an early date to add value 
 to their crude metals by manufacturing 
 ornaments and offerings to the gods ; but 
 the Phoenician artisans, after they migrated 
 to the Mediterranean, were famous chiefly 
 as shipbuilders and dyers. The mountains 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 13 
 
 of Lebanon afforded excellent timber for the 
 shipbuilder, while the sea was inhabited by 
 two kinds of shellfish, in each of which was 
 found a substance that served well for dyeing 
 all kinds of woven fabrics. By using these 
 substances separately and combined, and by 
 fixing the dye with an alkali obtained from 
 a common seaweed, the Phoenicians gave to 
 their cloths various colours, and all were so 
 beautiful that kings and princes were willing 
 to pay fabulous prices for them. 
 
 One story of the Phoenicians as metal 
 workers is familiar. When the Hebrew king 
 Solomon built his famous temple the metal 
 work was done by Phoenicians. The story 
 of Niku's expedition calls attention to another 
 feature of Phoenician maritime life. The 
 fleets which Niku owned were built and 
 manned by Phoenicians. When Darius and 
 Xerxes made war they depended chiefly upon 
 the Phoenicians for their sea forces, though 
 there were other seafaring peoples in the world 
 at that period. In short, the Phoenicians not 
 
14 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 only built ships for export, but they chartered 
 warships, fully manned, to many different 
 kings. To facilitate trade they established 
 trading stations (once called factories) along 
 the various sea routes. Utica, on the north 
 coast of Africa, and Gades (Cadiz), on the 
 Atlantic coast of Spain, were famous trading 
 stations that developed into colonies and 
 cities. Carthage, on the north coast of 
 Africa, was a colony established by the 
 runaway princess Elissar (also called Dido), 
 on a site that had once been used as a trading 
 station (founded 1200 B.C.), from which 
 the colony was called Kart-Hadjat (the New 
 City). Kart-Hadjat was later corrupted into 
 Carthage. 
 
 To maintain their trade, century after 
 century, the Phoenicians developed they 
 were obliged to develop a high standard of 
 commercial honour. For example, they traded 
 with Africans whom they never saw. Going 
 ashore, they deposited their goods in small 
 parcels on the ground and retired until the 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 15 
 
 next day. They then found beside each parcel 
 a heap of gold dust. Where the amounts of 
 gold dust were satisfactory they carried them 
 away, leaving the goods. Where they sup- 
 posed they could get still more gold they left 
 both gold and goods and retired once more, 
 until the next day, when they found addi- 
 tions to the amounts of gold, and the exchanges 
 were thus completed. Probably a Phoeni- 
 cian captain abducted lo, daughter of the 
 Greek king Inachus, or some other beautiful 
 girl. It is certain that many Phoenician 
 captains robbed the ships of other peoples, 
 They also traded glass beads for gold nuggets. 
 Nevertheless the Phoenicians were the leading 
 exponents of the " square deal " in their day. 
 Trade implied the use of weights and measures. 
 Coins fixed quantities of precious metals 
 were developed from weights and measures. 
 A knowledge of mathematics was necessary 
 in trade, and some system of bookkeeping 
 was also needed. Finally, the Phoenicians 
 were the first people to develop an alphabet 
 
16 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 from the picture-writing in use before their 
 time. 
 
 In brief the unnamed and forgotten master 
 mariners of the Phoenician ships, of whom the 
 leader of Niku's expedition was one, carried 
 their weights and measures, their coins, their 
 system of accounts, and their standard of 
 honour from the borders of China to Ultima 
 Thule. While they gave an alphabet to the 
 enlightened Greeks, they taught the most 
 stupid of barbarians at least the use of 
 weights and measures. By the display of their 
 own manufactures they incited each customer 
 to bestir himself in the production of such 
 things as he had to offer in exchange ; and 
 while they stood beside their ships making 
 bargains they told their customers the news 
 of the world. 
 
 The hulls of ancient ships were much like 
 those of modern wooden lighters. The frame 
 consisted of a keel, or backbone, and ribs ; 
 and the ribs were covered with planking. 
 The seams were caulked with fibre (sometimes 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 17 
 
 with a shell-like mortar), and one city of 
 Phoenicia was noted for the skill of its caulkers. 
 The ends of the planks and the timbers of 
 the frames were bolted through and through 
 with metal bolts which were clinched or 
 riveted. Iron was used for temporary con- 
 structions, and brass where lasting qualities 
 were desired. Trenails were in common use. 
 They cut their trees in the old of the moon, 
 thinking thus to obtain timber that would 
 last longer. Cargo ships were of a round 
 construction, warships long and slender. 
 Each ship carried at least one mast, with a 
 crow's nest at the top for the use of the pilot 
 when entering strange waters, because under 
 water reefs were more easily seen from an 
 elevated station. A rectangular sail was 
 hoisted on the mast when the wind served. 
 (Later the Romans spread a triangular sail 
 above the other.) The sails were often dyed 
 or painted in various colours, and sometimes 
 embroidered. The chief motive power, how- 
 ever, was the slave with his oar ; and slaves 
 B 
 
18 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 cost so little that owners had no incentive 
 to invent a better propeller. In the larger 
 ships the oars were thrust in through holes 
 in the sides, these holes being made in banks 
 or tiers, one above another. Ordinarily there 
 were from two to five banks of oars, but ships 
 are mentioned in history that had as many as 
 sixteen. How these oars were arranged and 
 handled (it is said that one ship used 4000 
 oarsmen), is a question over which modern 
 naval architects have puzzled in vain. 1 
 Herodotus, in describing the battle of Actium, 
 says Anthony " set fire to all the Egyptian 
 ships except sixty ; and of these the best and 
 largest, from ten banks down to three, he 
 manned with 20,000 full armed men and 200 
 archers." The big ships, however, were very 
 
 1 The reader who wishes to see the discussions of two 
 critical modern writers who have considered this subject, 
 can find them in W. S. Lindsay's " History of Merchant 
 Shipping," and John Charnock's " History of Marine 
 Architecture." The two writers hold different views, the 
 chief point at issue the meaning of the word bank what 
 constitutes a bank of oars, and how were the oars arranged 
 in it. 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 19 
 
 unhandy the ship with three banks of oars 
 was the most efficient size. One or two heavy 
 oars on each quarter served in place of the 
 modern rudder. 
 
 With 200 good slaves at the oars the three- 
 bank ship the trireme could be driven 
 eight miles in an hour, and 100 in twenty- 
 four hours. Miltiades, according to Herodo- 
 tus, once covered 140 miles in a day. Early 
 Roman triremes were 105 feet long by 11 
 broad ; but Julius Caesar reduced them to 
 90 x 10. The fighting men (marines) were 
 stationed on elevated platforms at each end, 
 whence we have the modern poop and fore- 
 castle. A gangway was built along each rail 
 (sometimes one only amidships), upon which 
 the boatswain, whip in hand, stalked to and 
 fro to incite the oarsmen to greater efforts. 
 The gangway was developed into a deck 
 over all at the time when Themistocles 
 persuaded the Athenians to build a navy with 
 which to repel the Persians (483 B.C.). 
 
 The most important feature of the ancient 
 
20 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 warships was the beak. An ancient Phoeni- 
 cian picture shows this beak located under 
 water, while the stern of the ship rises in a 
 way to indicate that the crew always laid 
 her to, with the stern to the wind, when a 
 gale was blowing. It was, no doubt, because 
 of this practice that ancient ships were driven 
 over such long distances by heavy storms. 
 Very often the whole length of the Mediterran- 
 ean was covered, and they fled sometimes into 
 the Atlantic. It is reasonable to suppose that 
 the Canaries were first discovered by the crew 
 of a storm-driven ship, for in more modern 
 times a Portuguese navigator, bound down 
 the African coast, drifted across the Atlantic 
 in pleasant weather, and so discovered Brazil. 
 When a smooth beach was at hand the ancient 
 sailors avoided storms by dragging their ships 
 out of water, but a description of the tackle 
 used for that purpose is nowhere given. A 
 celebrated pirate named Myoparo gave his 
 name to a swift model which he designed, but 
 all that we know of the form is that it had no 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 21 
 
 beak. The pirates did not sink their prizes by 
 ramming. 
 
 Said Xenophon, in describing what he saw 
 on a Phoenician ship : "I think that the 
 best and most perfect arrangement of things 
 which I ever saw was when I went to look 
 at the great Phoenician sailing vessel ; for 
 I saw the largest amount of naval tackling 
 separately disposed in the smallest stowage 
 possible. For a ship, as you well know, is 
 brought to anchor, and again got under way, 
 by a vast number of wooden implements and 
 of ropes, and sails the sea by means of a 
 quantity of rigging, and is armed with a 
 number of contrivances against hostile vessels, 
 and carries about with it a large supply of 
 weapons for the crew, and, besides, has all the 
 utensils that a man keeps in his dwelling 
 house for each of the messes. In addition, 
 it is loaded with a quantity of merchandise 
 which the owner carries with him for his own 
 profit. Now all the things which I have 
 mentioned lay in a space not much bigger 
 
22 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 than a room that would conveniently hold 
 ten beds. And I remarked that they severally 
 lay in such a way that they did not obstruct 
 one another, and did not require any one 
 to look for them, and yet they were neither 
 placed at random, nor entangled one with 
 another, so as to consume time when they 
 were suddenly wanted for use. Also, I 
 found the captain's assistant, who is called the 
 lookout man [the modern first mate is also, 
 at times, stationed on the forecastle], so 
 well acquainted with the position of all the 
 articles, and with the number of them, that 
 even when at a distance he would tell where 
 everything lay, and how many there were of 
 each sort, just as one who has learned to read 
 could tell the number of letters in the name 
 of Socrates, and the proper place for each of 
 them. Moreover, I saw this man in his leisure 
 moments examining and testing everything 
 that a vessel needs when at sea ; so, as I was 
 surprised, I asked him what he was about, 
 whereupon he replied, ' Stranger, I am looking 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 23 
 
 to see, in case anything should happen, how 
 everything is arranged in the ship, and whether 
 anything is wanting, or is inconveniently 
 situated ; for when a storm arises at sea it is 
 not possible to look for what is wanting, or to 
 put to rights what is arranged awkwardly.' ' 
 
 Remembering the deep-water voyages made 
 by the Phoenicians we may suppose that this 
 officer was a typical Phoenician sailor, and 
 we see in his work how sea life developed 
 efficiency. 
 
 The profits of the early mariners were 
 enormous whenever the ship lived to return 
 to her home port. For example, when 
 Solomon and Hiram, king of Tyre, as partners, 
 sent a fleet of traders to the far East, the 
 profit was so great that Solomon's share 
 amounted to 420 talents of gold. 
 
 Among the records of Carthage which 
 have been preserved is the complete story of 
 a voyage made by a master mariner named 
 Hanno along the west coast of Africa (520 
 or 470 B.C.). The number of mulattoes in 
 
24 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 and around the city having increased to a 
 degree which made the rulers fear lest white 
 supremacy be endangered, " it was decreed 
 by the Carthaginians that Hanno should sail 
 beyond the Pillars of Hercules and found 
 cities " of these undesirable citizens. " Ac- 
 cordingly he sailed with sixty ships of fifty 
 oars each " warships for convoy " and a 
 multitude of men and women to the number 
 of 30,000 " in merchant ships. Settlements 
 were made at intervals as far as the River 
 Oro. Thereafter Hanno explored the coast 
 as far as the south-east extremity of Sierra 
 Leone ; and Johnston (" The Opening Up 
 of Africa ") thinks it possible that the 
 Carthaginians traded as far as the Gold Coast 
 in later years. 
 
 Of all the voyages which mariners of 
 Phoenician blood made, only this one brief 
 story remains. There is, indeed, an account of 
 a voyage made by a captain named Himilco 
 along the European coast while Hanno was 
 oh the west coast of Africa. But Himilco's 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 25 
 
 account is wholly incredible, and it is supposed 
 that he wrote as he did because the Cartha- 
 ginians feared an accurate account would 
 lead other traders to the coast. Any further 
 account of the Carthaginians as a seafaring 
 people must include much of the sea history 
 of the Romans as well ; for the whole story 
 relates to the wars between the two nations. 
 The Romans and the Carthaginians developed 
 during the same period of time, but under very 
 widely differing conditions. Carthage grew 
 into a vast city that ruled many trading 
 stations along the coasts and controlled the 
 ' trade of the interior behind her stations. She 
 also colonized most of Sicily and Sardinia. 
 The aborigines were all held in subjection by 
 mercenaries. Rome grew great by conquest 
 and assimilation. Conflict arose when Rome 
 reached out to Sicily for more territory. 
 
 Although the Etruscans were originally a 
 seafaring people, and in spite of the fact that 
 the imperial city supported a considerable 
 number of merchantmen (there were many 
 
26 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Roman capitalists owning ships), the Romans 
 had no navy, and the patricians ranked 
 mariners as the lowest of all the social classes. 
 But war with Carthage wrought a change. 
 While the Roman armies triumphed in Sicily, 
 Carthaginian ships insolently patrolled the 
 mouth of the Tiber, and interrupted the com- 
 munications of the Sicilian army. Accord- 
 ingly, in 262 B.C., Rome decided to build a 
 navy, and 120 large ships (modelled after 
 a stranded Carthaginian battleship) were 
 sent afloat within sixty days, from the cutting 
 of the first tree for timber. And, while the 
 carpenters were wielding axe and adze and 
 maul, the Romans put slaves at work in row- 
 ing machines built along the beach, in order 
 to train them to pull together One can 
 imagine the amusement of the Carthaginians 
 when they saw those rowing machines in 
 operation. 
 
 Although copied as a whole, the Roman 
 ships had one important original peculiarity. 
 A gangplank, 18 feet long by 4 wide, was 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 27 
 
 hinged to each forecastle in such a way that 
 it could be dropped to form a bridge reaching 
 to the enemy's ship. As it fell, a sharp-pointed 
 iron was driven into the enemy's deck to hold 
 the bridge in place. The Romans recognised 
 their ignorance of sea tactics, but they had 
 confidence in their short swords. 
 
 This green-timber fleet met the Carthagin- 
 ians, under an admiral named Hannibal (not 
 the great soldier), off the city of Mylse. 
 Hannibal, despising these landsmen, swooped 
 down with his ships in a mob-like formation, 
 but the Roman captains, as they met the 
 enemy ship to ship, dropped the broad gang- 
 planks and called away boarders. One history 
 says " the Carthaginians were surprised." 
 The truth is they were astounded. So many 
 of their crews were cut to pieces literally 
 cut to pieces that Hannibal himself escaped 
 only by leaping into a small boat, and fleeing 
 for life. This victory, however, created the 
 pride that goes before destruction. The 
 Romans invaded Africa and were def eate<d. 
 
28 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 A fleet that was sent to bring off the remains 
 of the army was wrecked by a storm. A 
 second fleet took the soldiers on board, but it, 
 too, was wrecked by a storm. Thereafter 
 the Romans abandoned the sea until 249 
 B.C., when a fleet sent afloat under Claudius 
 was defeated at Drepana with a loss of 100 
 ships. It is said that when Claudius consulted 
 the auspices before this battle the sacred 
 fowls refused to eat. Thereupon, in disgust, 
 he said, " Throw them overboard. At any 
 rate they shall drink ! " 
 
 Very likely this lack of reverence was not 
 without serious influence upon the crews of 
 the Roman fleet. Later, when, with 100 
 warships, Claudius was convoying a fleet 
 of 800 transports along the coast of Sicily, 
 he refused to heed the pilots who told him 
 that a hurricane was coming. Lacking sea 
 experience, he could not believe them. And 
 when the storm came it wrecked every ship 
 of the command. In the first fifteen years of 
 the war the Romans lost 1,400 ships, but they 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 29 
 
 were not beaten they had " not yet begun 
 to fight." To avert an impending invasion of 
 Italy they built, by private subscription, 
 another fleet of 200 warships. It was relent- 
 less persistence that made the Romans that 
 makes all great men irresistible. When this 
 fleet, under Consul Catulus, met the Carthagin- 
 ians, in 241 B.C., it inflicted a decisive defeat, 
 and the war came to an end. The Cartha- 
 ginians paid an indemnity equal to 800,000. 
 The amount is worlh noting because the 
 Carthaginians had the gold in hand. Their 
 merchant fleets had been able to keep the sea 
 and earn money to support the war. 
 
 The Second Punic war was not notable for 
 naval battles, but it may be noted that the 
 Carthaginians, at the end, paid an indemnity 
 equal to a million pounds, and gave up all 
 their warships except ten, which they were 
 allowed to keep to defend their merchantmen 
 from pirates. After the signing of the treaty, 
 a fleet of 500 warships was towed out of the 
 harbour and burned before the city. The final 
 
30 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 war, 149 to 146 B.C., was also decided on 
 land. For four years the Carthaginians 
 endured a siege, and " when resistance ceased 
 only 50,000 men, women and children, out 
 of a population of 700,000, remained to be 
 made prisoners." The rule of the restless 
 master mariners of Phoenician blood over the 
 sunlit seas was ended forever. 
 
 If we consider the state of civilization when 
 the Phoenicians first became masters of the 
 sea, their work for the development of civili- 
 zation, however unconsciously done, is seen 
 to be wonderful. They found the world 
 peopled with isolated tribes of savages, but 
 the waters, which had served as barriers to 
 keep those tribes apart, became, through 
 Phoenician genius, highways over which one 
 people passed easily to anotfrer. That blood 
 lust was often the impulse that led the 
 savages to use the highways is all too manifest 
 in history ; but at all times the number of 
 ships engaged in enlightening commerce must 
 have exceeded those afloat for war ; and that 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 31 
 
 was and is the sure promise of future peace. 
 It was the work of the Phoenicians to teach 
 each isolated tribe what of good was to be 
 found in other parts of the known world, and 
 they did it well. 
 
 Nevertheless, because of one mental defect, 
 the Phoenicians were to give place to a higher 
 order of seafaring men. That defect was at 
 bottom a lack of imagination. Though the 
 Phoenicians were among the earliest workers 
 of metals, and the discoverers of the most 
 beautiful of dyes, they never carved a statue 
 that was other than hideous, or wove a fabric 
 worth preservation. Their jewelry was 
 sought only because it was of massive gold. 
 The metal work on Solomon's temple was 
 famous because of its extent and cost, not 
 for lines of beauty. The Phoenicians never 
 painted a picture ; they had no knowledge 
 of real music. Though they were the first 
 to develop picture-writing into an alphabet 
 they never wrote a poem, and the one history 
 credited to them is but a proof that they had 
 
32 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 no literature. They never saw the glories 
 of a sunset, and a clear sky at night gave them 
 pleasure only because they were then able to 
 steer their ships by the stars. The one incen- 
 tive that stirred the Phoenician to action 
 even him who braved the dangers of the 
 Bay of Biscay was the love of monej^ 
 and wealth was sought solely because it 
 would enable its possessor to live in idleness. 
 Compare, now, Hanno's story of his voyage 
 down the African coast with that told by the 
 Greeks about Jason. Jason was a pre- 
 historic ship captain who went to the Black 
 Sea for gold, but the Grecian writer says that 
 it was a golden fleece, not the sordid metal, 
 that he sought. The sweaty toils at the end 
 of the voyage were conflicts with supernatural 
 beings. The hero, instead of killing and flay- 
 ing native women (as Hanno supposed he had 
 done), made love to the beautiful Medea, 
 daughter of the king. After winning her 
 favour it became easy to yoke the /h-e-breathing 
 bulls to the plough, to overcome the dragon's 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 88 
 
 brood, and to soothe to sleep the dragon that 
 guarded the fleece. The work of the Phoeni- 
 cians came to an end because their thoughts 
 never rose higher than a talent of gold. The 
 Greeks continued the work of civilization 
 because they were poets and artists and musi- 
 cians. 
 
 At the dawn of history it is seen that the 
 Greeks had, by aid of their master mariners, 
 established colonies on all the islands of the 
 eastern Mediterranean ; along the coasts of 
 Asia Minor ; on the shores of the Euxine ; 
 in Sicily, and Italy. At Marseilles was once 
 a Greek city to which Romans sent their 
 children to be educated. No comparison of 
 the influence of such a colony with a mere 
 trading station need be made. Though the 
 Greeks were followers, not pioneers, 1 their 
 
 1 It is true that Pytheas, a Greek born at Massilia (Mar- 
 seilles), who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, 
 sailed along the coast of Europe as far as Scotland, and 
 named the islands, lying still further north, Thule. Because 
 he said he saw SL , water covered with mush ice " like a 
 jelly fish " some writers doubted his story ! 
 o 
 
84 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 work was more thorough as well as of a higher 
 grade in the regions they did reach. More- 
 over, the Greeks were always pupils as well 
 as teachers. They learned from the Phoeni- 
 cians to steer by the north star, which they 
 called the Phoenician star. They took reli- 
 gious ideas from Egypt, where elevating 
 religious theories prevailed before the Hebrews 
 were slaves on the banks of the Nile. Lycur- 
 gus, Solon, Pericles, Herodotus, and many 
 another Greek, crossed the sea in order to 
 gain wisdom among peoples of different 
 origins. Herodotus, in describing the cities 
 he visited, never fails to mention the works 
 of art " worth seeing." The Cnidian Aphro- 
 dite was so beautiful that " pilgrimages 
 were made from remote countries to Cnidus 
 for the sake of looking upon the matchless 
 statue ; " and the myth says that this goddess 
 of love was born of the white sea foam. The 
 " Victory " of Samothrace, perhaps the most 
 inspiring of the Greek works of art that have 
 been preserved to this day, was a ship's 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 85 
 
 figurehead ; while Homer's " Odyssey " is the 
 story of the wanderings of one who was a 
 master mariner as well as a warrior of the 
 land. The Grecian people, the people of 
 Greater Greece, grew up in the midst of the 
 sea, and much of the best of their work was 
 inspired by its waters. The decisive battle 
 in the long war against the Persians was that 
 fought afloat at Salamis, where genius pre- 
 vailed against brute force. 
 
 Every spread of a superior race has made Vii 
 for the enlightenment of peoples less gifted.* t 
 Alexander the soldier gave a tremendous 
 uplift to the peoples he conquered. Though 
 not a seaman he saw the advantages of sea- 
 borne commerce. He planned a canal from 
 the Caspian to the Black Sea, and he was 
 preparing to follow where Niku's explorers 
 led when death claimed him. At the time 
 of Alexander only three cities of the world, 
 Athens, Syracuse and Carthage, had popula- 
 tions numbering 100,000. Because of the 
 growth of commerce after Alexander's time, 
 
86 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 a growth due to the spread of Greek 
 civilization, we find, a hundred years later, 
 four cities with more than 200,000 inhabi- 
 tants each Seleukia, Antioch, Alexandria, 
 and Carthage, while Syracuse then contained 
 many more than 100,000, and Rome, Corinth, 
 Rhodes and Ephesus boasted of at least that 
 number. More notable still is the fact that 
 Alexandria, a city founded for the benefit of 
 Greek mariners for the promotion of trade 
 with Indi% was famous as a seat of learning. 
 Every schoolboy has read of its library, its 
 University of the East, and of the " Alexan- 
 drian Age." A time came when a Roman 
 army, under Lucius Mummius, decisively 
 defeated the Achaean army under the walls of 
 Corinth, and Greece, as a political entity, 
 came to an end; but for a hundred years 
 theretofore, and until the end of the Empire, 
 all Rome bowed to the yoke within the walls 
 of the Greek Lyceum. 
 
 Students who have read the history of the 
 earth and its inhabitants from the beginnings, 
 
FORGOTTEN MARINERS 37 
 
 as written in the rocks, have seen therein the 
 story of a continuous development a most 
 wonderful and cheering story. Each geologi- 
 cal period afforded an environment suitable 
 for a higher form of life than that of 
 the preceding one, until man appeared. In 
 like manner man himself has continuously 
 evolved. The Phoenician artisan-navigators 
 carried some of the beginnings of civilization 
 wherever their restless keels parted the waters, 
 and when they had reached the limit of their 
 powers the Greeks began to forward the 
 work and prepare for a higher civilization 
 yet to come. 
 
 JE5U5 
 
 AT 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MARINERS OF THE DARK AGES 
 
 AMONG the barbarian peoples who invaded 
 the Roman Empire during the period of its 
 decay none inspired such terror as the Huns, 
 " a monstrous race of fierce nomadic horse- 
 men from the vast steppes of Asia . . . 
 Their features were hideous, their noses were 
 flat, their cheeks were gashed to render their 
 appearance more frightful." It was the 
 boast of their leader, Attila, that even the 
 grass never grew where his horse had trod. 
 When these Asiatics reached the plains of 
 the Po (A.D. 451), an uncounted number 
 of people from Padua and other near by towns 
 sought refuge in the tide-soaked mud banks 
 at the head of the Adriatic, where they 
 founded the settlement that grew into the 
 city of Venice. Of the characteristics of 
 
THE DARK AGES 89 
 
 these fugitives history says little, but we may 
 feel well assured that most of them already 
 knew something about the Adriatic, for 
 otherwise they would have soon starved in 
 the swamp. Without doubt, too, they had 
 boats, fishing tackle, and kitchen utensils ; 
 but in their poverty and distress " they little 
 thought, who first drove stakes into the mud, 
 that their children were to be the princes of 
 that ocean." 
 
 We may imagine their early work how 
 they turned to the sea for fish when hungry, 
 and when salt was needed for their fish how 
 
 Sr 
 
 they evaporated the sea water in their kettles, 
 using for fuel the alders that grew on the 
 higher banks. Fish, fuel, and salt, these 
 only the sea provided, but with no other 
 products the Venetians would manage to 
 get on. For when other things were needed 
 clothing, fish nets, boat timber, the salt 
 which they produced from the sea could be 
 exchanged at a profit for the products of the 
 firm land at any port. 
 
40 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 It was in 451 that this settlement was first 
 established. When Cassiodorus, King Teo- 
 doric's chancellor, was travelling in that part 
 of Italy he wrote letters (Weil, " Venice ") 
 in which he praised the tranquillity of life 
 in Venice and " the simplicity of their habits, 
 since rich and poor alike have but one kind 
 of food, namely fish," a somewhat exaggerated 
 statement, one may suppose, but yet descrip- 
 tive of their poverty. Because they all lived 
 in the same sort of houses they were " above 
 the jealousies and envies " found elsewhere. 
 Moreover they had, he said, a trade in salt that 
 served them better than a gold mine. 
 
 They carried salt, in those early days, to 
 all the ports of the Adriatic. When the salt 
 had been discharged they naturally chartered 
 their boats to any one in need of transporta- 
 tion, and because they lived constantly 
 upon the sea a cargo intrusted to their care 
 was more likely to reach its destination than 
 one in the care of any other seamen. Cassi- 
 odorus knew them for their seamanship as 
 
THE DARK AGES 41 
 
 well as for their poverty. He wrote a letter 
 to the leading men of the settlement exhorting 
 them " in a tone of mild authority to animate 
 the zeal of their countrymen for the public 
 service, which required their assistance to 
 transport the magazines of wine and oil from 
 the province of Istria to the royal city of 
 Ravenna." Charnock (" History of Marine 
 Architecture ") notes that in these early days 
 the Venetians, " who were among the first 
 people who acquire celebrity as a naval power 
 after the invasion of the Goths, derived their 
 first instruction in " shipbuilding from the 
 people of " Jedara, a town in Dalmatia, on the 
 river Jader, which falls into the Adriatic." The 
 Jadarans were the best shipbuilders on the 
 sea, and the open-minded Venetians went to 
 them for instructions. Gibbon notes, also, 
 that at this time the Venetian ships, which 
 " were constantly increasing in size and num- 
 ber, visited all the harbours of the gulph." 
 The power of Rome was declining. The 
 carrying trade of the sea was therefore de- 
 
42 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 creasing, and " hard times " prevailed afloat. 
 But it is at such times that new blood in any 
 trade wins its way. When Justinian wished 
 to besiege Ravenna, he turned at once to 
 Venice for the transports needed. In 584 
 the Venetians were invited to form an alli- 
 ance with the Empire of the East, and secured 
 the right to trade at Constantinople " free " 
 from vexatious tolls and delays." The trade 
 of Asia, with its silks (saleable for their 
 weight in gold), spices, and incense, was now 
 within the grasp of these mariners, who had 
 acquired the habit of thrift and enterprise 
 in the days when they were restricted to a 
 diet of fish, and their sole export was sea salt. 
 In this story one sees the sort of " luck " 
 that comes to those who are fit to grasp it. 
 After the Venetians had built up a prosperous 
 trade with the Levant, all Europe was stirred 
 by a call for volunteers to free the Holy Land 
 from the dominion of the Mohammedans. 
 The Crusades have been interestingly con- 
 sidered in Davis's " Medieval Europe " and 
 
THE DARK AGES 48 
 
 Perris's " War and Peace " ; but it must be 
 said here that in these Christian hegiras 
 thousands of knights and soldiers were to be 
 transported to the Holy Land, and that the 
 Mediterranean afforded the path of least 
 resistance. Genoa and Pisa had merchant 
 shipping at that time, and they carried the 
 earlier Crusaders to the Levant because 
 Venice refused to do it. She believed the 
 war would interfere with trade. But in time 
 it was seen that the Crusaders developed trade, 
 and then Venice grasped the larger part of 
 the traffic. 
 
 Thereafter they made every venture yield 
 large profits. While they contributed to- 
 ward the expenses of an expedition, their 
 freight rates were high enough to cover all 
 outlay and leave them a profit. Sutlers 
 sailed with the forces to magnify and supply 
 the wants of the fighting men. Commercial 
 travellers, to drum up trade in the foreign 
 lands, were found in every fleet. Each charter 
 party signed by the knights was made to 
 
44 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 provide that the Venetians should share in 
 the territories as well as the plunder to be 
 gained ; and the share always demanded 
 shows that shrinking modesty was not a 
 Venetian characteristic. In the Fourth Cru- 
 sade the knights were inveigled into a con- 
 tract to pay more freight and passage money 
 than they could raise, whereupon the Vene- 
 tians took from them their plate and jewelry ; 
 and on finding that even then the price of 
 transportation was not raised they dragooned 
 the knights into sacking the Christian city of 
 Zara, with which the Venetians were at war, 
 and finally to assault and sack the city of 
 Constantinople. 
 
 At the height of their power the Venetians 
 traded to all known ports on the Mediter- 
 ranean and the Atlantic. In each ship 
 making long voyages they sent poverty- 
 stricken young patricians to learn the ways 
 of trade. At the same time the merchants of 
 Europe sent their sons to Venice, not only to 
 learn the arts of shipbuilding and of trans- 
 
THE DARK AGES 45 
 
 portation, but bookkeeping and banking, 
 which had been far advanced in that city. 
 Commercialism in its grossest forms was 
 developed in Venice. The people openly 
 boasted that " We are Venetians, then 
 Christians." They literally betrayed their 
 religion for gain, as Ruskin said. But it is 
 to be remembered, on the other hand, that 
 in their beginnings, when other poverty- 
 stricken Mediterranean seamen took to piracy 
 to secure wealth, the Venetians sought trade 
 and exterminated high-seas robbers. They 
 would plunder Constantinople, but it is not 
 charged that they adulterated their pepper. 
 Shylock demanded his pound of flesh, but he 
 did not tamper with the scales. 
 
 Nor is that all, or even the best, that can be 
 said in praise of the Venetians. Like the 
 Greeks they developed from the earliest days 
 a marvellous love of art ; and it seems all 
 the more marvellous when we consider their 
 home environment. Inspired by their love 
 of the beautiful, the Venetian ship captains 
 
46 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 sought everywhere for works of art. While 
 they loaded their ships with the produce of 
 the world they reserved space for what would 
 adorn Venice especially for the marbles that 
 might be used in the building of churches and 
 palaces. Though the Venetians lived on land 
 that never produced a tree or an atom of iron 
 or of brass, they built the best ships of the 
 time. Although they lived in the midst of a 
 swamp that created an indescribable " horror 
 of heart " in the soul of an artist (Ruskin), they 
 built homes and churches that in architec- 
 tural beauty were unequalled. And they 
 began this splendid work while yet they had 
 no other merchandise than salt taken from 
 the sea. 
 
 Of the mariners of Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi, 
 we need say nothing. While each flourished 
 in its day, and cultivated and spread civiliza- 
 tion, neither had as great an influence in this 
 respect as Venice : and neither developed 
 any memorable peculiarity of ship or sea 
 commerce. 
 
THE DARK AGES 47 
 
 In the meantime, civilization based more 
 or less on sea traffic had been slowly develop- 
 ing on the north-west coast of Europe. Under 
 the Roman rule (which began about a hun- 
 dred years after Caesar's invasion), Britain 
 acquired some of the Roman gloss, and Lon- 
 don became a port having a trade with the 
 Continent. The Danish and Saxon inva- 
 sions followed, and the old histories discuss at 
 length the character of the ships which were 
 used in that day ; but in such matters there 
 is nothing of interest here save only as the 
 conquests influenced the native population 
 by intermarriage and by keeping their atten- 
 tion fixed upon the sea. It may be recalled, 
 however, that Britain had then an export 
 trade in wool which continued for centuries, 
 and that Indian and Mediterranean goods 
 were imported. 
 
 With the growth of Venice a trade route 
 was opened across the Alps. Because the 
 merchants learned in time that the sea was 
 the path of least resistance for this northern 
 
48 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 trade, Venetian ships began to follow the 
 coast of Spain and France to Flanders (Bel- 
 gium), where Bruges became an important 
 port, with London a convenient port on the 
 way. It was the turmoil of commerce that 
 carried the civilization of the Mediterranean 
 to the north-west of Europe. 
 
 Another race of seamen to be considered here 
 was the Norsemen or Vikings. A most 
 interesting people were the Vikings, even 
 before they began cruising. " They under- 
 stood in their hearts that it was indispensable 
 to be brave. . . . They thought it a 
 shame and misery not to die in battle ; and if 
 natural death seemed coming on they would 
 cut wounds in their flesh that Odin might 
 receive them as warriors slain. Old kings 
 about to die had their body laid into a ship ; 
 the ship was sent forth with sails set and slow 
 fire burning it, that, once out at sea, it might 
 blaze up in flame and in such manner bury 
 worthily the old hero." 
 
 Life among the crags of the fiords was 
 
THE DARK AGES 49 
 
 sustained only by hard labour, and yet the 
 Vikings had a literature, myths, poetry, 
 history, as inspiring as that of Greece. It 
 was a literature that was created beside 
 the blazing logs of the fireplace in the long 
 winter evenings, and with the roar of the surf 
 coming up from the beach hard by. Recall 
 the story of Thor, the thunder god, and his 
 adventures at Utgard. " A great Brob- 
 dignag grin of humour is in this " story : 
 " mirth resting on earnestness and sadness 
 as the rainbow on the black tempest." Com- 
 pare this humour with that of Greece. All 
 the Greek gods, " at the sight of Hephaestus 
 limping across the palace floor, burst into 
 4 inextinguishable laughter.' " They laughed 
 at a limp. The Vikings' " grin " appeared 
 when they recalled how Thor was inveigled 
 into thinking he was draining a horn of good 
 liquor when in fact he was trying to swallow 
 the sea ; or how he supposed he was 
 wrestling in the presence of the people of 
 Utgard with a decrepit old woman when 
 
50 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 he was in fact grappling with relentless old 
 age. 
 
 In A.D. 784 the Vikings came to England. 
 They were called pirates, but one will have 
 hard work to find an ethical difference be- 
 tween their raids and the conquests of more 
 civilized peoples. They also rounded the 
 north of Scotland and came down to Ireland. 
 They ravaged the mainland as far as Gibraltar 
 and entered the sunlit Mediterranean. They 
 entered the Arctic and travelled east as far 
 as Archangel a fact that seems worth men- 
 tion, if only to show that plunder was not 
 the sole incentive behind their explorations. 
 In the Viking was an instinct that, above all 
 other influences, stirred his blood, and that 
 was the love of adventure. In 874 the Vik- 
 ings went to Iceland, where " it was not long 
 before the population exceeded 50,000 souls. 
 Their sheep and cattle flourished, hay crops 
 were heavy, a lively trade with fish, oil, 
 butter, skins, and wool in exchange for meal 
 and malt was kept up with " Europe. In 
 
THE DARK AGES 51 
 
 876 a storm drove the ship of an Icelander 
 named Gunnbjorn to the coast of Greenland 
 (theretofore unknown), and it was held in 
 the ice there no doubt in a fiord all winter. 
 In the spring the crew rowed back to Ice- 
 land. The story of this mishap was told 
 by the firesides until 983, when one Eric 
 the Red killed a man in a fight and was out- 
 lawed by the community. Thereupon Eric 
 shipped a crew for his boat, and pulled away 
 to the new land where the storm-tossed Gunn- 
 bjorn had wintered. After exploring the 
 fiords from Cape Farewell to the site of the 
 modern Upernavik, he returned to Iceland, 
 where he invited emigrants to go to the 
 new land. Red Eric was the original Ameri- 
 can " boomer." He advertised the new land 
 under the name of Greenland, not because it 
 was green, but because, as he said, " there is 
 nothing like a good name to attract settlers." 
 Eric carried away twenty-five shiploads 
 of settlers with their dunnage, and although 
 eleven ships were wrecked, the fourteen that 
 
52 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 arrived made a settlement called Brattahlid, 
 on the Igaliko fiord, where their descendants 
 flourished for more than 400 years- literally 
 flourished. The traveller who ventures to 
 the coast in these days can see the remains of 
 the old stone buildings yet standing. From 
 this settlement it was inevitable that journeys 
 should be made to the American coast. The 
 story of those journeys need not be told here, 
 but we will note that in the year the colony 
 was established in Greenland an Icelander 
 named Bjarni, who had been harrying the 
 coasts of Europe, returned to Iceland " to 
 drink the Yuletide ale with his father," only 
 to find that his father had emigrated to Green- 
 land. Nothing daunted, Bjarni followed him. 
 Greenland ice in December amounted to little 
 in the calculations of a Viking, one would say. 
 On the way, however, heavy gales with thick 
 weather carried the boat out of the right 
 track, and when the weather cleared Bjarni 
 saw, instead of the bare rocks and snows 
 of Greenland, a low coast covered with a 
 
THE DARK AGES 53 
 
 heavy forest. Thereupon, having a south- 
 westerly wind, Bjarni put up his helm, " and 
 after scudding nine or ten days with a brisk 
 breeze astern " he reached the Greenland 
 fiord where his father lived. The passage from 
 Iceland to a coast south-west of Greenland 
 and thence to the original destination, was 
 made at a time when there was no compass, 
 nor a quadrant for taking the altitude of the 
 sun, nor any instrument for learning the speed 
 of the ship through the water. That is a 
 statement of facts which helps to an appre- 
 ciation of the courage and resourcefulness of 
 the Viking sailor. 
 
 Meanwhile the Norsemen came down 
 through the British Channel to settle on the 
 adjoining lands especially in England, where 
 the environment proved congenial. We who 
 speak the English language are a mongrel 
 race, but of all the peoples to whom we look 
 as our ancestors there was not one with a 
 history that stirs the blood like that of the 
 Vikings. 
 
54 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Another race of seamen who were of some 
 note in the Dark Ages was the Saracen. The 
 Saracens dominated the Mediterranean in the 
 eighth century, at which time they also 
 controlled Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. As 
 followers of Mohammed these Arabs swept 
 over Arabia, and they secured the commerce 
 of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. They 
 were able to maintain themselves in it, too, 
 for a time after the Portuguese, Dutch, and 
 English had entered it by way of the Cape of 
 Good Hope. They were pioneers on the 
 east coast of Africa, extending their trading 
 stations as far down as Madagascar. The 
 Emosaid family, " descended from Ali, cousin 
 and son-in-law of Mohammed," were the first 
 to build up that part of the African trade 
 (A.D. 742). 
 
 Careless readers, on seeing any mention of 
 Mohammedans, think at once of the then very 
 brutal Turks. But the Saracens were a most 
 enlightened people. The Crusaders found 
 that " the Saracens could teach them lessons 
 
THE DARK AGES 55 
 
 in honour, courtesy and mercy as well as in 
 mathematics and astronomy, medicine and 
 engineering " (Ferris : " History of War 
 and Peace "). " The civilization of the peoples 
 under Arabian rule was, when tried by almost 
 any test, and certainly by any economic test, 
 incomparably higher than that of Christen- 
 dom." Reference to the Turks, as distin- 
 guished from the Saracens, is of interest 
 because their appearance upon the Medi- 
 terranean had an important influence upon 
 the work of the great mariners who are to be 
 described in the next chapter. To understand 
 this Turkish influence we must remember 
 that, after the Venetians had placed princes of 
 the Western Church upon the throne of Con- 
 stantinople, the Genoese restored the Greek 
 reign, and then treated a Greek emperor 
 so shabbily that he declared war and called 
 on the Turk to help him. As a result of this 
 appeal the Turks crossed permanently into 
 Europe. By 1365 they had overrun Thrace 
 and Roumania. Adrianople was captured 
 
56 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 in that year, and, finally, in 1453 Constanti- 
 nople itself was taken. Thereafter but one 
 trade route to the East remained open to 
 Christian merchants that through Egypt 
 and it, being in Saracen hands, was heavily 
 burdened with tariffs. Worse yet was the 
 burden imposed by the wars between the 
 Christian powers, and the unceasing dangers 
 from Turkish corsairs. While the growth of 
 civilization was increasing the demand for 
 Indian goods, the conditions under which the 
 trade was conducted were becoming so difficult 
 as to approach near to prohibition. More- 
 over, the Turk was reaching out to grasp 
 Egypt. The total destruction of the trade, 
 so far as Christian powers were concerned, 
 might well have seemed impending. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is difficult long to study 
 history without being haunted by the idea 
 of development. It has frequently happened 
 in the evolution of civilization that the evil 
 which seemed most portentous was but an 
 aid to further progress, and it was so now. 
 
THE DARK AGES 57 
 
 With the growth of the burdens upon the 
 commerce of the East men began asking 
 whether the old Greek story about an all- 
 water route to the Indies was not, after all, 
 true ; and then a far-seeing Christian prince 
 began a series of explorations that was not 
 only to reveal the route he sought, but was 
 to work such marvellous changes in the world 
 that only those who have given the matter 
 special study are able to appreciate what was 
 accomplished. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE OPENING-UP OF THE ATLANTIC 
 
 THE prince who prepared the way for Colum- 
 bus was Henry the Navigator, of Portugal, 
 son of John I, the " King of Good Memory," 
 while his mother was Philippa, daughter of 
 John of Gaunt. In order to comprehend the 
 work of this prince, the fact must be recalled 
 that while the magnetic needle had been ap- 
 plied to navigation, no way of reckoning 
 longitude was known except by guessing the 
 day's run in miles ; and it was the custom of 
 the day for ship captains to sail first of all 
 directly to the latitude of the destination and 
 then east or west along the parallel. Taking 
 the altitude of the sun for latitude was 
 understood, but the astrolab, or instrument 
 used for the purpose, was not accurate within 
 58 
 
THE ATLANTIC 59 
 
 a degree or so. It is also important to remem- 
 ber that for nearly seven hundred years the 
 people of the Iberian Peninsula had been 
 constantly waging war to expel the Saracens 
 (Moors). Naturally these people received 
 little of the benefit which the Crusaders 
 brought to other parts of Europe. At the 
 same time constant warfare at home deeply 
 affected their ideals. The career of the 
 soldier seemed glorious, that of the producer 
 contemptible. The people of Portugal were 
 freed from the Moors years before those of 
 Spain. Thus the Portuguese were able to 
 devote their capital to industrial uses ; and 
 because the Atlantic was free the people 
 turned naturally to sea commerce. In 1294 a 
 commercial treaty was made between London 
 and Lisbon, and at the time of the marriage 
 of King John I and Philippa, a sort of 
 Triple Alliance was consummated between 
 Portugal, England, and Flanders. 
 
 A number of early voyages upon the 
 Atlantic are worth mention. In 1270 Lance- 
 
60 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 lot Malocello sailed to the Canaries, the 
 Fortunate Islands of the ancients. In 1341 
 an expedition heading for the same islands 
 reached them in five days. In 1346 Jayme 
 Ferrara, having heard through caravan 
 traders about the Gold Coast, tried to reach it 
 by the sea route, but reached the port of 
 missing ships instead. In 1370 Robert Machin, 
 an Englishman, eloped from Bristol with a 
 sweetheart, and was driven to the Madeiras 
 by a north-east storm. There he and the lady 
 died, but the sailors crossed to Africa in a 
 small boat, where they were enslaved by the 
 Moors. Later, another slave there ransomed 
 them, and one of them carried their story to 
 Portugal, where Prince Henry heard it. In 
 1400, a Seville captain bound to Oporto was 
 blown to the Grand Canary, and when he 
 returned, the story of life on that island 
 inspired " Jean de Bethencourt, Lord of 
 Gramville, and Gadifer de la Salee, a needy 
 knight," to " conquer in the sea a new kingdom 
 for themselves " that is, colonize some of 
 
THE ATLANTIC 61 
 
 that group. In this they succeeded ; it 
 was the first expansion of Europe toward the 
 west since the days of Viking activity. The 
 Canaries became a handy stopping-place for 
 later explorers. 
 
 Prince Henry was born in 1394. The career 
 of a warrior opened before him, and he proved 
 that he was a good fighting man ; but he chose 
 to build a palace, an astronomical observatory, 
 and a chapel on the extreme point of Cape 
 Vincent, where he devoted his life to a study 
 of the sciences. He gave special attention 
 to geography, gathering around him the ablest 
 navigators of the day, and sending them away 
 to test the theories of the learned by actual 
 exploration. The learned then held two 
 theories regarding the earth as a whole. One 
 was that promulgated (127-151) by Ptolemy, 
 (Claudius Ptolemseus of Alexandria), whose 
 map of the world depicted Africa as a vast 
 continent that extended eastward around the 
 Indian Ocean, and finally connected with a 
 south-east extension of Asia. He also held 
 
62 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 that Asia extended for a vast distance east- 
 ward, and ended in impenetrable swamps. 
 Aristotle had said that a voyage across the 
 Atlantic would bring the mariner to Asia, 
 but Ptolemy was confident that because of 
 the swamps it was not worth while to make 
 such a voyage. Another theory of the earth, 
 and one that was in favour with Western 
 scholars in Prince Henry's day, was that of 
 Pomponius Mela (A.D. 50), who taught that 
 the earth consisted of continents surrounded 
 by water, and that Asia India was there- 
 fore to be reached by a^ssage around Africa. 
 It was this proposition that Prince Henry 
 tried to demonstrate ; but in the beginning of 
 his work at Cape Vincent he^.t^ first aimed to 
 reach the Gold Coast, with its nuggets, of 
 which he had heard when He was fighting the 
 Moors in Africa. 
 
 Contemporary authority says that Henry's 
 vessels were " the best sailing ships afloat." 
 They were partly decked rowboats carrying 
 crews of thirty and upwards each, His 
 
THE ATLANTIC 63 
 
 first memorable expedition was made in 1418, 
 when John Gonsalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz 
 sailed down the African coast, and were caught 
 by a storm that carried them to Porto Santo. 
 The colonization of the Madeiras followed 
 that venture. Thereafter several voyages 
 were made, but nothing was accomplished 
 until 1428, when one of the prince's brothers 
 brought from Venice a map known to his- 
 torians as the Laurentian Portulano, made in 
 1351, wherein the cartographer had made a 
 remarkably good guess as to the form of 
 Africa, and on whir" [ too, the Azores were 
 depicted. Henry's sailors soon located those 
 islands a thousand miles out in the Atlantic ; 
 but when the* 7 , were sent once more down the 
 African coast superstitious fears stopped 
 them. A long reef ran out to sea at Cape 
 Bojador, and the tide-rips were fearsome ; but 
 the chief trouble in their view was that God 
 did not want them to pass the cape. He 
 would turn them black if they did so and 
 they were from a white man's country ! 
 
64 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Moreover, a little farther down the coast was 
 the torrid zone, where, as they believed, the 
 sun's rays came down in liquid flames ; a 
 belief that was shared by men of learning. 
 The fact that Saracens were trading as far 
 south as Madagascar was unknown or un- 
 heeded in Portugal. However, in 1434 Gil 
 Eannes, after turning back on a previous 
 voyage, did round the cape, and, to the great 
 surprise of everybody but Henry, found that 
 the water there was " as easy to sail in as the 
 waters at home," and " the land very rich 
 and pleasant." The next year another ship 
 sailed 390 miles beyond the cape. Then 
 exploration dragged until 1441, when Antam 
 Gonsalvez sailed as far as Cape Blanco, and 
 brought home a number of natives captured 
 in a night raid. 
 
 This voyage opened the African slave 
 trade upon the Atlantic. Among the Afri- 
 cans captured was a chief who offered to give 
 ten slaves in return for liberty for himself 
 and two boys who had been captured. Henry 
 
THE ATLANTIC 65 
 
 accepted the offer, for an interesting reason. 
 He believed and said that if the three returned 
 to Africa their souls would be lost, but on 
 the other hand the ten to be brought back 
 would be saved a net gain of seven to the 
 glory of God. It is hard now to get the 
 right point of view in this matter, but the 
 fact is that a sincere desire to save souls was 
 united with greed. The slave trade, seasoned 
 later with gold dust, ivory, and pepper, 
 kept the Portuguese nation interested in 
 African exploration long after Henry's death 
 in 1463. 
 
 Advances were made slowly. When the 
 Turks took Constantinople, the explorers 
 had gone no farther than the Gambia. In 
 1460 Diego Gomez discovered the Cape 
 Verde Islands, and two years later Pedro de 
 Cintra reached Sierra Leone. Perhaps the 
 most important feature of this work was 
 the effect upon the Portuguese seamen. In 
 1471 Jofio de Santarem and Pedro de Escobar, 
 turning south in the Bight of Biaf ra, continued 
 
66 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 down the coast until they crossed the equator. 
 For the first time on record since the days of 
 Pharaoh Niku, civilized man entered the 
 region where the sun is to be seen usually at 
 the north of the zenith. Of still greater im- 
 portance was the fact that the explorers found 
 the coast running to the south, when they 
 thought they would soon reach the entrance 
 to the Red Sea according to the theories of 
 Mela. The discovery was discouraging, for 
 no one could tell how far the route to India 
 would be prolonged, even if there was a route 
 around Africa. Nevertheless, this very dis- 
 appointment proved to be an incentive to still 
 greater explorations. For Christopher Colum- 
 bus was one of the seamen in those ships, it is 
 said ; and when the unexpected southerly 
 trend of the coast was seen he began to con- 
 sider the feasibility of making a voyage to 
 India by sailing west across the Atlantic. 
 
 In 1484 Diego Cam sailed down to the 
 Congo, and a year later a thousand miles 
 farther. Meantime, the success of the explor- 
 
THE ATLANTIC 67 
 
 ers with government ships was arousing the 
 merchants to individual initiative ; many 
 private ventures were made, and missionaries 
 were at work on the coast. The success of 
 the missionaries led the black king of Benin- 
 to ask King John for a missionary, and the 
 ambassador preferring the request told the 
 king about a monarch in East Africa whose 
 chief fetich was a metal cross. This monarch 
 lived a thousand miles east of Benin, it was 
 said. The tale led to an expedition that 
 found its way around the point of Africa. 
 King John supposed the African monarch 
 with a cross must be Prester (Presbyter) 
 John, a mythical person of the Middle Ages ; 
 and, after sending one messenger to seek the 
 far-away court by an overland route, he 
 despatched Bartholomew Diaz with three 
 caravels, in August, 1486, to follow the African 
 coast around the south end, happen what 
 might. At a point 400 miles south of the 
 tropic of Capricorn, Diaz left the coast ; and 
 for thirteen days the three caravels were driven 
 
68 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 before a northern gale. Then they turned to 
 the east, and, having failed to find land on 
 that course, after a few days they headed 
 north, and reached the African coast near 
 the Gauritz River, 200 miles east of the Cape. 
 Thence they went on as far as Great Fish 
 River (33 30' south, 27 10' east). Diaz 
 believed the Red Sea was within reach, but 
 the sailors refused to go farther. 
 
 We may think those sailors were foolish, 
 for it is now impossible to comprehend their 
 feelings. With all the world mapped, and 
 steamers plying to the farthest ports, how 
 can we take the point of view of men who 
 had been driven for thirteen days before a 
 gale away from an unexplored country that 
 was thousands of miles from home ? The 
 
 route that^these men had covered when at 
 
 
 
 last they reached Lisbon was about 13,000 
 miles long. On the way home, Diaz saw the 
 cape and called it Stormy Cape, but King 
 John II changed the name to Cape of Good 
 Hope, 
 
THE ATLANTIC 69 
 
 Among the men on this expedition, was 
 Bartholomew Columbus. To him, as to all 
 the others, the route to India now seemed 
 plain ; but he and his brother Christopher, 
 who was then in Spain, thought the route far 
 too long. In their minds the route to follow 
 was that to westward across the Sea of 
 Darkness. 
 
 The story of Christopher Columbus never 
 loses interest. He was a boy of humble 
 birth who " made good," and that, too, in 
 an age when social differences were vastly 
 more important than now. Columbus was 
 born in or near Genoa, probably about 1436, 
 of parents who were weavers. His father 
 " was always in debt, and died poor." There 
 were five boys and one girl in the family, and 
 of the boys Christopher and Bartholomew 
 went to sea " at a very tender age," Chris- 
 topher said. Although no record of his life 
 before the mast has been preserved, one can 
 get an idea of the conditions then prevailing 
 from a glance at the laws of the sea and the 
 
70 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 tales of travellers. Flogging was one of the 
 lightest of the punishments lawfully inflicted. 
 Slitting the ears, cutting off the nose, and 
 branding were methods of punishment legally 
 inflicted at sea ; and the admiral of a fleet 
 might cut out the tongue of a sailor who was 
 insolent to his captain. For capital offences, 
 impaling alive was a common punishment. 
 
 In their living quarters the sailors were 
 crowded together like hogs in a pen, and 
 their food was often indescribably vile. But, 
 in spite of the hardships and of the mortal 
 diseases that raged in such an environment, 
 Columbus grew to manhood with a rugged 
 body and an alert mind, and he managed 
 meantime to acquire an excellent education. 
 He also became noted as a chart-maker. 
 
 About the year 1470, Christopher and Bar- 
 tholomew Columbus went to Portugal, where 
 they made charts and went to sea in the 
 exploring ships sent down the African coasts. 
 It is believed, as said, that Columbus was with 
 Santarem and Escobar in the voyage of 1471 
 
THE ATLANTIC 71 
 
 when the southern trend of the African coast 
 was discovered. At any rate, it was then, 
 when all others were discouraged at the out- 
 look, that Christopher began to consider the 
 possibility of the western passage to Asia. 
 Having married (1473) the daughter of a 
 former governor of one of the Madeira 
 islands, Columbus went to the island, and 
 remained for about a year. While there he 
 devoted himself to study more assiduously 
 than ever. A favourite book at this time 
 appears to have been the story of Marco 
 Polo's life in China" Cathay." * 
 
 As Columbus read this volume, he filled 
 the margins with notes. The statements 
 
 1 In 1271 Marco Polo, a lad of seventeen, went with his 
 father and uncle to China, where the elder men had already 
 been on a trading expedition. China was then ruled by 
 Kublai Khan, a benevolent despot who encouraged trade 
 and foreigners. Being useful, the three Venetians were 
 detained until 1292, when they returned to the Mediter- 
 ranean by following along the Asiatic coast from Chinchow 
 to the Persian Gulf, and crossing thence overland to the 
 Bosphorus. If not a " best seller," the book containing 
 the story of the adventures of these Venetians has had a 
 good sale ever since it was published, 
 
72 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 most interesting to him were those regarding 
 ports along the east coast of China, together 
 with those describing Cipango, the island 
 empire offshore now called Japan. Here 
 were statements of fact which, if true, de- 
 stroyed Ptolemy's theory of an extension of 
 Africa reaching around the Indian Ocean to 
 Asia. Most " armchair " explorers of the 
 day rejected Polo's story ; Columbus accepted 
 it implicitly. Another learned man who ac- 
 cepted it was Toscanelli " Paul the physi- 
 cist." Toscanelli drew a map of the world, a 
 copy of which was sent to King John II of 
 Portugal with a letter dated June 25, 1474, 
 and later, another copy was sent to Columbus. 
 The map portrayed the coast of Asia accord- 
 ing to the Polo descriptions, including many 
 small islands lying far off to eastward well 
 over toward the coast of Portugal ; for Tos- 
 canelli believed the earth to be a globe, 
 and that the Atlantic washed the coast of 
 Asia. The ocean between Spain and China 
 as depicted on his map was divided into 
 
THE ATLANTIC 73 
 
 " 26 spaces each of which contains 250 miles," 
 and " the very great and splendid city of 
 Quinsay * (Hangchow) was placed in the lati- 
 tude of Lisbon. Cipango was located so far 
 out from the Chinese coast that Columbus 
 believed the distance from the Canaries to 
 the east coast of Cipango was no more than 
 2,500 sea miles. 
 
 According to Toscanelli's letter to Columbus, 
 it appears that Columbus had told him a 
 voyage to Asia had " become not only possible, 
 but certain." The fact was, however, that 
 Columbus made no important effort to get 
 a ship for the voyage until ten years 
 later in 1484. What he did meantime, 
 however, is of interest. For example, he 
 went to Bristol, and shipped in a vessel that 
 carried him to Iceland (1477). The story of 
 this voyage is confused, but it definitely 
 states that " to this island . . . the 
 English go with their wares, especially from 
 Bristol." Columbus also spent some time 
 at Mina on the Gold Coast, and he wrote later 
 
74 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 that he went down the African coast " many 
 times." 
 
 Finally, in 1484, he petitioned King John II 
 for a ship for a voyage westward. A long war 
 with Spain had recently come to an end, and 
 Portuguese interest in exploration had re- 
 vived. It was in this year that Diego Cam 
 sailed to the Congo, taking along one Martin 
 Behain, who had recently invented an im- 
 proved instrument for taking the altitude of 
 the sun at sea, and who is known as the maker 
 of a globe, yet in existence, which shows the 
 coasts of Spain and Asia much as does the 
 map of Toscanelli. King John II submitted 
 the plans of Columbus to two different com- 
 missions of wise men, some of whom made 
 ridiculous objections to the scheme ridicu- 
 lous in modern times, that is ; but the main 
 reason why Columbus failed to get the ship 
 was the excessively high demands he made 
 for his reward in case of success. He was a 
 common ship's navigator, learned, no doubt, 
 but a mere sailor ; and yet in case he sailed 
 
THE ATLANTIC 75 
 
 a ship westward to China (a passage no 
 more than 2,500 miles long by his own figures) 
 he wanted to be made viceroy of the vast and 
 wealthy region he was thus to discover, and 
 to receive a tenth of all the revenues of all 
 kinds which the region might afford ! The 
 demand seemed absurd. That King John 
 would have granted smaller demands is shown 
 by the fact that, after getting the plans in 
 full, he gave them to one of his captains, 
 who made no demands, and sent him to try 
 the passage from the Cape Verde Islands. 
 When a few days out, this man's heart failed 
 him, and he came back with a tale of im- 
 passable water, and air that could not be 
 inhaled. 
 
 Disgusted with such treachery, Columbus 
 at once went to Spain, where he was des- 
 tined to wait eight years upon the pleasure of 
 royalty. The facts of most interest in the 
 accounts of that period are that Columbus 
 persisted, and that he did so because he be- 
 lieved that God had chosen him to do a great 
 
76 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 work. Not only was he to show the maritime 
 world a new route to India, but with the wealth 
 he was thereby to acquire he was to equip an 
 army and free the Holy Sepulchre from the 
 power of the Turk. Moreover, in showing the 
 new way to India he was to be the prime 
 mover in a mission work that would bring 
 all the Eastern world within the fold of the 
 Church. It was because of the intense sin- 
 cerity of the man that he was enabled to 
 persist ; and it was his religion, and not 
 greed, that made him demand the immense 
 reward. A time came when even the boys in 
 the street had learned the mission of Columbus 
 at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella ; 
 and they tapped their foreheads when they 
 saw him in token of their belief that he was 
 mad. In time, too, if one can believe the 
 story as usually told, Columbus was in such 
 desperate straits that he stopped at La 
 Rabida monastery, near Palos, and begged 
 for food for his son Diego. Whether this be 
 true or not, Juan Perez, prior of that monas- 
 
THE ATLANTIC 77 
 
 tery, became his friend, and was able to pro- 
 vide for another appeal to the Court, with 
 men of great influence to support the appeal. 
 And with that the tide turned. For Granada, 
 the last foothold of the Saracen, had then 
 been captured (January 2, 1492), and king 
 and queen were in a mood to grant anything 
 to their subjects. Columbus was somewhat 
 too dignified in the Court view, and his 
 demands for compensation in case of success 
 seemed as absurd as they had seemed to King 
 John II. But Ferdinand and Isabella be- 
 lieved they were God's chosen instruments 
 for the expulsion of the Saracens, and they 
 could seriously consider the claims of a man 
 whose faith was as strong as their own. 
 So, on April 15, 1492, a contract was signed 
 which gave the old sailor all he demanded. 
 
 Under this contract three ships were to be 
 provided at the port of Palos provided 
 by the ship-owners of the port. The city was 
 also forced to contribute a sum that has been 
 estimated as high as 16,000 toward a total 
 
 . ' 
 
78 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 expense which the same estimate places at 
 417,200 probably much too high. But 
 whatever the sum, the people of the town were 
 exasperated to a point where they were 
 almost ready to mob Columbus when he came 
 to prepare for the voyage. That was not 
 all of their trouble. The Spaniards had had 
 no such experience in high-seas navigation 
 as the Portuguese, and the thought of sailing 
 away on such a voyage filled them with a 
 sickening fe When the crews were to 
 be shipped, in fact, it was necessary to pro- 
 claim a jail delivery to secure the ninety men 
 needed. One of the ninety, by the way, was 
 an Irishman and another an Englishman. 
 The flagship, the Santa Maria, was ninety feet 
 long by twenty broad, and had a deck over 
 all. She was commanded by Juan la Cosa, 
 a Biscayan. The other two vessels were the 
 Pinta and the Nina, both without decks 
 amidships, and much smaller than the flag- 
 ship. The name Nina was descriptive it 
 means baby. The Pinta was commanded by 
 
THE ATLANTIC 79 
 
 Martin Pinzon, a wealthy ship merchant of 
 the port, who had aided Columbus materially 
 in securing the royal favour. The Nina was 
 commanded by a brother, Vincente. 
 
 A half hour before sunrise on Friday, 
 August 3, 1492, the little fleet left Palos and 
 reached away for the Canaries. Not only 
 were the Canaries nearer the hoped-for port 
 in China, but they were on the latitude of 
 " Chipango " where Columbus intended to 
 make his landfall. On the pass* ^ , the Pinta's 
 rudder was damaged treacherously, with a 
 view to getting an excuse for returning. 
 While making repairs at the Canaries, there 
 was an eruption of Teneriffe, a most terrify- 
 ing bad omen, in the minds of the crews. 
 On September 6 the fleet made sail for the 
 passage west. Such light airs prevailed that 
 land was yet in view on the second day out. 
 But when it finally disappeared " the sailors 
 loudly lamented their fate, and cried and 
 sobbed like children." Thereafter, to fore- 
 stall the fears of the sailors, Columbus kept 
 
80 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 two logbooks one for the men and one for 
 himself. In the public book he put down a 
 day's run of 180 miles as 144, and one of 120 
 as 108. The event justified the deceit, but on 
 September 13 the fleet crossed the line of no 
 variation, and the magnetic needle, which had 
 theretofore been pointing somewhat to the 
 right of the pole-star, began to swing to the 
 left. Columbus was astonished, and the 
 sailors were filled with superstitious fears, but 
 Columbus invented an explanation that quieted 
 them for three days, and then they reached 
 the Sargasso sea, with its immense beds o* 
 floating seaweed. When the progress of the 
 ships was slowed down by the weeds, the 
 sailors once more loudly expressed their 
 terrors. 
 
 Then when the ships sailed clear of the 
 weeds the sailors grew frightened because the 
 wind held so steadily in the north-east ; for 
 no one in the fleet knew anything about the 
 trade winds. It is hard for us to get the 
 sailors' point of view ; but when we do get 
 
THE ATLANTIC 81 
 
 it, we must feel a hearty sympathy for them, 
 even though many of them were from the 
 Palos jail. If the wind always held the one 
 course, the sailors naturally believed they 
 never could return. For the sails on those 
 ships were square ; there were but two to 
 each mast ; they bulged before the wind 
 like meal sacks, and to try to return by 
 tacking was hopeless. 
 
 When the fear of the sailors was reaching 
 the explosive point, the wind shifted ; but 
 they soon began to grumble again because 
 they thought it time to see land, if land was to 
 be seen, and in this feeling the Pinzons shared. 
 On October 7th, by the public log the ships 
 had sailed 2,200 miles (the private log showed 
 2,724), and Columbus himself was beginning 
 to feel much as his men did. What he and the 
 Pinzons believed was that they were too far 
 north, and were passing Cipango. Accord- 
 ingly, the course was altered somewhat to 
 the south. On the original course they would 
 have reached Florida, which was then 720 
 F 
 
82 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 miles away. On the new course a Bahama 
 island was but 505 miles away, and the differ- 
 ence was worth saving. For the men grew 
 uglier day by day. Columbus had cajoled, 
 made promises, and threatened, by turns, as 
 the occasion seemed to demand, with suc- 
 cess ; but now the men were becoming des- 
 perate. The mutinous spirit had reached a 
 point where the assassination of Columbus 
 was at hand, when, on October 11, impressive 
 and unmistakable signs of land were seen. 
 A " table board " and a carved stick were 
 passed by the vessels. " The carving " was 
 " apparently wrought by some iron instru- 
 ment." Then " the men in one vessel saw 
 the branch of a haw tree with fruit on it." 
 
 As the light of the sun faded away that 
 night, Columbus went to the high poop deck 
 of his ship, and paced to and fro with his 
 eyes fixed on the western horizon until 10 
 o'clock, when he quietly called Pedro Guiter- 
 rez, a groom of the king's chamber, to his 
 side, and asked him if he could see a light 
 
THE ATLANTIC 88 
 
 away beyond the bow. Guiterrez at once 
 said he could ; and then another official was 
 called who, after a little trouble in getting 
 the direction, also saw it distinctly. " It 
 appeared like a candle that went up and down, 
 and Don Christopher did not doubt that it 
 was a true light and that it was on land." 
 At two o'clock in the morning a sailor on the 
 Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, also saw a light, 
 and let it be known to all hands. 
 
 There was little sleep in the fleet there- 
 after. With the first light of day (Friday, 
 October 12, 1493), the whole command, 
 standing on the highest points of the hulls 
 and in the rigging, and all wild with excite- 
 ment, saw an island " rather large and very 
 flat . . . and the whole so green that it 
 is a pleasure to look upon it." It was right 
 under the bows of the fleet. Thereupon 
 Columbus dressed himself in armour, with a 
 crimson garment over all, took the royal 
 standard in his hand, entered a yawl, and 
 was rowed to the shore. The captains, bear- 
 
84 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 ing banners ornamented with green crosses 
 and the initials of the king and queen, followed 
 together with nearly all the members of the 
 erews. 
 
 And " as soon as the Admiral came to the 
 shore he fell on his knees, and, weeping abund- 
 antly tears of joy, he commenced to. say Te 
 Deum Laudamus, Te Dominum confitemur." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FROM COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 
 
 IT is important to keep in mind that what 
 Columbus found was a small island, which, 
 as he supposed, was north of but near to the 
 coast of Polo's Cipango. The great cities 
 of Asia were to be found, he believed, ten 
 days' sail to the west. On seeing that some 
 of the natives of this island wore small orna- 
 ments of gold, Columbus asked by the sign 
 language where they obtained the metal, and 
 they pointed to the south thus confirming 
 him in his theory. On sailing south, Columbus 
 found Cuba, which the natives said (as he 
 understood them) was the mainland of 
 Asia, and that Cipango was at the south 
 and east. On following the coast to the 
 east, Columbus found the island later called 
 Hispaniola, now Hayti and San Domingo, 
 85 
 
86 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 There the natives told of an inland region, 
 where they obtained gold, which they called 
 Ciboa, and Columbus supposed that Ciboa 
 was the native pronunciation of Cipango. 
 
 While on the Hispaniola coast, Pinzon, in 
 the Nina, deserted Columbus, and a little 
 later the flagship went ashore, while all 
 hands were asleep, and became a total 
 wreck. Having only an open boat left, and 
 it so small that not near all the men could 
 be carried in it, Columbus began to think 
 it time to hasten home to report what he had 
 found, lest further disaster leave them all 
 there to perish. Accordingly, a fort was 
 built on shore, and forty volunteers left in 
 the settlement, which was named Isabella. 
 Then Columbus sailed for home in the Nina, 
 overhauled the Pinta, passed through a gale 
 off the Azores (where Columbus expected to 
 founder), 1 and finally was driven by another 
 gale into port at Lisbon. King John II 
 
 1 While facing destruction, Columbus wrote an account 
 of the voyage in duplicate, sealed each manuscript in a 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 87 
 
 invited Columbus to Court to tell about the 
 voyage, which, we may imagine, gave Colum- 
 bus no little satisfaction. That the king 
 was chagrined is plain from the fact that 
 his counsellors advised the assassination of 
 Columbus. It should be noted here that the 
 acts of treachery mentioned are to be con- 
 sidered, not as indicating especial depravity 
 in the individuals involved, but as portraying 
 the state of civilization of the age. King 
 Ferdinand was accounted the most successful 
 diplomat of his time because of his skilful 
 use of what we would call treachery. The 
 conditions grew naturally out of the pro- 
 longed wars with the Saracens, during which 
 the people were taught that breaking faith 
 with Saracens was pleasing to the Deity. What 
 we call treachery was considered a praise- 
 worthy intellectual triumph. 
 
 cake of wax, and put each cake in a barrel. One barrel was 
 then thrown into the sea, and the other placed upon the 
 quarter deck of the Nina in the hope that if the vessel 
 foundered one or the other copy of the story might fall into 
 civilized hands. 
 
88 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 When Columbus reached Palos (March 
 15, 1493), " all the business of the town was 
 at an end for that day." But the enthusiasm 
 was all local to the peninsula ; it was by no 
 means so widespread or so deep as one would 
 naturally suppose from the historical accounts 
 which tell at this point how a new world 
 had been discovered. While giving weight 
 to the fact that a new route to the far East 
 had, as supposed, been opened, the people 
 were chiefly stirred by what they hoped for 
 in future voyages. When they had heard the 
 story of Columbus, the king and queen gave 
 thanks to God with tears ; but when their 
 ambassador at Rome, later, spoke of the new 
 discovery in a public oration his words were : 
 " Christ placed under their (the king's and 
 the queen's) rule the Fortunate islands, the 
 fertility of which has been ascertained to be 
 wonderful. And He has lately disclosed some 
 other unknown one towards the Indies which 
 may be considered among the most precious 
 things on earth." Fiske shows that printed 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 89 
 
 references to the discovery are very scanty 
 outside of Spain until after 1500, and that it 
 was about fifty years later still before any 
 English writer mentions either Columbus 
 or Cabot. The interest temporarily aroused 
 in England when the result of the voyage 
 was first announced was described by Sebas- 
 tian Cabot as follows : " When newes was 
 brought that Don Christopher Colonus, Geno- 
 ese, had discovered the coasts of India, 
 whereof was great talke in all the court of 
 King Henry the 7, who then raigned, inso- 
 much that all men affirmed it to be a thing 
 more divine than humane to saile by the 
 West into the East, where spices growe, by 
 a map that was never knowen before by 
 this fame and report there increased in my 
 heart a great flame of desire to attempt some 
 notable thing." 
 
 That " flame " is memorable. In the cities of 
 Spain, and especially in the ports, the voyage 
 of Columbus started a flame of desire in many 
 hearts that were peculiarly inflammable. 
 
90 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 The nation was full of men who had won 
 more or less glory and nothing else in the 
 war with the Saracens. They had lost their 
 occupation when the war ended, and they 
 had been reduced to a point where they had 
 to face work or starvation. But now the 
 cities of " Cathay," full of gold and heretics, 
 were to be found just around the next cape 
 beyond the one where Columbus had turned 
 back, and thither these needy cdballeros 
 would go ! When Columbus prepared to sail 
 once more, seventeen vessels were fitted out 
 for the expedition, and into them 1,500 men, 
 bubbling over with joyous anticipations of 
 obtaining beauty and booty, were crowded 
 into them. Meantime, Columbus, with exal- 
 ted mind, had vowed with all solemnity that 
 within seven years he would use his share of 
 the profit to fit out 50,000 foot soldiers and 
 4,000 horsemen to free the Holy Sepulchre 
 from the presence of the Turk. 
 
 The fleet sailed on September 25, 1493, 
 and on Sunday, November 3, discovered an 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 91 
 
 island which was named Dominica. Other 
 islands, including Porto Rico, were visited 
 later. The natives of these islands resisted 
 the landing of the Spaniards, and killed several 
 with poisoned arrows. Human flesh, smoked 
 like bacon, was found in their houses, and 
 some, recently killed, cooking in their earthen 
 pots. It was from this people, who were 
 called Caribales and canibales, that the 
 term now applied to people who eat human 
 flesh was derived. Columbus and his men 
 sailed on gladly in anticipation of soon arriv- 
 ing among the more gentle inhabitants of 
 the western islands ; but on reaching Isabella 
 found not one of the men left there alive. 
 They had quarrelled among themselves, and 
 then with the natives, over the possession of 
 native women, until all were killed. 
 
 Having landed his company, Columbus 
 built a new settlement, explored the interior, 
 where gold mines were found, sent twelve 
 ships home for supplies, and then (April 24) 
 sailed to the west to locate the cities of China. 
 
92 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 The south coast of Cuba was explored as 
 far as Cape Cruz, and Jamaica was discovered. 
 Then, because his vessels were not fitted for a 
 longer cruise, he turned back, intending to 
 explore the coasts of the island on which 
 he had built Isabella ; for he fully believed 
 it was the rich and populous island Polo 
 had called Cipango. But soon after reaching 
 the coast he learned his error. His alternate 
 periods of anxiety and exaltation of mind 
 now began to undermine his health, and on 
 reaching the east end of the island he " fell 
 into a death-like lethargy which lasted until 
 after the fleet reached Isabella." 
 
 Of the work of Columbus as a governor, 
 we need only note that his men were beyond 
 all ordinary control. They had found a 
 wilderness instead of the cities of China. 
 Gold was to be had only by the use of pick 
 and shovel. War having taught them to 
 despise productive labour, they were wholly 
 unfit to establish prosperous colonies. The 
 expansion of Spanish rule in America can 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 93 
 
 be described in one word which they often 
 used. They called themselves conquistadores 
 conquerors. Spanish expansion was mere 
 conquest. Meantime, where Ferdinand and 
 Isabella had looked for a golden income 
 they found growing costs, and in time it 
 became apparent that the claims of Colum- 
 bus, however plainly stated in the contract, 
 were inconsistent with the interests of the 
 crown and those of native-born Spanish 
 navigators. If Columbus had reached China 
 or even the partly civilized Mexico, the 
 course of his life might have been pleasant. 
 As it was, he seldom knew what it was to 
 rest in peace. When in June, 1496, he 
 returned to Spain, his reign as a viceroy in the 
 new lands was practically over. He was 
 received in kindly fashion, however, and 
 after a delay of two years (May 30, 1498) 
 he sailed upon the third exploring expedi- 
 tion. Crossing to Trinidad island, he saw 
 the coast of South America, noted the huge- 
 volume of water flowing from the mouths 
 
94 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 of the Orinoco river, and went on to the 
 Pearl Coast, which was so named because of 
 the presence of the pearl oyster. The current 
 of the Orinoco convinced him that the river 
 came from land of continental proportions, 
 but the actual conditions and extent of the 
 land were undreamed of. On August 15, 
 his health having failed, he headed for San 
 Domingo, a settlement that had been estab- 
 lished on the south coast of Hispaniola. 
 The conditions in San Domingo were as bad 
 as possible. Incited by returned settlers who 
 blamed Columbus for their ill-fortune, the 
 king and queen had sent out a commissioner 
 named Bobadilla to investigate. He had 
 sided with those who hated Columbus, and 
 he eventually sent both the admiral and his 
 brother to Spain in irons. Columbus arrived 
 in August, 1500. To add to his woe he found 
 the people much excited by the return of 
 Vasco da Gama from a most profitable voyage 
 around Africa to the far East. 
 
 One more voyage was yet to be made. Co- 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 95 
 
 lumbus sailed from Cadiz on May 11, 1502. 
 He intended to go to Jamaica, avoiding San 
 Domingo by order of the Crown. But on 
 reaching the Windward Islands he found one 
 of his vessels in such ruinous condition 
 that he felt obliged to go to that port to 
 charter another. On arriving he was at once 
 ordered to leave, although, as he protested, 
 a hurricane impended. As he left to seek 
 shelter in a near-by cove, he sent word to the 
 masters of a large fleet, just sailing for home, 
 that they would better return to the harbour, 
 and was laughed at for his pains. The 
 hurricane arrived, however, and twenty 
 of the ships went down with all hands. 
 Bobadilla, the unjust commissioner, was 
 among the lost. A ship carrying a large 
 quantity of gold which belonged to Columbus 
 (a royalty from the mines) was among the 
 few that escaped. 
 
 After the storm, Columbus sailed to the 
 north coast of Honduras. Buildings, imple- 
 ments, and fabrics found there indicated a 
 
96 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 higher degree of civilization than he had seen 
 elsewhere, and, greatly encouraged, Columbus 
 asked the way to the still more civilized parts 
 of China. The people pointed to the west, 
 but Columbus headed away to the east. His 
 reason for so doing was, first, his determina- 
 tion to go to the Strait of Malacca. To 
 reach that, he argued, he must keep the con- 
 tinent on the starboard side. Then it seems 
 likely that he learned from a pilot named 
 Ledesma, who had already been on that 
 coast, that a voyage to the west would prove 
 fruitless. With splendid fortitude the old 
 mariner faced the easterly gales, named the 
 cape round which he was able to turn to the 
 south, Gracias a Dios, and so came to the 
 Isthmus of Panama. The natives told him 
 of a " narrow place " by which he might go 
 to the south and west, and Columbus sup- 
 posed they meant a strait, between the 
 continent and an island, through which he 
 might sail to Malacca possibly it might be the 
 Strait of Malacca itself ! Alas, it was a narrow 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 97 
 
 strip of land over which he might have crossed 
 on foot. Finding much gold along the coast, 
 Columbus tried to make a settlement. The 
 effort failed, and finally, with the planking of 
 his ships almost destroyed by the teredo, he 
 sailed for San Domingo. A current which 
 he did not perceive carried him to the coast 
 of Cuba, west of Cape Cruz, and there a storm 
 completed the destruction which the teredo 
 had begun. To escape foundering, Columbus 
 ran his vessels, " full of water and unable to 
 sail another league," upon the Jamaica beach 
 (June 23, 1503). A messenger was sent to 
 San Domingo for help, but the governor 
 refused to send relief until the following year. 
 Columbus then went on to Spain, where he 
 arrived on November 7, 1504. The queen, from 
 whom alone he could hope to receive help, 
 was dying. Worse yet, old age had overtaken 
 him, his splendid physique was broken down, 
 the elasticitj and strength of his mind were 
 gciie. Realidfeig that he had failed to reach 
 the civilized East Indies, and wholly without 
 
98 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 any inkling of the magnitude of the work he 
 had done, Columbus lingered in poverty and 
 neglect for eighteen months, and then died of 
 a broken heart on May 20, 1506. 
 
 It is with difficulty that the student of 
 history now sees the work of Vasco da Gama 
 as his contemporaries saw it. Incited to 
 action by the opening of the Atlantic, the 
 king of Portugal ordered three ships under 
 Gama to go to the Indies by way of the Cape 
 of Good Hope. Pedro d'Alembert, a pilot 
 who had been with Bartholomew Diaz, was 
 sent with the fleet. They sailed July 9, 1497, 
 passed the Cape on November 22, and on 
 December 17 arrived on the coast where Diaz 
 had turned back. Keeping on, they named 
 a port, now well known, Natal, because they 
 saw it on Christmas. At Quillimane they 
 stopped to overhaul the ships, which were now 
 much the worse for wear, and that fact is 
 worth consideration because * it shows the 
 quality of ships used in the work. All the 
 explorers had to face the storms and reefs of 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 99 
 
 I unknown seas in vessels that would now be con- 
 sidered scarcely well found for inland waters. 
 North of Quillimane a Saracen merchant was 
 
 I found and employed as a pilot, with such 
 success that Mozambique was reached on 
 March 10, 1498, and Melinda on April 29. 
 From Melinda local pilots conducted the fleet 
 to the west coast of Hindustan, " eight leagues 
 from Cananore." The first port entered was 
 Calicut. 
 
 The talents required in this voyage were 
 chiefly those of a diplomat and trader, and 
 with those Vasco da Gama was well supplied. 
 The " treachery of the Moors " availed them 
 nothing ; the ships were loaded with the goods 
 of the Indies at a cost that seemed insignifi- 
 cant. Many of the crews died, and the ships 
 were in such bad condition on the last part of 
 
 ! the passage home that they were with diffi- 
 culty kept afloat ; but on September 18, 1499, 
 the Tagus was reached with cargoes in good 
 condition. The ledger account showed that 
 " the return was sixty fold." As the business 
 
100 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 men of the day saw the facts, Columbus had 
 discovered what we may call a fine prospect, 
 but Vasco da Gama had " obtained results." 
 Thereafter, to the exasperation of the Span- 
 iards and the wonder of other nations, the 
 Portuguese secured almost an entire monopoly 
 of the profitable India trade. Opportunity 
 thus came to them to join with the Spaniards 
 in spreading civilization as it had been 
 developed in the Iberian peninsula. 
 
 The next voyage of discovery of interest 
 here was that made by Vincente Pinzon, who 
 sailed on May 10, 1497, with Americus Ves- 
 pucius as pilot. Vespucius was born in 
 Florence on March 18, 1452. As a merchant 
 he had some part in fitting out the first two 
 expeditions of Columbus, and thus became 
 ambitious to go exploring. It has been 
 denied that Vespucius sailed with Pinzon, 
 but the account in Fiske's " Discovery of 
 America," is convincing. The first landfall 
 was made at Cape Honduras on June 21 
 the continent was then seen for the first time 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 101 
 
 and three days later Honduras Bay was 
 named Navidad. From this bay the expedi- 
 tion sailed north around Yucatan, followed 
 the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to Florida, 
 going thence an unknown distance up the 
 coast to the north. Finally they struck off 
 to the east, touched at the Bermudas, and 
 finding the islands inhabited by a race of 
 cannibals, they took, after a fight, 222 of them 
 to Spain for slaves, and thus secured some 
 return for an otherwise profitless voyage. 
 They reached Spain on October 15, 1498. 
 Ledesma, who, as noted, was pilot with 
 Columbus in his fourth voyage, was on this 
 expedition. And it was because of the work 
 of this expedition that Juan La Cosa, in his 
 celebrated map, drawn in colours on oxhide 
 in 1500, portrayed Cuba as an island. For La 
 Cosa was with Vespucius in the expedition 
 that sailed May 16, 1499pand traced a part 
 of the north coast of South America and, on 
 returning, reported seeing an English vessel 
 in those waters. 
 
102 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 In 1499, a Portuguese fleet of thirteen 
 vessels sailed from Lisbon for the East Indies, 
 by the African route, under the command of 
 Pedro Alvarez de Cabral. In crossing the 
 tropics, this fleet bore so far to the west 
 that the equatorial current carried it within 
 sight of the coast of Brazil. After the success 
 of Columbus in opening the Sea of Darkness, 
 Pope Alexander VI had issued a bull which, 
 as modified in 1494, gave to Portugal all the 
 undiscovered lands east of a meridian lying 
 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, 
 while Spain was to have those west of it. 
 Cabral took possession of the new land because 
 it was east of that meridian, andjsent a ship 
 home to announce the discovery. This lucky 
 landfall shows that Columbus was none too 
 soon in his explorations, for, with the opening 
 of the waters around the Cape of Good Hope, 
 a voyager on the African coast was sure to 
 reach Brazil sooner or later. 
 
 On hearing of his new possessions (called 
 Brazil because a tree already in use under the 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 103 
 
 name of brazil wood was discovered there), 
 the Portuguese king (Emanuel) brought Ves- 
 pucius from Spain, and on May 14, 1501, sent 
 him to explore it. On August 16, Vespueius 
 reached Cape St. Roque ; Rio Janeiro Bay was 
 discovered on New Year's day, 1502 ; and on 
 February 15 the fleet was at the River Plate. 
 Vespueius saw that he was now within the 
 longitude claimed by the Spanish king ; and 
 he therefore left the coast, heading to the 
 south-east in the hope of discovering more 
 land within Portugal's right. In spite of 
 frightful storms of snow and sleet, he held this 
 course until he reached South Georgia Island, 
 1,200 miles east of Tierra del Fuego. Then he 
 laid a course for Sierra Leone, and " hit it 
 end on," as a sailor would say, showing that 
 as a navigator his skill was extraordinary. 
 
 The important fact about this voyage, 
 however, is that Vespueius had traced land of 
 continental dimensions south of the equator. 
 It had been seen by several navigators ; but 
 none of these had followed the coast as 
 
104 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Vespucius had done. Because all the world 
 believed that the discoveries thus far made 
 by the navigators lay on or off the east or 
 south-east coast of Asia, it was now inferred 
 that Vespucius had traced a continent in a 
 location where everybody had been taught 
 that only the waters of the Indian Ocean 
 were to be found. The continental land that 
 had been traced at the north of this vast 
 breadth was not at that time connected with 
 this that Vespucius had traced, because dis- 
 coveries had been made so rapidly that the 
 public had been unable to assimilate them. 
 
 This brings us to another very important 
 feature of the work of the master mariners 
 of the world. Work of that kind impresses 
 the public now, and it impressed the public 
 then, only as it is and was described in print. 
 On returning home, Vespucius wrote a letter 
 (March or April, 1503) to his friend, Lorenzo 
 de Medici, in which he spoke of the land he 
 had traced as a " new world." " I have 
 formerly written to you at sufficient length 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 105 
 
 about my return from those new countries 
 which, in the ships and at the expense and 
 command of the most gracious king of Portu- 
 gal, we have sought and found. It is proper 
 to call them a new world." Early in 1504 one 
 Giocondo translated the entire letter, of which 
 the above is but a small part, into Latin ; and 
 it was then printed as a four-page quarto 
 leaflet. The publisher, with an intuitive 
 foresight of what would " take," gave it the 
 title of " Mundus Novus." Straightway 
 " Mundus Novus " became a " best seller." 
 Eleven editions were sold in 1504 alone, and 
 by 1506 eight editions in German had been 
 disposed of. Now it happened that a Ger- 
 man scholar named Waldseemuller, while at 
 work upon a " Cosmographie Introductio " 
 for an edition of Ptolemy's works, received 
 a copy of " Mundus Novus," He added it to 
 his " Introductio," and then, because he had 
 previously considered the earth as com- 
 posed of but three grand continental divisions, 
 he felt compelled to revise his work. This 
 
106 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 he did by saying : " But now . . . an- 
 other fourth part has been discovered by 
 Americus Vespucius (as will appear in what 
 follows) : wherefore I do not see what is 
 rightly to hinder us from calling it Amerige or 
 America, i.e., the land of Americus, after its 
 discoverer Americus." The scholars of the 
 day accepted the suggestion as a just recogni- 
 tion of the work of Americus Vespucius. No 
 one suggested that the name of Columbus be 
 applied to the lands discovered by him, be- 
 cause they were all supposed to be a part of the 
 old continent of Asia. Americus had not 
 discovered the coast of Brazil, but he was the 
 first to trace its coast and describe in print 
 what he had seen. Then, his name having 
 been applied, first of all, to a part of the con- 
 tinent, it was retained upon it as from time 
 to time its vast dimensions became known. 
 An interesting view of the Spanish explor- 
 ers is found in the story of Vasco Nunez de 
 Balboa. As a settler in San Domingo he had 
 failed and was imprisoned for debt. Then 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 107 
 
 his friends fastened him up in a barrel (to 
 elude the court officials) and put him on a 
 ship carrying supplies to a settlement estab- 
 lished on the mainland. On arriving, Balboa 
 found the settlement at the point of failure, 
 but under his lead it became a success. Here 
 he learned from the Indians about a great 
 salt sea lying a few miles to the south ; and 
 on September 1, 1513, he headed an expedi- 
 tion to explore it. Led by the Indians, he 
 reached, late on the 24th, a mountain from the 
 top of which the strange sea was to be seen. 
 Camp was then made for the night. In the 
 morning the command climbed the mountain 
 until near the crest, when Balboa called a halt, 
 while he went on alone, until at last he, the 
 first of all civilized men, was able to look forth 
 across the sunlit waters of Panama Bay. 
 
 Francisco Pizarro is also memorable. He 
 was ^he natural son of an unknown father 
 and a swineherd of the lowest social grade 
 in Spain. But in Panama he found oppor- 
 tunity. His first expedition to Peru failed. 
 
108 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 His second landed on Gallo island, where 
 all but Pizarro became so discouraged .that 
 they determined to return to Panama. But 
 as they started toward the ship, Pizarro 
 stopped them, and with his sword drew an 
 east and west line in the sand of the beach. 
 Then, standing on the south side of the line 
 and facing them he said : " Gentlemen ! This 
 line signifies labour, hunger, thirst, fatigue, 
 wounds, sickness, and almost every other kind 
 of danger that must be encountered in this 
 conquest until life is ended. Let those who 
 have the courage to meet and overcome the 
 dangers of this heroic achievement cross 
 the line, in token of their resolution, and as 
 a testimony that they will be my faithful 
 companions. And let those who feel unworthy 
 return to Panama ; for I do not wish to put 
 force upon any man. I trust in God that, 
 for his greater honour and glory, his Eternal 
 Majesty will help those who remain with me, 
 though they be few, and that we shall not 
 miss those who forsake us." Thirteen, or 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 109 
 
 perhaps sixteen, crossed to the side of Piz- 
 arro ; and Peru was conquered. That, as 
 well as the anarchy upon Hispaniola, was 
 characteristic of the conquistador es. 
 
 Last of all we come to the story of Magel- 
 lan. " In his portrait, as given by Navarete, 
 with the great arching eyebrows, the fiery 
 black eyes, the firm-set lips and mastiff jaw, 
 . . . the strength is almost appalling." 
 Born in 1480, he sailed to the Portuguese 
 Indies when twenty-five years old, and served 
 there for seven years. On returning (1512), 
 he saw two years' service fighting the Moors 
 in Morocco. Then he began to consider 
 whether it were not possible to reach the 
 Indies by a new western route. The objec- 
 tion to the African route was its length. 
 Magellan, like all others familiar with what 
 had been thus far learned about America, 
 believed that Cipango lay close behind the 
 long barrier continent of America and that 
 China was a few days' sail beyond. With 
 the idea that the continent which Vespucius 
 
110 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 had explored must have an end at the. south, 
 Magellan asked the king of Portugal to send 
 him with an expedition to find the passage 
 and sail to " Cathay." The king refused, and 
 Magellan went to Spain, where he succeeded. 
 Five ships, " all old and decidedly the worse 
 for wear," were placed under his command. 
 It will help us to understand the civilization 
 of the day to recall the fact that, when King 
 Emanuel heard that the expedition was 
 really in hand, he sent men to Seville to assas- 
 sinate Magellan. The fleet sailed on Sep- 
 tember 20, 1519, from the Guadalquiver. 
 Mutiny appeared in the fleet on the way 
 across the Atlantic, and again at Port Julian, 
 where the fleet anchored (March 31, 1520) 
 for the winter ; but Magellan suppressed it 
 with a stern hand. One ship was lost on the 
 coast, and after the strait named after Magel- 
 lan was reached (October 21) another deserted. 
 When the remaining ships had passed 
 through the strait, the sailors begged Magellan 
 to return, for the food was becoming scarce, 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 111 
 
 but Magellan replied that he would go on " if 
 he had to eat the leather [chafing gear] 
 off the yardarms." Running up the coast 
 until the middle of December, he then 
 headed westerly across the Pacific, until in 
 March he reached the Ladrone islands. In 
 this passage the bread was all exhausted, and 
 life was at last sustained by eating the chafing 
 gear from the yardarms. But Magellan 
 persisted he was obliged to do so, then 
 and finally reached the Philippines, where he 
 lost his life while trying to force the Chris- 
 tian religion upon unwilling heathen (April 
 27, 1521). Among the great navigators, 
 Magellan unquestionably ranked next after 
 Columbus. He died uncompensated for his 
 labours, as Columbus did ; but both gained, 
 after all, the reward which men of such 
 calibre would prize most highly. Magellan 
 was the explorer from whom civilized people 
 first learned the extent of the world upon 
 which they lived. Though he died in the 
 Philippines, beyond the eastern limits of 
 
112 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Portuguese explorations of the day, he was 
 then among a people who were near neighbours 
 of those whom the Portuguese had visited. 
 
 After the death of Magellan, one of his 
 vessels was abandoned because it was unfit 
 to go further. The other two went to the 
 Moluccas. There another was left behind, 
 while the last, the Victoria, kept on around the 
 Cape of Good Hope and finally, on Septem- 
 ber 6, 1522, just thirty years after Columbus 
 sailed on his first voyage across the Atlantic, 
 she reached the Guadalquiver. This voyage 
 was the last made by people of the Iberian 
 peninsula to need consideration here. The 
 Spanish and Portuguese mariners crossed 
 the Atlantic, traced the strange coasts form- 
 ing a barrier across the course to the Spice 
 Islands, and then opened the way across the 
 broad Pacific. In spite of the hardships 
 they endured, the student of history may well 
 envy them all their eager longing as they stood 
 on deck gazing away beyond the forecastle, 
 and their breathless excitement when they 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 113 
 
 climbed the shrouds while the lookout cried 
 " Land Ho ! " 
 
 Last of all among the early explorers, we 
 must recall John Cabot and his son Sebastian. 
 John Cabot was a native of Genoa, who 
 became a citizen of Venice by legal adoption 
 in 1476. In 1490 he removed to Bristol, 
 which was then the most enterprising seaport 
 of England. Its merchants and fishermen 
 made voyages every year to Iceland, and as 
 early as 1480 an exploring expedition had 
 been sent in search of the " island of Brazil 
 to the westward of Ireland." Cabot became 
 greatly interested in the search for that 
 island, and on his initiative several expedi- 
 tions were sent out, beginning perhaps in 
 1490. The success of Columbus, no doubt, 
 helped him in this work (the records are 
 vague) ; but it was not until May, 1497, that 
 he sailed in command of a ship (the Mathew, 
 with a crew of 18 men), in which he actually 
 reached land which he supposed was the north- 
 east coast of Asia. The landfall was made on 
 
114 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 June 24. It was probably the coast of Labra- 
 dor. The Mathew returned to Bristol at the 
 end of July, and " honours were heaped upon " 
 the explorer. 
 
 Accordingly, in April of the next year 
 another expedition was sent away under 
 John Cabot, and a considerable part of the 
 American coast was visited. There is no 
 record to show exactly what part of the coast 
 was seen, nor when the ships (four or five 
 in all) returned to Bristol. Neither is any- 
 thing said about John Cabot thereafter. In 
 fact, the whole record is so badly confused 
 that it is only in recent years that the fact 
 that John Cabot, and not his son Sebastian, 
 headed the two expeditions has been learned 
 definitely. It is supposed that John Cabot 
 died during the later voyage, and that 
 Sebastian brought the expedition home. Very 
 likely the first expedition sailed from Labrador 
 down the coast to Cape Race ; and it appears 
 that in the second voyage as much as 700 
 leagues of the coast was seen, including much 
 
COLUMBUS TO MAGELLAN 115 
 
 of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Because neither 
 gold nor silver nor any opportunity for profit- 
 able trade was found the expedition was con- 
 sidered a failure, but one unconsidered trifle 
 of a discovery became, later, of immense con- 
 sequence. Such vast numbers of codfish 
 were seen that Cabot's account of them would 
 have seemed incredible but for the fact that 
 his crew, who were nearly all Bristol men, 
 confirmed the story. When those fish were 
 remembered later, the result in the expansion 
 of the English people was stupendous. 
 
 Sebastian Cabot occupies much space in 
 history, but it need only be said here that he 
 went to Spain after the death of Henry VII., 
 and there became Pilot Major to the throne. 
 He returned to England in 1548. There he 
 was made governor of a company of mer- 
 chants organized to trade north about Europe 
 and Asia to China, with the result that a 
 profitable trade was opened with Russia by 
 way of the White Sea. He died in London in 
 1557, or perhaps a little later. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SHIFTING THE CENTRE OF MARITIME 
 ENTERPRISE 
 
 FIRST among the influences that shifted 
 the centre of maritime enterprise from the 
 ports of Spain and Portugal to the north 
 was the success of the Hanseatic League, an 
 association of commercial towns along the 
 Rhine and the Baltic littoral. The league 
 originated in the days when merchants had 
 to combine to resist robbers. It grew into a 
 maritime association partly because water 
 routes were the lines of least resistance, and 
 partly because the merchants came to control 
 the fish, naval stores, amber, and other 
 products of the Baltic region. As these goods 
 were prime necessities, the monopolists not 
 only named prices but obtained exclusive 
 advantages in all ports to which they traded 
 during a long period. In London, for example, 
 116 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 117 
 
 they enjoyed great advantages over English 
 merchants as late as 1601. 
 
 In time, Hanseatic fortune roused neigh- 
 bouring peoples to emulation. The Dutch, a 
 mud-flats people who had developed on the 
 deltas of the Rhine, first competed with 
 them successfully. The Dutch were boatmen 
 and fishermen perforce ; and it is a curious 
 fact that, like the Venetians, they developed 
 a notable love of art at an early age. The 
 herring swarmed along the Dutch shores ; and 
 when a Dutch fisherman (perhaps it was 
 Captain Beukelzoon) discovered an improved 
 way of curing these fish, by which they were 
 kept on the market the year round, Dutch 
 ability to compete with the Hansa towns was 
 assured. For fish, as an article of food, was 
 important to an extent now not easily com- 
 prehended. Placing the herring in the market 
 the year round not only brought prosperity to 
 the fishermen, but, by increasing the food sup- 
 ply, it developed the efficiency of the producers 
 of all classes. 
 
118 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 While the Dutch were expanding, the 
 Netherlands were brought by political changes, 
 not of special interest here, under the rule of 
 Spain. In the meantime, Martin Luther 
 (1483-1546) divided the Catholic Church, and 
 the Dutch joined in the Lutheran movement. 
 The Inquisition, originally devised for Sara- 
 cens and Jews, was used in efforts to wipe 
 out this new heresy. At the same time, 
 the Spanish Crown, being in need of funds, 
 began imposing new burdens upon the Nether- 
 landers. These revolted ; and the contest 
 was embittered not only by religious preju- 
 dices but by race antipathies. On a memorable 
 occasion, when representatives of the Nether- 
 landers were before the Spanish ruler, a 
 Spanish grandee expressed the contempt 
 which he felt by calling them beggars. His 
 manner was more offensive even than his 
 word. This needless insult had memorable 
 results. The Dutch had become sea carriers 
 as well as fishermen, and some had found 
 u easy money " afloat in ways not lawful 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 119 
 
 even then. These seamen, being intensely 
 patriotic, led the way ; and the more peace- 
 loving fishermen soon joined in to form an 
 aggregation of armed sea fighters who adopted 
 the name of Sea Beggars. Every Spanish 
 ship was a good prize ; and because it was a 
 religious war the ships of such other countries 
 as were loyal to the Pope were sometimes 
 taken. One " Sea Beggar " only can be 
 remembered here William de la Marck. 
 " A wild, sanguinary, licentious noble, he, 
 wearing his hair and beard unshorn accord- 
 ing to ancient Bavarian custom," until the 
 death of a relative at the hands of the Span- 
 iards had been avenged. With a fleet La 
 Marck scoured the narrow seas ; and when 
 he met a Spanish ship within his power he 
 laid his ships alongside, led his men over the 
 rail with axe and pike in hand, and killed 
 every Spaniard on board. The " Sea Beg- 
 gars " neither gave nor asked quarter. 
 
 And yet these " Beggar " ships were often 
 seen with masts draped with flowers in token 
 
120 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 of a wedding near at hand ; and it was a blood- 
 less victory that makes La Marck's name 
 especially worth mention here. Having been 
 ordered from the British ports, because Queen 
 Elizabeth was not yet financially able to make 
 open war upon the king of Spain (Philip II.), 
 La Marck crossed the Channel with his fleet 
 (March 31, 1572), and entered the River 
 Meuse (April 1). He had twenty-four small 
 ships and perhaps 400 men, but a friendly 
 ferryman on the Meuse told the inhabitants 
 of Brill, a city that was then loyal to the 
 Spanish king, that the " Sea Beggars " had 
 come with 5,000 men to sack the town. In 
 less than two hours the whole population had 
 fled, wild with terror, and in the capture of 
 Brill, as Motley says, " the foundation of the 
 Dutch Republic was laid." 
 
 Holland was a small territory, but during 
 the eighty years through which the Span- 
 iards strove to subdue it, the sea lay open to 
 the Dutch sailors. Their success as priva- 
 teers, warring on Spanish commerce, was so 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 121 
 
 great that the owners of ships so engaged 
 united to organize the Dutch West India 
 Company in 1621. This company had some 
 other interests in hand. Manhattan Island 
 in New York harbour was colonized, for 
 example. But when it was proposed to make 
 peace with Spain the directors of the company 
 protested. They said they were engaged in 
 work that was a benefit to the nation, but that 
 the services which the company ought to 
 render " for the welfare of our Fatherland 
 . . . cannot be accomplished by the trifling 
 trade with the Indians, or the tardy cultiva- 
 tion of uninhabited regions, but in reality by 
 acts of hostility against the ships and property 
 of the King of Spain and his subjects." 
 Having at all times command of the sea, the 
 Dutch grew rich throughout the war with 
 Spain. They were particularly prosperous 
 after Philip annexed Portugal (1580). The 
 Dutch had been going to Lisbon for merchand- 
 ise which the Portuguese imported from the 
 East. The conquest of Portugal ended their 
 
122 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Lisbon trade a seeming disaster but they 
 at once began sending their ships to the source 
 of supply. Before 1602, sixty-five Dutch 
 ships had made the round voyage to India, 
 and the organization of the Dutch East 
 India Company followed. The important 
 fact is that obstacles, to men of the Dutch 
 characteristics, did but excite to greater efforts, 
 and bring greater prosperity. 
 
 Turning now to the English master mar- 
 iners, we find records showing that before 
 Elizabeth's time England had some shipping, 
 but the most interesting page of Hakluyt's 
 " Principal Voyages " contains this quotation 
 from " An ancient testimonie translated out of 
 the olde Saxon Lawes " ; " And if a mer- 
 chant so thrived that he passed thrise over 
 the wide seas, of his owne craft, he was thence- 
 foorth a Theins right worthie." It was in 
 English blood to honour adventures at sea, 
 Of the policy of Elizabeth when she came to the 
 throne, one writer says : "At her accession 
 civic war or conquest seemed inevitable, and 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 123 
 
 insolvency was a fact ; yet before her death 
 the bond of London * is,' writes one of the 
 chief financiers of the times (1595), c the 
 first to-day in Europe ' ; and she added vic- 
 tory abroad to peace at home " (Bates, 
 " Touring in 1600 "). By promoting the 
 welfare of her people Elizabeth proved her- 
 self the ablest of English monarchs ; and yet, 
 when she employed (to save the unbearable 
 expense of supporting a navy) privateers 
 to make war on the enemy, their work was, 
 and has been ever since, characterized by no 
 milder term than that of " semi-buccaneering " 
 expeditions. Because of their influence upon 
 the spread of English civilization to other 
 lands we must now consider some of those 
 privateer expeditions. 
 
 John Hawkins (1532-1595), appears first 
 in English history as a seafaring merchant 
 trading to the Canary Islands. In that trade, 
 " by his good and upright dealing, being 
 grown in love and favour with the people," 
 he learned that the Spaniards in Hispaniola 
 
124 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 would be glad to pay him high prices for 
 negro slaves. Accordingly, Hawkins sailed 
 with three ships (October, 1562) to Sierra 
 Leone, where " partly by the sword and 
 partly by other means," he secured " 300 
 negroes at least." Modern English writers 
 have all been greatly concerned over what 
 they call the " guilt " of this action. But in 
 so doing they are horrified solely because 
 Hawkins did not govern his conduct by the 
 modern standard of morality instead of that 
 of the sixteenth century. On the coast of 
 Hispaniola Hawkins exchanged the slaves 
 for " some quantity of pearls," and enough 
 " hides, ginger, sugar," etc., to " lade his own 
 three ships," and " two other hulks " which 
 he purchased there. The " two other hulks " 
 were sent to Cadiz with their cargoes, a 
 fact which proves to all candid minds that 
 Hawkins was not conscious of the " guilt " 
 even of smuggling. At Cadiz the ships were con- 
 fiscated on the orde of Philip, but it was done 
 merely as the caprice of an absolute monarch. 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 125 
 
 Hawkins' second expedition needs no de- 
 scription here ; but in the third one Francis 
 Drake sailed as owner and captain of the 
 50-ton Judith. In the Spanish point of view 
 this was a smuggling expedition ; but the 
 English held that the existing treaty between 
 the two nations gave them the right to trade 
 with Spanish subjects everywhere. Sailing 
 in October, 1567, the ships went to the 
 coast of Africa, and thence to the coast of 
 South America, where most of the slaves were 
 sold part of them in armed defiance of 
 the Spanish officials. While crossing the Gulf 
 of Mexico, storms strained the ships, and 
 Hawkins went to Vera Cruz (San Juan de 
 Ulloa) to make repairs and sell the remainder 
 of his slaves. He found twelve Spanish ships 
 with a million of treasure in the harbour, all 
 so poorly defended that it would have been 
 easy to take the metal. If he had been a 
 pirate he would have taken it. The next day 
 (September 17, 1568) twelve well-armed 
 Spanish ships, carrying about 1,800,000 in 
 
126 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 gold, silver, and jewels, appeared off the port, 
 but did not dare to enter because Hawkins 
 commanded the entrance, which was only 
 " two bow-shoots " wide. This indicates that 
 the Spaniard understood that actual, if 
 undeclared, war existed between the two 
 nations. 
 
 Hawkins knew well the Spanish belief that 
 treachery to a heretic was praiseworthy, 
 and he was tempted to keep the Spaniards 
 out of port until he could go out ready to 
 fight ; but he supposed that such action 
 would precipitate open war, and he remem- 
 bered the queen's oft-repeated expression, 
 " No war, my lords." Accordingly a written 
 agreement was made with the Spanish admiral 
 by which Hawkins was to have peace. But 
 when the Spaniards had entered and taken on 
 reinforcements (Hawkins says 1000 men), 
 they opened fire. Two only of the English 
 ships escaped, but they sank two of the big 
 Spanish galleons and burned another before 
 they left. The two reached home in the 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 127 
 
 following January ; but 100 men were landed 
 in Mexico at their own request because of 
 lack of food on the ship. 
 
 Hawkins and Drake now applied to King 
 Philip for redress for the damages suffered 
 at Vera Cruz, and were refused relief. This 
 brings to light a feature of the case that has 
 been almost universally ignored. It seems to 
 be forgotten that Grotius was not yet born, 
 that what we call international law had 
 no existence. By the practices of the day 
 might was right, but there was, nevertheless, 
 a sort of custom of dealing between nations 
 which stood for what we call law. Under this 
 custom individuals who were injured, as 
 Drake and Hawkins had been, might make 
 application for relief, as they did. Failure 
 in this left but one course open. They might 
 apply to their own sovereign for a letter of 
 reprisal letter of marque commission or 
 permission, with which they fitted out, at 
 their own expense and risk, expeditions for 
 the capture of enough of the goods of the 
 
128 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 enemy to recoup all losses and expenses 
 with interest. This is precisely what Drake 
 now did. 1 
 
 Francis Drake (1540-1596) was born to the 
 sea, and the money he invested and lost in 
 the Judith was made at sea. After taking out 
 a commission for reprisal, he made two voyages 
 (1570-1571), which are worth mention chiefly 
 to call attention to a feature of English enter- 
 prise in that day. While the Spanish and 
 Portuguese explorations, with two notable 
 exceptions, were all made at the expense of 
 the Government, the English expeditions 
 were all private ventures. In individual in- 
 itiative Drake, Hawkins, and others to be 
 considered hereafter, were of the enterprising 
 breed of Bjarni. In 1572 (a year in which 
 Philip made a most earnest effort to have 
 
 1 Charnock (" History of Marine Architecture," II., 110- 
 112) prints a " Form of a License or Letter of Marque and 
 Reprisals" and says regarding the practice : " This, the 
 most likely method of compelling an inveterate foe to listen 
 to moderate terms and even sue for peace, should be one of 
 the first objects of every power that " goes to war. He 
 wrote in 1801, 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 129 
 
 Elizabeth assassinated), Drake captured Nom- 
 bre de Dios, the port at the north end of a 
 waggon road across the Isthmus of Panama. 
 There he fell in with a band of runaway 
 slaves (called Cimaronnes), who took him to a 
 tall tree on the divide which they used when 
 watching treasure trains crossing the isth- 
 mus. On climbing this tree (it had been 
 notched to facilitate climbing) Drake was able 
 to look away to the South Sea. And at the 
 sight he was " vehemently transported with 
 desire to navigate that sea, and implored the 
 divine assistance that he might " do so. 1 
 
 On returning to England, Drake was unable 
 to prepare for a voyage upon the Pacific at 
 once ; but in 1577 he fitted out the Pelican 
 of 100 tons, and five smaller vessels (one of 
 15 tons) for the expedition. The fact that 
 
 1 Hale, in Winsor's " History of America," says, " The 
 place from which Drake saw * the Pacific ' was probably 
 n.ar the spot where Balboa obtained his first view." 
 Balboa crossed by the Indian trail leading from the Gulf 
 of Darien to the gulf of San Miguel, far east of the road 
 that Drake followed. 
 
130 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 men eagerly volunteered for such a voyage in 
 vessels of that size is memorable especially 
 in connection with the modern talk about the 
 need for " wholesome " models in yachts. 
 The fleet sailed from Plymouth on December 
 13, 1577, wintered at Port St. Julian (June 
 19, 1578, to August 17), and entered the 
 Pacific October 28, 1578 ; that is, the Pelican 
 did, and was there renamed the Golden Hind. 
 All the others had either turned back, or had 
 been wrecked. In a 100-ton ship Drake 
 sailed up the South American coast. At 
 Valparaiso and at Arica, rich prizes were 
 taken. At Callao 1,500 bars of silver were 
 secured from one vessel, and it was learned 
 that .a treasure ship was bound up the coast 
 to Panama. She had a start of two weeks, 
 but Drake overhauled her. She yielded a 
 " certain quantity of jewels and precious 
 stones," thirteen chests of silver coin, 26 tons 
 of bar silver, eighty pounds weight of gold and 
 some plate. The Spaniards estimated their 
 loss at 600 ? 000. 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 131 
 
 In the belief that a Spanish fleet would 
 await him at the Strait of Magellan, Drake 
 now determined to return home by the way of 
 the Cape of Good Hope. The ship was re- 
 fitted at a port on the American coast that 
 may have been San Francisco. He sailed 
 thence on July 23, 1579, and arrived safely at 
 home on September 26, 1580. Drake was 
 the first captain to round the world, and he 
 brought home his ship literally ballasted with 
 silver, gold, and jewels. 
 
 Drake was of a nation of hero worshippers, 
 and all the nation gathered to applaud. The 
 Queen, who was not the least among those 
 who could appreciate a hero, came down to 
 the Pelican and dined at the table that was 
 well supplied with Spanish plate. The dinner 
 over, she commanded Drake to kneel at her 
 feet, whereupon she laid a sword upon his 
 shoulder and said, *' Rise up, Sir Francis." 
 Then she added, " Your actions have done 
 you more honour than the title which I have 
 conferred." 
 
132 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 The career of Francis Drake as a mariner 
 seeking reprisals was ended ; that of Sir 
 Francis Drake as a naval officer was at hand. 1 
 The year 1584 is memorable here chiefly 
 because one of Philip's hired assassins killed 
 the Prince of Orange, and because Mendoza, 
 the Spanish ambassador to England, was 
 detected in a plot to assassinate, at Philip's 
 behest, Queen Elizabeth, in order to put 
 Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. Eliza- 
 beth could not raise money for a war ; but 
 she sent Drake with a small fleet to the West 
 Indies, where he captured San Domingo and 
 Cartagena, thus showing how easy it was 
 to cut Philip's communications with the 
 mines in America. For a reply to this Philip 
 entered into another plot to assassinate 
 Elizabeth ; but it was detected, and Mary 
 Queen of Scots was executed for participating 
 
 1 The Royal Navy increased from sixteen ships to thirty- 
 four in the next few years after Drake's expedition. The 
 Treasurer received for naval uses 8,424 in 1579, 15,824 
 1580, and 9,598 in 1681. We may suppose Drake sup- 
 plied the increase of 1580. 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 183 
 
 in it (February 8, 1587). The execution of 
 Mary ended the murder conspiracies in 
 England, but the continental Catholics de- 
 nounced the execution as foul murder. " In 
 Paris the people raved against the perfidious 
 queen ; at Rome the Pope proclaimed a 
 crusade against the heretic monarch." To 
 Philip the story came as a solemn call to 
 avenge innocent blood ; and it was a call 
 which he would obey as if it had been de- 
 livered to him by Deity. " It was God's 
 quarrel and worthy of his greatness." It 
 was now that Philip began to build the 
 Invincible Armada. 
 
 The students of history who suppose that 
 Philip was incited to build the Armada 
 because of the raids which Drake had made 
 fail to appreciate what I will venture to call 
 the greatness of this monarch. For Philip 
 was in spirit a true Crusader, born four hundred 
 years too late. He was so sincere and earnest 
 that he would have sent his own son to the 
 stake for heresy, as he himself declared he 
 
MASTER MARINERS 
 
 would do. He lived and used his power with 
 the one hope of restoring the ancient faith 
 as he saw it ; and to build a fleet that would 
 sweep the heretics out of England would not 
 only avenge the execution of Mary, but it 
 would bring a whole nation within the fold. 
 But though great from one point of view, 
 Philip was no match in war for the clear-eyed 
 woman who ruled England. For seventeen 
 years Elizabeth had practised a system of 
 national economy so severe that it has often 
 been called parsimonious. Though her life 
 had been attempted three times by assassins 
 employed or encouraged by King Philip, and 
 the nation had boiled with anger, she had 
 repressed her own indignation and said, " No 
 war, my lords ! " in a voice that all would 
 obey. But now that invasion was planned 
 by the dominant king of the world something 
 must be done, and once more Elizabeth turned 
 to Drake. Thereupon a plan for defending 
 the kingdom was evolved that is yet memor- 
 able ; for Elizabeth saw clearly that the way to 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 135 
 
 defend the coast of England was to strike the 
 enemy upon his own coasts. An expedition, 
 consisting of four naval ships and twenty 
 privateers, under Drake, was ordered to go to 
 Cadiz and Lisbon and destroy the ships and 
 materials that Philip was assembling for the 
 invasion. 
 
 On April 19, 1587, in spite of fortifications 
 and armed ships, Drake sailed into Cadiz 
 harbour, where he destroyed 10,000 tons of 
 shipping and all the war stores that Philip 
 had gathered. Then he went to Lisbon, 
 where he destroyed 100 ships and the accu- 
 mulated stores. Finally, to the joy of the 
 privateersmen, who had fought as naval 
 heroes, he captured an East India carrack of 
 vast wealth. When he returned home, he 
 said that he thought he had " singed the 
 King of Spain's beard " somewhat effectually. 
 But no disaster could turn aside the monarch 
 who believed that he was the appointed agent 
 of God for the extirpation of heresy in England. 
 The preparations for the Invincible Armada 
 
186 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 were begun once more and relentlessly carried 
 to an end. The fleet when ready numbered 
 132 ships, 124 of which measured 59,120 tons 
 (Shippen's " Naval Battles " says of the fleet 
 " not less than 65,000 tons "), and manned by 
 30,000 men. 
 
 The ships which Elizabeth was able to 
 muster to oppose this fleet measured but 
 29,744 tons, and the crews aggregated 15,785 
 men. There were 197 vessels, of which 34 
 were naval ships and the others commissioned 
 merchantmen. Not only did the Spaniards 
 far outnumber the English ; a religious 
 crusade had been preached in the ports of 
 the Mediterranean, and the Spanish ships 
 were manned by men who had come sincerely 
 believing that they, too, were doing " God's 
 work." It is said that they brought with them 
 many sets of instruments used by the In- 
 quisition with which they were to sweep 
 away heresy. On July 29, 1588, lookouts 
 stationed on the Lizard saw the Invincible 
 Armada in the form of a wide crescent sweep- 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 13T 
 
 ing majestically up toward the narrow seas, 
 and lighted fires that carried the alarm to 
 Dover. But a British fleet under Lord Howard 
 of Effingham, with Drake, Hawkins, and Fro- 
 bisher at the head of the three squadrons of 
 which the fleet was composed, lay in waiting ; 
 and on Sunday, July 31, these ships sailed 
 forth to attack the enemy in a running fight. 
 The Spanish ships were larger, but the 
 English ships could sail around them, and, 
 by attacking in force individual ships, destroy 
 the Armada in detail. Much the worse for 
 the encounter, but by no means defeated, 
 the Armada reached the Calais roads and 
 anchored in close order. Thereupon Drake 
 prepared six fire-ships ; and on the night of 
 Sunday, August 10, while the lightning and 
 thunder of a tremendous squall flashed and 
 reverberated across the sky, he drove them 
 among the crowded Spaniards. A panic 
 spread swiftly over the whole Armada. 
 Cables were cut, ship drifted into ship, yards 
 and masts were broken, and, while some ships 
 
138 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 sank, others were burned, and the remainder 
 drifted away toward the Netherlands beaches. 
 The next day, after a vain effort to fight 
 with his remaining ships, the Spanish ad- 
 miral hoisted a signal which said : " Make the 
 best of your way home north about the 
 British isles." 
 
 Only fifty-three of the Armada reached 
 home ports, and they were so badly strained 
 as to be unfit for war. Drake, who was the 
 hero of this fight, though not the nominal 
 commander, died off Puerto Bello, on January 
 28, 1596. His body was placed in a lead 
 casket and lowered into the sea. Many good 
 men have wished that his casket might be 
 found and carried home for burial. 
 
 The reader will remember that, at this time, 
 the English were fighting in self-defence 
 they had as yet no thought of fighting for the 
 supremacy of the sea. One more story to 
 illustrate how they cultivated their infant 
 sea power may be given. In August, 1591, an 
 overwhelming Spanish fleet surprised a num- 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 139 
 
 her of English ships at the Azores. All escaped 
 except the Revenge, Captain Sir Richard 
 Grenville, and he might have done so if he 
 had not refused to abandon a shore party. 
 When his skylarking sailors came on board, 
 Grenville headed for the centre of the Spanish 
 line, determined to fight his way through. 
 But, as the Revenge drew near, the sails of the 
 San Philip, a three-decker, took the wind, 
 and then five Spanish ships came, two on each 
 side and one across the bows. Each of these 
 ships carried 200 soldiers besides the crew, 
 while the Revenge had only 100 men able to 
 fight ; but, nothing daunted, Grenville manned 
 the guns, and at three o'clock in the afternoon 
 began a fight for life. Within three hours, the 
 big San Philip " shifted herself with all dili- 
 gence, utterly misliking her first entertain- 
 ment." A fresh ship came to take her place, 
 however, and thereafter the battle raged with- 
 out cessation the long night through. In that 
 time, fifteen different Spanish ships were 
 alongside the Revenge, and uncounted efforts 
 
140 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 were made to carry her by boarding. Every 
 pike in the ship was broken in repelling those 
 assaults, and the last barrel of gunpowder 
 was expended in battering the hulks that had 
 come alongside. Forty men lay dead, every 
 living soul was wounded, and Grenville was 
 dying. When he was asked to surrender, he 
 called the master gunner to his side and ordered 
 him to " split and sinke the shipe." And 
 this would have been done but for some of the 
 other members of the crew, who prevented 
 him because they could obtain honourable 
 terms of surrender. 
 
 The naval officer, with his mind fixed upon 
 the broad features of war at sea, says that 
 single ship actions do not decide the event. 
 But the ethnologist who studies the evolu- 
 tion of the English people sees clearly that 
 such battles as that waged by Grenville, 
 and such adventures as those of Sir Francis 
 Drake, have had a deeper influence upon the 
 national character than the strategy even 
 of a Nelson. For not all of the naval men 
 
SHIFTING THE CENTRE 141 
 
 have had any adequate idea of the strategetic 
 features of England's wars. But to this day 
 the English-born shepherd upon the deserts 
 of Patagonia, and the Cornwall miner delving 
 in the heart of the Rockies, and the clerk in the 
 warehouse at Hong-Kong, all feel the blood 
 leap in their veins as they read the story of 
 Grenville and the Revenge. It is the hero 
 story that breeds a heroic people. 
 
 Moreover, in all the turmoil which Hawkins 
 and Drake and Grenville raised, we see the 
 first answer made by English seamen to the 
 question (then just looming into view) which 
 found eloquent expression in Carlyle's " His- 
 tory of Frederick the Great " : " Shall 
 half the world be England's for industrial 
 purposes, ... or shall it be Spain's for 
 arrogant-torpid, sham-devotional purposes, 
 contrary to every Law ? " 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE OPENING UP OF NORTH AMERICA 
 
 FROM a broad view of the work of the master 
 mariners described in the last chapter, it 
 is seen that the people of Europe were, 
 during the reign of Elizabeth, rapidly devel- 
 oping in certain ways, and that the inex- 
 orable law of the survival of the fittest was 
 as manifest in that evolution as in the evolu- 
 tion of plants. War was the final test of 
 fitness, and because of the situation of Eng- 
 land and Holland, the test was made at sea. 
 Philip sent his Armada to the Channel in 
 order to extend the territory of Spanish 
 civilization. William de la Marck, Hawkins, 
 Drake, and Grenville, however unconscious 
 they may have been of the fact, fought with 
 all their might to maintain the civilization of 
 the North. Because they succeeded, the 
 142 
 
NORTH AMERICA 143 
 
 Northern civilization continued its growth 
 with such vigour that a time was to come when 
 it would no longer fight for mere existence 
 when it would, in fact, begin an aggressive 
 expansion in which Northern master mariners 
 were to do much work. But, before consider- 
 ing the expansion of English and Dutch 
 civilization across the seas, it will be helpful 
 to recall some of the peculiarities of the ships 
 that were used. 
 
 The hulls of the ships built for use on the 
 Atlantic had in general the lines of the Medi- 
 terranean galleys, but because a long, slender 
 model would be racked to pieces by heavy 
 seas, the new hulls were only about three 
 times as long as they were broad. The 
 elevated structures erected on the galleys 
 for the use of soldiers in battle were retained 
 on the sterns of the Atlantic merchantmen 
 because officers and passengers found them 
 comfortable. The old high forecastle was 
 soon omitted because its weight strained the 
 ship, the great surface it presented to a con- 
 
144 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 trary wind prevented progress, and it was in 
 the way of men who had to handle the sails. 
 Of course, these objections were equally 
 applicable to the high poop ; but it was not 
 until England ruled the seas that the poop was 
 reduced to reasonable dimensions. In Drake's 
 day, the old pole mast was cut in two, and the 
 parts were overlapped in a way that enabled 
 the crew to lower the topmast to the deck 
 when a gale came on. When, in time, more 
 sail area was wanted, a third part, called the 
 topgallant mast, was added, with topgallant 
 sails above the topsails and royals above the 
 topgallant sails. The yardarms were length- 
 ened with booms to which studding sails were 
 spread, and in the nineteenth century sky- 
 sails and other " kites " were set above the 
 royals. In the meantime, the bowsprit and 
 jibboom came into use, because sails well 
 forward were helpful in steering. The square 
 sails at first used on the bowsprit soon gave 
 way to the much more effective modern jib. 
 To trace now the expansion of the English 
 
NORTH AMERICA 145 
 
 across the Atlantic, let us recall first that 
 before the day of Columbus they were at the 
 extremity of a commercial route the centre 
 of which was in Italy, and yet they showed 
 some sea enterprise of a promising character. 
 Bristol ships went to Iceland for fish, and 
 Bristol ships had gone in search of a mythical 
 island called Brazil before 1492. When Cabot 
 discovered the American continent, no Eng- 
 lishmen tried to take possession of it, but, as 
 said, one observation which Cabot made led to 
 results. There were so many fish in the New- 
 foundland waters, he said, that they sometimes 
 impeded the progress of the ship, and the 
 fishermen took notice. The date of the first 
 voyage to the Newfoundland banks is not 
 known, but the Portuguese went there as early 
 as 1500. The English soon followed, and 
 thus prepared the way for the first oversea 
 expansion of the nation. Consider the char- 
 acter of these fishermen. 
 
 Throughout the sixteenth century, during all 
 of which war, open or undeclared, prevailed 
 
146 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 continuously between the four leading nations 
 of Europe, scores and hundreds of English, 
 French, Portuguese, and Spanish fishermen 
 sailed every spring to those banks. In 1577 
 no less than 350 fishing-boats gathered there. 
 Their route lay across a breadth of sea known 
 as the " roaring forties." Many of the 
 vessels were but half decked, and the hulls 
 were of such rude construction that they 
 sometimes wound ropes around them to keep 
 them from falling apart. Black fogs shut 
 them in, fields of ice assaulted them and 
 hurricanes from the unknown wilds beyond 
 came to overwhelm them. Worse yet 
 far more terrifying were the demons born 
 of the imagination that came shrieking on 
 the gale to carry their souls away to eternal 
 torment. Men worked in the spray until they 
 were covered with sea boils, and their hands 
 dripped blood as they hauled in the lines. 
 Food brought from home spoiled. They 
 slept in the open air, or at best in unwarmed, 
 leaking forecastles. Discipline was main- 
 
NORTH AMERICA 147 
 
 tained by methods that now seem frightful. 
 It was a trade in which there were no weak- 
 lings, because the weaklings were quickly 
 eliminated. 
 
 Although war prevailed continuously, the 
 ships of the four nations anchored side by side 
 on the banks. The crews built their curing 
 flakes side by side on the beaches. And 
 when a ship opened her seams as she wal- 
 lowed in the gale, the crews of the ships within 
 reach lowered their boats to rescue the unfor 
 tunates. They developed for themselves a 
 form of international law that provided fair 
 play. The fact that many small vessels were 
 employed is memorable, because many cap- 
 tains and mates were required. The openings 
 for ambitious young seamen of lowly birth 
 were many, and young men developed 
 individual initiative and resourcefulness. This 
 was particularly true of the Englishmen, and 
 the effect of this upon English character is 
 well illustrated in the story of Drake. For 
 while Drake served his country well in many 
 
148 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 ways, none was more important than that 
 rendered when he demonstrated that a fore- 
 mast hand could rise by good work to knight- 
 hood and fortune. 
 
 The banks fishermen received a share of the 
 catch instead of wages ; they were partners 
 in the business, and they usually made enough 
 to enable them to sit " with their toes in the 
 ashes " by the fireside during the winter. 
 There they told to the many who came 
 to listen to them stories of adventure in that 
 far-away region " beyond the Western Ocean " 
 stories that were mingled, too, with those 
 of adventures with Hawkins and Drake 
 and others who " singed the King of Spain's 
 beard." For, because of their resourcefulness 
 and courage, the banks fishermen were always 
 carried in the forecastle when an expedition 
 of importance was in hand. 
 
 It was a time when the people were emerg- 
 ing rapidly from the torpor of isolation that 
 prevailed during the Dark Ages. They were 
 as restless as the Vikings had been, and it 
 
NORTH AMERICA 149 
 
 cannot be doubted that these tales of the sea 
 the most interesting topics of thought in that 
 day made a deep impression upon the 
 whole nation. It is to be remembered, too, 
 that the stories of the wealth gained by 
 Spaniards and Portuguese in their oversea 
 voyages were told and retold in England. 
 Hawkins and Drake not only proved that 
 the much-feared prowess of the Spaniards 
 was a myth, but they confirmed the stories 
 of the quantities of treasure gathered in 
 the new lands beyond the sea. The efforts 
 of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter 
 Raleigh to establish colonies in the new-found 
 world need not detain us ; for while Gilbert 
 bravely sacrificed his life, and Raleigh spent 
 more than 40,000 in the work, neither made 
 a definite success. 
 
 On April 10, 1606, however, King James 
 chartered two companies, the London and the 
 Plymouth, that were organized to make 
 settlements in America between Cape Fear and 
 Halifax harbour. An expedition was sent by the 
 
150 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 London company (from the Downs, January 1, 
 1607) to colonize Virginia. The company con- 
 sisted of forty-eight gentlemen, twelve labour, 
 ers, and four carpenters, besides a number 
 of servants to wait on the gentlemen and some 
 soldiers to defend all hands the total number 
 being 105. Happily one of the gentlemen was 
 the son of a farmer Captain John Smith. 
 
 Smith (1579-1632) had been apprenticed 
 to a trade in his youth, but he ran away to 
 fight with the Dutch against the King of 
 Spain, and later he went to Hungary to fight 
 the Turk. There he was taken prisoner and 
 enslaved ; but he escaped and returned 
 to England in time to go out with the colony 
 of 1607. Because of his personal character- 
 istics, and not because of wealth or influential 
 friends, he was appointed one of the governing 
 council of the colony, much to the scandal 
 of the other governors, who would not let him 
 serve at first. Nothing abashed, Smith ex- 
 plored the Chesapeake, made an admirable 
 map of it, secured corn from the Indians 
 
NORTH AMERICA 151 
 
 when food failed, managed to interest the 
 gentlemen in agriculture, was chosen to head 
 the council, and when the colony was rein- 
 forced by a lot of " the riffraff of London," 
 he preserve order in spite of the vicious 
 tendencies of the newcomers. But life was too 
 strenuous under such a leader. He was never 
 popular, and in 1609 he returned to England. 
 The one story of his life which everybody has 
 read is that of bis capture by the Indians, when 
 Pocahontas saved his life. The two facts 
 really worth recalling, however, are, first, 
 that his work in Virginia maintained the life 
 of the Virginia colony until John Rolfe 
 (who married Pocahontas) made a profitable 
 crop of tobacco (1612), and so placed the 
 colony on an independent footing ; and, 
 second, on his return to England, his writings 
 kept the public so deeply interested in America 
 (especially in the fisheries) that colonies were 
 established and maintained in what we 
 call New England. He did this by relating 
 stories that could be verified. For example, 
 
152 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 he told of one ship of 200 tons burden that 
 with a crew of thirty-eight men brought home 
 fish that sold for 2,100 " so that every 
 poore sailor . . . had his charges and 
 sixteen pounds ten shillings for his seven 
 months' work." The owners, he said, very 
 often cleared the cost of the ship in a season. 
 
 It was while Smith was thus keeping the 
 reading public interested, and while the 
 forecastle sailors from the fisheries were 
 telling in all English ports what " big money " 
 was to be made on the American coast, that 
 the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock. Of 
 their history it is sufficient to recall these 
 facts : They were dissenters, and in their 
 efforts to justify by arguments their peculiari- 
 ties of belief they had developed the habit 
 of thinking a result of all dissent worth 
 consideration. Because of persecution the 
 Pilgrims had gone to Holland, the land of a 
 people who declared upon their coins that 
 their " way was upon the sea." In Holland 
 the Pilgrims acquired much of the business 
 
NORTH AMERICA 158 
 
 acumen for which the Dutch were celebrated. 
 They came to America in the hope of building 
 homes and getting on in the world. To this 
 end they came in a ship (the Mayflower) the 
 captain of which had been a Greenland whaler 
 and the mate had had experience in the 
 fisheries of the American coast. When the 
 ship anchored under Cape Cod (November 11, 
 1620), they noted first of all the fact that the 
 harbour seemed to be "a place of profitable 
 fishing." They were to face many hardships 
 at Plymouth, but they survived all, because 
 they planted corn and went fishing. And 
 when they accumulated a surphis they used it 
 in building two shallops, with which they 
 extended their profitable operations afloat. 
 The sea saved and gave character to the 
 settlement. 
 
 Of equal, if not superior, interest is the story 
 of the next colony planted on that coast. 
 A number of Puritans who, in spite of their 
 disabilities as dissenters, had accumulated 
 capital in England, sent a fishing expedition 
 
154 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 to the coast (1623), in which were a number 
 of men who formed a fishing settlement at 
 Cape Ann. They worked the inshore fisheries, 
 traded with the Indians and gathered food 
 for the crews that came out from home each 
 year. The home end of the business was badly 
 managed, and the most of the settlers returned 
 to England, but a " few of the most industrious 
 resolved to stay." They moved to Salem 
 harbour, where, by their descriptions of life 
 in the new world, they induced sixty or seventy 
 more Puritans to join them in 1628. Friends 
 at home procured for them the next year a 
 charter which was entitled " The Governor 
 and Company of Massachusetts Bay." A 
 reinforcement of 200 came across the sea with 
 the charter. Among them were shipbuilders, 
 who, on July 4, 1631, launched a sea-going 
 vessel named the Blessing of the Bay. These 
 men did not cross the sea under any delusion 
 about the character of the country. They 
 were not expecting to find either placer gold 
 diggings or beds of pearls. They came to 
 
NORTH AMERICA 155 
 
 build homes in the wilderness and catch fish. 
 Of the Blessing of the Bay, Governor John 
 Winthrop wrote : " The general fear of want 
 of foreign commodities . . . set us on 
 work to provide shipping of our own," and 
 that was a statement accurately descriptive 
 of the character of these colonists. A " want " 
 any want set them on work. 
 
 Recall now the stories of the navigators 
 who established the Dutch and the French 
 colonies in America. Henry Hudson appears 
 in history first as the captain of a ship 
 that was sent (1607) to sail across the north 
 pole to China perhaps the first instance of 
 great circle sailing. He went to Greenland, 
 followed the ice barrier to Spitzbergen, and 
 saw Jan Mayan on the way. The next year 
 he made an equally futile attempt to sail 
 along the north coast of Europe and Asia. 
 This discouraged the company of London 
 merchants who had paid the expenses, but 
 the Dutch East India Company took up the 
 work. Hudson sailed to try once more for a 
 
156 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 north-east passage. His ship was the cele- 
 brated Half Moon, and another, the Good 
 Hope, was in company. The ice in the north 
 so discouraged the sailors that they mutinied. 1 
 The Good Hope returned home, but Hudson 
 persuaded his men to sail to the American 
 coast to examine a passage to the Pacific 
 which was said to exist near latitude 40. He 
 was the more easily able to do this because 
 he had received a letter from Captain John 
 Smith, then known to all seafaring Europeans, 
 which declared that such a passage probably 
 existed there. A number of explorers had seen 
 the opening in the land at Sandy Hook, but no 
 one had ever explored the estuary behind it. 
 On September 4, 1609, the Half Moon 
 entered New York bay. The one practical 
 result of this work was the observation that 
 valuable furs could be obtained from the 
 Indians in exchange for trifles. It is said 
 
 1 It is a curious fact that, in spite of the severity of the 
 punishments then inflicted upon sailors for mutiny, all the 
 great navigators suffered from the offence. 
 
NORTH AMERICA 157 
 
 that this feature of Hudson's report, on his 
 return to Holland, created " the wildest 
 excitement," and that fur buyers came 
 regularly thereafter to the river. In 1610 
 Hudson came once more to the coast seeking a 
 passage to the Pacific, and entered the bay 
 which bears his name. There he spent the 
 winter, but in the spring his men cast him 
 adrift in an open boat, in which he sailed, at 
 last, to the port of missing ships. 
 
 As early as 1581, the Dutch had considered 
 the feasibility of conquering Spain by at- 
 tacking her American possessions, and the 
 subject had serious consideration in 1606 ; but 
 it was not until 1626 that Peter Minuit 
 bought Manhattan Island for five pounds' 
 worth of trade goods, and New Amsterdam 
 was founded, as a convenient port for West 
 India cruisers. Of far greater importance in 
 its results was the work of Samuel de Cham- 
 plain (1567-1635). Of the French explorers 
 who came to America before his day little 
 need be said. Jacques Cartier (1494-1552), 
 
158 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 a Breton sailor, had explored the St. Law- 
 rence as far as Montreal, and a fishing station 
 was maintained most of the time at Tadoussac. 
 Champlain, the father of New France, was 
 born at Brouage, was taught the arts of naviga- 
 tion in his youth, served in the army as quarter- 
 master, and travelled in Spanish America 
 from New Granada to Mexico. With this 
 experience he had, at the age of thirty-five, 
 the enthusiasm of youth combined with cour- 
 age and resourcefulness in a degree rarely 
 found in men of his day. And it was then that 
 he became interested in colonizing America, 
 Champlain's first expedition was of small 
 moment ; but in November, 1603, he sailed 
 with Sieur de Monts, who founded two small 
 settlements while he explored the coast from 
 the St. Lawrence to Martha's Vineyard. On 
 September 3, 1607, the settlers left the country, 
 but Champlain came back with another com- 
 pany, and on July 3, 1608, founded Quebec. 
 The histories describe the enmity of the Iro- 
 quois Indians and the severe climate as the 
 
NORTH AMERICA 159 
 
 causes of the failure of the French in New 
 France, but the chief trouble is to be found in 
 the fact that they developed the fur trade 
 instead of any productive industry requiring 
 them to labour. When Nantucket folks saw 
 whales in the offing, they sent for an expert 
 to teach them how to go whaling. When 
 the people of Quebec saw whales in the waters 
 below the city, they applied to the king for a 
 subsidy with which to hire whalers to do the 
 whaling for them. 
 
 Only a glance at the Americas during the 
 seventeenth century is needed to see that 
 Spanish America was a country depending 
 chiefly upon slave- worked mines and half -wild 
 cattle for support. The mines were productive, 
 but the king's share one-fifth absorbed 
 the profits of the business. There could be 
 no progress under such conditions. Although 
 the enterprise of La Salle had filed a good 
 claim upon the basins of the St. Lawrence and 
 the Mississippi, the French lost their title 
 through failing to do the development work 
 
160 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 required by natural law. Even the Dutch 
 failed to develop their territory around New 
 Amsterdam thoroughly. As late as 1658 
 the people there confessed that they were 
 " not as yet in condition to build " a galliot. 
 On the other hand, tobacco the result of pro- 
 ductive labour was so profitable in Virginia 
 that ships were seen three deep at the land- 
 ings waiting many weeks for the crop to 
 mature. In New England the colonists were 
 catching fish in boats of their own construc- 
 tion including dugouts which a man with an 
 axe could make for himself. They were 
 combining their little accumulations of capital 
 with their own labour, and building ships up to 
 300 tons burden to carry their fish and some 
 forest products to market. They were even 
 building ships for sale in Europe. Thus, 
 while the conditions in the American colonies 
 of other powers promoted a dislike for physical 
 toil and a dependence upon a more or less 
 paternal home government for every sort of 
 initiative work, the English colonists governed 
 
NORTH AMERICA 161 
 
 themselves to a degree that astonished the 
 world ; they necessarily acquired the habits 
 of individual initiative and self-reliance, and 
 they accumulated wealth by actual physical 
 toil. They understood very well that " The 
 All of things is an everlasting conjugation of 
 the verb To Do." It was for this for the 
 evolution of colonists of this quality that 
 the Elizabethan master mariners cruised 
 along the Spanish main, and the Elizabethan 
 fishermen swarmed across the a " roaring 
 forties " to where the black fogs shut them in, 
 and the ice fields from the north and the 
 whirling storms from the west came to assault 
 them. 
 
 A part of the work of the opening of the 
 American continent was done in the Arctic. 
 The first expedition of the kind was sent out 
 by the Merchant Adventurers' Company of 
 which Sebastian Cabot was governor. Three 
 ships were built for the work, and Sir Hugh 
 Willoughby was placed in command with 
 Richard Chancellor as second. When the 
 
162 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 expedition started down the Thames on May 
 20, 1553, the people alongshore and even the 
 Court came to the banks and " shouted in 
 such sort that the skie rang again with the 
 noyse." Chancellor alone reached Russia 
 (by way of the Arctic and the White Sea), 
 but trade relations then established proved 
 so advantageous that the English were 
 encouraged thereby to finance many of the 
 voyages to other parts. One object in view 
 when Drake sailed for the Pacific was to search 
 for the western end of a north-west passage 
 around America to China. While he was away, 
 Sir Martin Frobisher sailed for Labrador 
 (June 7, 1576) in the 20-ton ship Gabriel He 
 discovered Frobisher's Strait and the entrance 
 to Hudson's Bay. John Davis followed in 
 1585, and entered the strait that bears his 
 name. William Baffin was the next Arctic 
 explorer to make a real advance. He was 
 sent by the Muscovy Company of London 
 to find a north-west passage (March 16, 1616), 
 and, sailing through Davis Strait, he reached 
 
NORTH AMERICA 163 
 
 an altitude of 77 degrees 45 minutes, which 
 remained a record in those waters for 236 
 years. The water north of the Davis Strait 
 was named Baffin's Bay in his honour. His 
 explorations demonstrated that no practical 
 north-west route existed. 
 
 After Baffin's time most of the explorations 
 of the Arctic were encouraged " from motives 
 as disinterested as they were enlightened ; 
 . . . from a steady view to the acquire- 
 ment of useful knowledge and the extension 
 of the bounds of science," as Sir John Frank- 
 lin said. The first great advance was made 
 by William Edward Parry, who left Yar- 
 mouth on May 12, 1819, reaching 113 degrees 
 48 minutes west longitude, in latitude 74. 
 He received a reward of 5,000 offered by 
 Parliament for the ship first to reach 110 
 west longitude on the north side of America. 
 Sir John Franklin is, perhaps, the best known 
 of the Arctic explorers. On May 18, 1845, he 
 sailed from England in the ships Erebm 
 and Terror with 129 men all told. Whalers 
 
164 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 at the entrance to Lancaster Sound saw the 
 ships on July 26, and then they disappeared 
 forever from the eyes of civilized men. In 
 all, thirty-nine expeditions, private and public, 
 were sent from England and the United States 
 to search for the missing crews. Finally 
 Leopold McClintock, in the yacht Fox, sent 
 out by Lady Franklin in 1857, found papers 
 and other relics of the expedition. The papers 
 showed that Franklin wintered first at Beechy 
 Island, and in the next year sailed west until 
 September 12, at which date the ships were 
 twelve miles north of King William Land. 
 There the ice nipped them, and they never 
 escaped. Franklin died on the Erebw on 
 June 11, 1847. Captain F. R. M. Crozier, the 
 second in command, continued exploring the 
 neighbouring regions while waiting for the ice 
 to release the ships, but a scarcity of provisions 
 compelled him to abandon them on April 2, 
 1848. The company, numbering then 105 
 men, tried to walk to civilized parts of the 
 country, but all died of starvation or disease. 
 
NORTH AMERICA 165 
 
 An Eskimo woman who saw a remnant of the 
 company on the march told McClintock 
 that " they fell down and died as they walked." 
 McClintock found one of the skeletons lying 
 face down. 
 
 In a sledge journey on which he started on 
 February 17, 1859, McClintock reached the 
 magnetic pole on March 1. Eskimos were 
 located at the point, and it was through their 
 aid that he learned the facts about the 
 Franklin company. One of the expeditions 
 sent to look for Franklin was under Captain 
 Robert McClure, in the Investigator. He 
 arrived at Bering's Strait July 31, 1850. 
 With a party on foot McClure then reached 
 the north-east point of Bank's Land, where he 
 looked out across the waters upon which 
 Parry had sailed in 1819, and thus proved 
 the existence of a navigable channel across 
 the north end of the continent. The route 
 across the north side of Europe and Asia 
 was first travelled by Nils Adolf Eric Nor- 
 denskiold, a Swedish explorer. On July 
 
166 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 21, 1878, he sailed from Tromsoe in the steam 
 whaler Vega and he wintered in Kolyuchin 
 Bay. The ice drove him out of his way on 
 July 18, 1879, and two days later, with guns 
 booming a salute in honour of the occasion, 
 Nordenskiold reached Bering Strait. 
 
 After many daring voyages, among which 
 that of Fridjof Nansen was most notable, 
 the North Pole was at length reached by 
 Commander R. E. Peary, a naval civil engineer. 
 On August 17, 1908, he left Etah on the steamer 
 Roosevelt, and reached Cape Sheridan on 
 September 1, where the party wintered. On 
 February 15, 1909, a move was made to 
 Cape Columbia, the most northern point of 
 Grant Land in all, sixty-six men, 140 dogs, 
 and twenty-three sledges. On March 1, 
 Peary started out across the ice-covered sea 
 for the pole, 475 miles away. Open water 
 leads delayed the party, but snow houses were 
 built at intervals and supplied with food until 
 they were within 140 miles of the goal, when 
 the last of the supporting parties turned back, 
 
NORTH AMERICA 167 
 
 and Peary, with a coloured servant and three 
 Eskimos, driving five sledges drawn by forty 
 dogs, made the final dash. The pole was 
 reached on April 6, 1909. Five miles away a 
 deep-sea lead carried out 1,500 fathoms of 
 line without finding bottom. In all Peary 
 spent more than 100,000 in the work before 
 he reached his goal. The United States 
 Congress promoted him to the rank of rear- 
 admiral on the retired list in appreciation of 
 his prolonged labours. 
 
 In the meantime the south polar continent 
 had attracted attention. 1 In 1911 no less 
 than five expeditions were at work, but 
 fortune favoured Captain Roald Amundsen. 
 Amundsen left Norway in June, 1910, in 
 the Fram, a vessel driven by an oil motor, 
 and landed at Bay of Whales on the ice sheet 
 covering Ross Sea. The final start inland 
 was made on October 20, 1911. The route 
 
 1 See " Polar Exploration," by Dr. Bruce, leader of 
 the " Scotia " Expedition, in the " Home University 
 Library." 
 
168 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 lay along glacial streams that flow down 
 through valleys and gorges between moun- 
 tains rising from 15,000 to 18,000 feet above 
 the sea, until a plateau was reached across 
 which the explorer travelled for 140 miles 
 to the pole. This was reached on December 
 15 and 16, 1911. The high mountains appear 
 to be an extension of the Rocky Andean 
 system. 
 
 Criticisms are sometimes made of Arctic 
 exploration because the explorers have never 
 secured any " practical " results. But we 
 may believe the work was worth while if only 
 to demonstrate that other motives than mere 
 greed incite men to endure frightful priva- 
 tions with risk of life itself. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHEN THE DUTCH AND THE ENGLISH 
 CLASHED 
 
 A PSYCHOLOGIST, after a study of modern 
 international relations, says that " war finds 
 its natural condition when the wholesome 
 growth of two rivals has reached a point at 
 which there is no longer any room for the 
 expansion of both." And he adds : "A true 
 respect for the historic energies by which the 
 destinies of the nations become fulfilled 
 demands that the spectators value the noble 
 ambitions on both sides instead of posing 
 as judges who decree that one side is just 
 and the other unjust " (Hugo Munsterberg). 
 In any view of the wars between the Dutch 
 and the English it is particularly necessary 
 to value the noble ambitions of both sides 
 instead of posing as judges. Expansion is 
 like migration, in that both are the work 
 169 
 
170 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 of a natural instinct. The English and the 
 Dutch were developing along natural lines ; 
 their contact was unavoidable, and with con- 
 tact came friction war as a natural result 
 in the state of civilization prevailing. 
 
 The trouble began in India. The English 
 merchants were first incited to engage in the 
 direct Indian trade when Drake (1587) 
 captured a Portuguese East Indiaman off the 
 Azores. Hakluyt says that the " taking of 
 this carack wrought two extraordinary effects 
 in England : first that it taught others that 
 Caracks were no such bugs but that they might 
 be taken ; . . $ and secondly in acquaint- 
 ing the English Nation more generally with the 
 particularities of the exceeding riches and 
 wealth of the East Indies ; whereby them- 
 selves and their neighbours of Holland have 
 been encouraged ... to share with " 
 the Portuguese in that trade. The " great 
 admiration " of the nation found expression 
 in an expedition of three " tall ships " which 
 sailed on April 10, 1591, for Sumatra and 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 171 
 
 Malacca. The expedition was a commercial 
 failure, but Captain James Lancaster, the 
 second in command, learned the route, 
 which was a matter of importance. 
 
 In 1599 an association was formed in Lon- 
 don to send ships to India, and a charter was 
 issued (December 31, 1600) to " tjie Governor 
 and Company of Merchants of London Trad- 
 ing into the East." The exclusive right to 
 engage in that trade was given them. The 
 capital was 72,000. The first expedition 
 included five ships which varied in size from 
 the Dragon of 600 tons to the Guest of 130. 
 In spite of his hard luck on the first voyage, 
 Captain James Lancaster 1 was given the 
 command. Acheen, Sumatra, was reached 
 on June 5, 1602, and trade treaties were made 
 with the local potentates. Full cargoes of 
 spices, etc., were obtained and then Lan- 
 
 1 In October, 1594, Lancaster sailed with three privateers 
 to Brazil. He captured twenty-nine Spanish vessels and, 
 landing at Pernambuco, secured such quantities of India 
 goods left there by a Spanish carack that he was able to 
 freight fifteen vessels, all of which reached England safely. 
 
172 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 caster " was fortunate enough on his way home 
 to fall in with and capture in concert with 
 a Dutch vessel, a Portuguese carack of 900 
 tons, richly laden." 
 
 The Dutch East India Company was 
 chartered on March 20, 1602, with a capital 
 of 550,000. The extent of this capital shows 
 that the Dutch appreciated the needs of the 
 trade better than the English did ; perhaps, 
 too, that they had more capital at command. 
 To illustrate Dutch aggressiveness, we may 
 relate that in 1602 a Portuguese fleet of 
 twenty-five warships appeared off a Java 
 port and found five small Dutch traders with- 
 in. The Dutch sailors numbered less than the 
 crew of one Portuguese ship, but they attacked 
 the Portuguese in " Sea-Beggars " fashion, 
 and after capturing some and sinking others 
 sent the remainder flying for life. 
 
 In 1612 the English secured a station at 
 Surat, and at about that time a foothold, 
 which was abandoned later, was obtained 
 in Japan through an English sailor named 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 173 
 
 William Adams, who had gone to that coun- 
 try in a Dutch vessel, and had made himself 
 useful to the natives. A new charter for the 
 company was obtained with increased powers 
 in 1609 ; and King James helped to launch 
 two fine ships for the trade one of 1,200 
 tons. In 1617 the company's stock was sel- 
 ling at 203. The feeling between the Dutch 
 and the English thus far was cordial enough 
 to lead the Dutch to suggest amalgamation 
 of the two companies, but underlying con- 
 ditions led to war. 
 
 Thus, because of the extent of their lead in 
 India, the Dutch looked upon English expan- 
 sion as an encroachment. Meantime they 
 also had such a lead in Europe that fifteen 
 Dutch ships entered English ports where one 
 English ship entered a Dutch port. The 
 English were naturally jealous of the Dutch. 
 Then the English entered the Greenland fishery 
 in opposition to the Dutch, and failed. 
 Thereupon the Dutch, who were naturally 
 already arrogant, began to say to the English, 
 
174 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 " We will make you wear our old shoes." 
 As Mahan says, insults are worse than injuries, 
 and an injury was to be added to the insults. 
 The Dutch had agreed to divide the trade of 
 Amboyna with the English, and each company 
 had a station on the island. In 1623 the Dutch 
 commandant there became convinced that 
 the Englishmen were going to destroy the 
 Dutch station by treachery. Gathering in 
 the Englishmen (who were few in number), 
 he put some to the torture, under which they 
 confessed their guilt. Some were then exe- 
 cuted and all the others sent from the island. 
 No war followed, James I was king, but 
 the English could not forget the tragedy. 
 Fifty years after the event, Dryden wrote a 
 play named " Amboyna, or the cruelties of 
 the Dutch to the English Merchants." 
 
 After Charles I came to the throne, the 
 troubles over the king's prerogative and those 
 due to the Puritan faith occupied English 
 attention chiefly, but Charles revived interest 
 in the sea by his efforts to levy " ship money." 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 175 
 
 With a war fleet of sixty vessels to support 
 his demand, he induced the Dutch to pay 
 3,000 a year for the privilege of fishing upon 
 the English coasts and to strike their flag in 
 the presence of a British man-o'-war any- 
 where within certain limits of the narrow 
 seas. The willingness of the Dutch to strike 
 the flag while they controlled the traffic of the 
 high seas, and that the English should exact 
 the honour, are impressive facts. The Dutch, 
 at that time (May, 1635) were yet at war with 
 Spain. A truce had been proclaimed for 
 twelve years, beginning in 1609, but the 
 Dutch had renewed the war for the sake of the 
 profit in it. In carrying on the war, however, 
 they fell foul, more than once, with the English. 
 For example, in 1639 a Spanish fleet of sixty- 
 seven ships carrying 2,000 soldiers entered the 
 strait of Dover. Admiral Martin Tromp, 
 with sixteen ships, overwhelmingly defeated 
 the Spaniards, and drove a remnant of 
 their ships for refuge to the Downs. Tromp 
 followed, but was warned off by the 
 
176 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 English. Then he sent home for orders and 
 got reinforcements, with which he cleaned 
 the anchorage. 
 
 The sympathy which the Prince of Orange 
 showed for King Charles as the Civil War 
 developed in England was " in the last degree 
 irritating " to Cromwell. In 1648, the Long 
 Parliament passed an Act under which no 
 produce could be exported from any port of 
 Britain or the colonies in a foreign ship. It 
 deprived the Dutch of a valuable carrying 
 trade from America. The famous " Naviga- 
 tion Act " followed in 1650. It provided that 
 no goods produced in Asia, Africa, or America 
 should be carried to any part of the British 
 domain in a ship not under the British flag 
 whereof the master and more than half the 
 crew were not British subjects. The importa- 
 tion of European goods was also confined to 
 British ships or to ships belonging to the 
 countries wherein the goods were produced or 
 from which they were usually shipped. 
 
 This act was unquestionably an expression 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 177 
 
 of British animosity against the Dutch, but 
 under all was a new foreign policy born of 
 the work of the Elizabethan seamen. The 
 English believed it would give them a large 
 share of the India trade at the expense of the 
 Dutch, and in this belief the Dutch con- 
 curred. To add to the exasperation of the 
 Dutch, the English began to enforce the 
 agreement regarding the striking of the Dutch 
 flag in the presence of an English warship, 
 an agreement that had not been enforced 
 for some time. Early in May, 1652, an Eng- 
 lish officer in a small vessel fired on a Dutch 
 squadron for failing to strike its flag. There- 
 upon the Dutch sent Admiral Tromp to 
 sea, with forty ships, under orders to support 
 the dignity of the flag. On meeting Admiral 
 Robert Blake, in command of an English 
 fleet, Tromp answered a demand for a salute 
 by firing a broadside. A battle that lasted 
 four hours followed, and then Tromp with- 
 drew. 
 
 The most interesting figure in the war that 
 
178 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 ensued was this Admiral Martin Harpertzoon 
 Tromp. When eleven years old, he saw his 
 father, a naval officer, killed in battle. At 
 forty years of age he was a vice-admiral 
 (1637). When he attacked Blake, a Dutch 
 envoy was in London trying to secure peace ; 
 but after hearing about the fight the mob 
 would have killed the envoy but for a mili- 
 tary guard. War was declared on July 8. 
 Before this (June 28), Blake had gone north 
 with a fleet to capture the Dutch herring 
 fleet. Tromp, after a demonstration on the 
 English coast, followed Blake ; but a storm 
 kept him from attacking, and damaged his 
 fleet so much that he had to return to port. 
 Blake followed him and " insulted the Dutch 
 coasts with impunity." Though Tromp was 
 in no way blamable, the Dutch had been accus- 
 tomed to instant victory, and they became 
 so angry that they drove Tromp from the 
 service. That is a memorable fact, if con- 
 trasted with the English conduct under 
 similar or even more trying circumstances. 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 179 
 
 For the English were later known to celebrate 
 defeats as if they had won. Jan De Witt, 
 notable as a statesman only, took command, 
 and with Michael De Ruyter, as second, met 
 Blake's fleet off the North Foreland on Sep- 
 tember 28, when they were defeated for a 
 reason that is of interest. The Dutch Repub- 
 lic was a loose conglomerate of States, not a 
 nation. The fleet was an aggregation of ships 
 belonging to the States, and the officers gave 
 allegiance to their States first, and not to the 
 admiral or the republic. Moreover, the offi- 
 cers and seamen, as well as all other men of 
 the republic, were divided into two factions 
 that hated each other cordially. Tromp was 
 of one faction, while De Witt was of the other. 
 At the end of the first day's fighting, twenty of 
 the Dutch ships, manned by friends of Tromp, 
 hastened home to announce that the fleet was 
 sure to be defeated the next day. When De 
 Witt returned, defeated, to Flushing he was 
 mobbed. The deserters were not mobbed. 
 Tromp was now restored to command, and 
 
180 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 showed his mettle by going in search of the 
 enemy in December a thing then unheard 
 of. As he was not expected, the English 
 were not prepared, and Blake had but half 
 as many ships as Tromp. Nevertheless he 
 went out to fight on December 10. It was a 
 battle between sea mobs. The ships gathered 
 in bunches, and blazed away until night came, 
 when Blake was obliged to retreat, leaving 
 Tromp to sail the narrow seas with a broom 
 lashed at the masthead, where Dutch skip- 
 pers were wont to lash huge bunches of 
 flowers when a wedding impended. It was 
 not in British blood to endure that kind of a 
 spectacle, however ; and on February 18, 
 1653, Blake, with eighty ships, met Tromp, 
 who, with seventy-three ships, was convoy- 
 ing a fleet of merchantmen. The battle 
 lasted four days. The fighting, at times, 
 was picturesque. Tromp swooped down on 
 the Triumph, Blake's flagship, and nearly 
 wrecked it aloft with two broadsides. Ad- 
 miral Penn (father of the founder of Pennsyl- 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 181 
 
 vania) came to the rescue with a number 
 of vessels, and then several Dutch vessels 
 joined in, with the result that a fighting 
 vortex was formed, in the midst of which one 
 ship sank, anojther burst into flames, and the 
 crews of others were seen clambering to and 
 fro over the rails in fierce efforts to win by 
 hand-to-hand conflict. When this group 
 separated three of the hulks floated about 
 helpless, while one went adrift, with only the 
 dead and the wounded who could not escape 
 on board. 
 
 There was little change in methods or 
 conditions on the second day until night 
 came, when several of the Dutch captains 
 sailed away. It was not that they were 
 cowards ; they were over-economical. The 
 Dutch had lost eight ships in the battle ; the 
 deserting captains inferred, therefore, that 
 the Dutch would be whipped. Why, then, 
 should they waste more good powder and risk 
 their expensive ships in further fighting ? 
 It appears that the Dutch who remained for 
 
182 ' MASTER MARINERS 
 
 he third day's battle fought more desper- 
 ately than ever, but all in vain, as was the 
 fighting on the fourth day. 
 
 Once more the Dutch gathered a fleet of 
 about a hundred ships, and sent them forth 
 under Tromp. He found the English (June 
 2) not far from Yarmouth roads 104 ships 
 against 105. The decisive feature of the 
 battle occurred about four o'clock in the after- 
 noon, when the crew of Tromp's ship boarded 
 that of Admiral Penn. The English not only 
 repelled them, but came back over the rail 
 with such fury that Tromp thought his 
 ship lost, and fired the magazine. The 
 deck was blown off, killing most of the two 
 crews, but Tromp escaped, little hurt, and 
 made his way to another ship in a small 
 boat. In the meantime, however, the report 
 that Tromp had been killed in the explosion 
 spread through the fleet, and the Dutch 
 skippers, disheartened, fled. 
 
 One more battle only remained for the brave 
 old admiral. With unsurpassed fortitude he 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 183 
 
 assembled another fleet, and met the English 
 under Monk (Blake was sick), near the Texel. 
 For two days the ships manoeuvred for posi- 
 tion, and then Tromp swooped down. The 
 firing was so deadly that masts began to 
 fall at once all along the line ; and within a 
 short time several ships were seen sinking, 
 while others burst into flames. Then a 
 cloud of smoke fogged in the fleets until 
 not a spar could be seen from the outside 
 a cloud that was several times illuminated 
 with a vast flash followed by a volcanic 
 outburst which told where a ship's magazine 
 had exploded. In the midst of the battle 
 Tromp saw the British flagship, and drove 
 his ship toward her ; but as he drew near a 
 musket ball pierced his breast, and he fell 
 and expired instantly. Thereupon the crew 
 took the ship out of the fight, and the other 
 ships, seeing her leave, followed. More than 
 thirty ships had been wholly destroyed or so 
 badly wrecked as to be helpless before the 
 firing ceased. Monk's victory was decisive. 
 
184 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 The Dutch had lost 1,700 ships of all kinds 
 in the course of that war ; and they sued 
 for peace in 1654. 
 
 We may here turn aside for a moment to 
 note that on October 23, 1655, Cromwell 
 declared war on Spain chiefly because the 
 Spanish Inquisition was burning English 
 Protestants at every opportunity. The Span- 
 iards could not believe that he had a just 
 cause of war, for they were not burning them 
 as Englishmen but as heretics. The war is 
 memorable because Admiral Penn went to 
 the West Indies and added Jamaica to the 
 British possessions, and because it was then 
 that the British Government first began the 
 practice of seeing that, come what might, 
 every British subject should have justice, no 
 matter where he might be found a prac- 
 tice that, more than any other, has made the 
 English flag respected by the half-civilized 
 and fanatical, as well as by the civilized and 
 treacherous peoples of the world, as no other 
 flag is respected. 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 185 
 
 Of Admiral Blake it may be said that, while 
 he divided his fleet to meet a divided enemy, 
 when good tactics demanded that he should 
 use his force to crush the enemy " by parcels," 
 as Cromwell wrote, he nevertheless created an 
 esprit de corps that was most marked because 
 of its contrast with the spirit among the Dutch. 
 He also cultivated the habit of putting his 
 ships alongside the enemy's, rail to rail. 
 British prowess in that kind of a fight gave 
 the British seamen a contempt for strategy 
 and tactics, as if anything but hand-to-hand 
 fighting showed in some sort a lack of courage. 
 This feeling is not always desirable in war, 
 of course ; but the influence of the habit in 
 the development of the character of the 
 people unquestionably made for a growth of 
 the national spirit. Blake died on August 17, 
 1657, as his ship was entering Plymouth, after 
 having destroyed a Spanish treasure fleet at 
 the Canaries. 
 
 The next clash occurred on the coast of 
 Africa, where the Dutch had taken over the 
 
186 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 lucrative trade established by Henry the 
 Navigator. The English had also chartered 
 an African company (1631), and the Dutch 
 made trouble for this company in revenge 
 for the Navigation Act. An English fleet 
 reinstated the company, and then Ruyter 
 went down and restored Dutch supremacy. 
 Still another fleet was sent from England 
 (1664), and this not only cleaned the African 
 coast, but crossed to America and added New 
 Amsterdam to the British domain under the 
 name of New York. 
 
 In the meantime (1663) the Navigation Act 
 had been strengthened. The open declara- 
 tion of the next war was made in 1665. The 
 first battle occurred off Lowestoft, and was 
 lost by the Dutch because a Dutch admiral was 
 killed, and the crew of his ship took it out of 
 the fight in a panic. The battle of real interest 
 is known as the " Battle of Four Days," 
 June 11-14, 1665. It is of special interest 
 because the fleets were handled " in line 
 ahead closehauled," that is to say, an effort 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 187 
 
 was made to introduce and maintain some 
 sort of system or order to replace the mob 
 style previously in vogue. The Dutch having 
 at last found an enemy able and willing to 
 fight as well, ship to ship, as they could, were 
 compelled to consider tactics. Ruyter com- 
 manded the Dutch fleet of 100 ships, Monk the 
 English fleet of sixty. The English were 
 eventually reinforced by a division of twenty 
 ships, but it was then too late. The Dutch 
 lost four ships and 2,000 men in the four days 
 of fighting ; the English seventeen ships with 
 5,000 men killed and 3,000 taken prisoners. 
 In the next battle (August 4) the English won, 
 but the victory was more than offset in June 
 of the next year, for Ruyter, with sixty ships, 
 came to the Thames at a time when the Eng- 
 lish were napping, and the people of London 
 saw the smoke where the enemy were burning 
 the shipping in the river. 
 
 In the meantime, London had suffered 
 from the great plague and from the great 
 fire. The English trade as well as that of 
 
188 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 the Dutch had suffered severely In France 
 Louis XIV, with Colbert to tell him how, 
 was developing sea power as well as home 
 industries, hoping thereby to secure a dom- 
 ination in Europe that would be dangerous 
 to other nations. The treaty of Breda 
 (July 31, 1667) was welcomed by both nations. 
 The Djitch had peace with honour, the English 
 peace with honour and New York. The final 
 conflict of the period was forced upon the 
 Dutch by Louis XIV in his efforts to secure 
 the Spanish Netherlands. England should 
 have sided with the Dutch, but Louis bribed 
 Charles with large sums of money, and prom- 
 ised to take care of the English in the division 
 of the spoils. Moreover, it was agreed that 
 the British admiral should command the 
 allied fleets. The Dutch in vain offered 
 every reasonable concession. On March 23, 
 1672, the English raided a fleet of Dutch 
 merchantmen, and on the 29th declared war. 
 Louis had declared war on the 28th. These 
 acts united the Dutch, for once, and when 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 189 
 
 Ruyter went to sea he commanded a fighting 
 unit. 
 
 On meeting the allied fleet in May, Ruyter 
 retreated among the shoals on the Dutch 
 coast in a way that deceived the allies into 
 thinking he dared not attack them. They 
 therefore sailed to Southwold Bay, where they 
 began taking in water, and there Ruyter 
 surprised them on June 7. In the hurry to 
 get out of the pocket, the English headed 
 toward the north on the starboard tack, while 
 the French turned toward the south-east on 
 the port tack. Thereupon, Ruyter contempt- 
 uously sent a small squadron to amuse the 
 Frenchmen ; and, having thus a force at least 
 equal to the English, he attacked them with 
 a fury showing that the Dutch knew why they 
 were fighting. But the English were equally 
 determined ; and " the battle, considered 
 simply as an engagement," was " indecisive." 
 Ruyter withdrew, but " the honours and the 
 substantial advantages all belonged to him. 
 Ruyter showed a degree of skill combined 
 
190 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 with vigour which did not appear upon the 
 seas after his death until the days of Nelson " 
 (Mahan). 
 
 The next fleet battles occurred on June 7 
 and 14, 1673. In each the allies far out- 
 numbered the Dutch (eighty-one to fifty 
 five on the 14th), and the Dutch withdrew, 
 but in each instance Ruyter really won. For 
 the English had assembled an army for the 
 invasion of Holland, and the allied fleets 
 were striving to make way for the invasion ; 
 but Ruyter foiled the attempts. On August 
 20, the allies were searching for Ruyter once 
 more, and they found him among the shoals 
 because they had the wind. The next day, 
 the wind shifted, and Ruyter, with all sail set, 
 swooped down with seventy ships. The Eng- 
 lish had sixty and the French thirty. One 
 can imagine the feelings of the old Dutchman 
 when he ordered a squadron of ten ships to 
 hold the French in check while he, with the 
 sixty, attacked the English, ship for ship. 
 
 Two features of the battle seem especially 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 191 
 
 memorable. The little squadron of ten Dutch 
 ships not only held the Frenchmen in check, 
 but eventually sailed through the French 
 squadron and ran down to aid Ruyter in his 
 conflict with the English. In the meantime, 
 Rear- Admiral Spragge, of the English fleet, 
 hove his squadron to in order to wait for the 
 Dutch squadron under Cornelius Tromp (son 
 of the old admiral). Charles II. had a 
 personal grudge against Tromp, and Spragge 
 had promised to bring Tromp's head ashore, 
 or die in trying. But the sturdy Dutchman 
 fought with such energy that he shot two 
 ships from under the Englishman literally 
 wrecked two ships bearing Spragge's flag ; 
 and when the Englishman was going in a 
 small boat to a third ship Tromp sank the 
 boa!:, and Spragge was drowned. As night 
 came on, the French came down as if to take 
 part in the battle, and Ruyter withdrew. But 
 the battle was decisive in favour of the Dutch. 
 It incited the German empire and Spain to 
 declare war upon Louis, Thereupon the 
 
192 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 English made peace with the Dutch (February 
 19, 1674), and Louis, also, while continuing the 
 war upon the others, came to terms with 
 them. By good fighting, Ruyter saved his 
 country in a war with two nations, each of 
 which was far more powerful in the numbers 
 of its fighters than Holland. 
 
 Two years of life yet remained for Ruyter, 
 the greatest of the sea fighters of the seven- 
 teenth century. In 1675 the Spanish asked 
 the Dutch for the loan of a fleet for use in 
 the Mediterranean. Ruyter was sent with an 
 inadequate force. He joined the Spaniards, 
 and soon learned how the English had felt 
 while the French were their allies. He took 
 part in two battles, which are described in 
 detail in Mahan's " Sea Power." One sen- 
 tence of that description will serve admirably 
 for the whole. " The Spanish centre kept 
 at long range, leaving the brunt of the battle 
 to fall upon the Dutch van." Another 
 quotation will complete for us the life-story of 
 Admiral Michael de Ruyter : " In this sorrow- 
 
DUTCH AND ENGLISH 193 
 
 ful yet still glorious fulfilment of hopeless duty, 
 De Ruyter, who never before in his long career 
 had been struck by an enemy's shot, received 
 a mortal wound." The Comte de Guiche, 
 after meeting Ruyter, wrote this : "I never 
 saw him other than even tempered ; and 
 when victory was assured, saying always 
 that it was the good God who gave it to us. 
 . . . He has something of the frankness 
 and lack of polish [alas ! alas !] of our patri- 
 archs. The day after the victory I found him 
 sweeping his own room and feeding his 
 chickens." 
 
 Any review of the wars between the Dutch 
 and the English shows that they were really 
 waged for supremacy on the high seas. To 
 secure that end the Navigation Acts were 
 passed, but they achieved their end only as 
 they led to war. The Dutch came out of the 
 wars greatly exhausted. Their shipping was 
 yet profitable, but there was a too scanty 
 support for it in their agriculture and manu- 
 factures. The Dutch had " pyramided," 
 
194 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 the foundation upon which they had reared 
 their sea power was too small to support it. 
 This feature of Dutch history might well 
 receive the careful consideration of those 
 Governments that are now taxing their peoples 
 to the last gasp in order to build more and 
 greater war fleets. An increase of taxes 
 was never known to increase the efficiency of 
 a people. England came out of the wars in 
 condition to expand her sea trade with 
 increasing vigour. She was ready to continue 
 around the Seven Seas the work which the 
 Phoenicians, Greeks, and Venetians had done 
 along shore in the Mediterranean. 
 
 The work of the " Sea Beggars " and the 
 Elizabethan seamen transferred the centre 
 of maritime enterprise from Cadiz and Lisbon 
 to London and Amsterdam ; but natural 
 influences at once brought on war between 
 London and Amsterdam in which the fittest 
 necessarily survived. And no one now de- 
 clares that civilization was set back by that 
 inevitable result. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WARS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND FRANCE 
 
 NAVAL development will receive separate 
 consideration in the Library ; but the influ- 
 ence of certain events of the wars between the 
 English on one side and the French and 
 Spanish on the other, which raged between 
 1676 and 1815 upon the development of the 
 sea habit, is of especial interest to us here. 
 For example, recall the battle of La Hougue 
 (or La Hogue). Although the French were 
 defeated with much loss, the way in which 
 Admiral Aime Hilarion de Cotentin, Comte de 
 Tourville, handled his fleet has compelled 
 naval writers to give him the highest praise. 
 Mahan says that no higher proof of military 
 spirit and efficiency could be given by any 
 navy. And yet this battle is memorable here 
 chiefly for what it did not do because it did 
 195 
 
196 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 not and could not rouse the enthusiasm of 
 the French people. The effect of the stories 
 of good sea fights upon the English has been 
 repeatedly noted. But in France, though 
 Louis wrote to Tourville that the story of the 
 battle gave him " much joy," the navy was 
 allowed " to dwindle away." 
 
 The work of the famous French privateers 
 has a similar interest. Jean Bart was a 
 most brilliant seaman. Few Englishmen have 
 done any work better adapted to develop 
 a love of the sea than he did. He not only 
 brought much wealth into port, but he showed 
 that he would neglect opportunities to win 
 wealth when he had a chance to make a 
 good fight. But neither the gallant privateer 
 nor the sturdy naval seaman was able to turn 
 the ambition of the French nation toward 
 deep water. The war in which Tourville 
 gained fame is known as that of the League of 
 Augsburg. The treaty of peace (1697) is 
 memorable because the English and the 
 Dutch demanded and received commercial 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 197 
 
 concessions which would build up their ship- 
 ping at the expense of the French. The 
 Dutch and the English were constantly on 
 the outlook for expansion in sea power ; the 
 French were indifferent. 
 
 The same habit of thought is seen in the 
 next war when Sir George Rooke went to 
 Toulon to destroy a French fleet, and on 
 arriving found the fleet had been so far 
 reinforced that an attack seemed impractic- 
 able. Thereupon, as " he was ashamed to go 
 home without doing something," he captured 
 Gibraltar (August 4, 1704). The key to the 
 Mediterranean has been in England's hands 
 ever since. In the acquisition of Newfound- 
 land and Nova Scotia, together with the right 
 to supply the Spanish West Indies with slaves, 
 at the end of the war, we see at once the 
 English ambition for expansion and the 
 English confidence in their shipping. The 
 Treaty of Utrecht was dated April 11, 1713. 
 Thereafter England was supreme upon the 
 sea beyond dispute. Campbell (" Lives of 
 
198 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 the Admirals "), in speaking of " the popu- 
 larity of every step taken to increase our 
 maritime power," adds : "I doubt whether 
 the credit of the English nation ever stood 
 higher than at this period, or the spirit of the 
 people higher" Agriculture and manufac- 
 tures were growing John Bull was learning 
 to cultivate his land intensively but the 
 prominent feature of the development of 
 civilization in England was the cultivation of 
 the sea habit. 
 
 The next war was begun with Spain in 
 1739, and the French sided openly with Spain 
 in 1744. The trouble between England and 
 Spain grew, to a large extent, out of the con- 
 traband trade which English merchants 
 maintained with the Spanish colonies. Reli- 
 gious prejudices had then less influence than 
 formerly ; but we may suppose that certain 
 easily recognized habits of the two peoples 
 differences which often excited intense anger 
 on one side and half-amused contempt on 
 the other had developed a willingness to 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 199 
 
 fight on both sides. The intense anger 
 created by half-amused contempt was ex- 
 hibited by a Spanish naval officer who hacked 
 off the ear of Captain Jenkins, as he peace- 
 fully sailed the high seas. The great indigna- 
 tion of the whole British people helped to 
 precipitate the war that would have come on 
 in time without this incident. Perhaps we 
 should recall, too, the fact that in the course 
 of the war the officer who did the hacking was 
 captured, and recognized. The revenge taken 
 upon him was characteristic he was released 
 with expressions of contempt only. 
 
 In this war the most interesting master 
 mariner was Lord Anson. His name appears 
 in the register of his first ship (the Ruby, 
 February 2, 1712, when he was fifteen years 
 old) with that of an ordinary seaman above 
 it and that of a cabin servant below. At that 
 time life in the navy was so hard and the 
 pay so low that few were found to ship volun- 
 tarily ; and we are therefore to assume that 
 Anson shipped through a love of adventure 
 
200 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 only. In those days, too, rank was supposed 
 to belong by divine right to the high born. 
 Nevertheless Anson, the apprentice, was able 
 by good work to secure promotion until he 
 was ordered to take a fleet of six ships to the 
 west coast of South America to raid Spanish 
 settlements and shipping. He sailed Septem- 
 ber 18, 1740. 
 
 One quotation from Pascoe Thomas's story 
 of the voyage will give a comprehensive idea 
 of the sufferings of the crews when in the Cape 
 Horn region. " I have seen 4 or 5 dead 
 Bodies at a time some sown up in their Ham- 
 mocks and others not, washing about the 
 decks for Want of Help to bury them in the 
 Sea." On December 7, 1741, only 201 
 men remained with Anson out of 1,872 that 
 had left England. Only the flagship Cen- 
 iurion completed the voyage. And yet in 
 November, 1741, Paita was captured, and 
 the boats were engaged for three days in 
 carrying off plate and coin. Moreover, having 
 determined to return by way of the East 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 201 
 
 Indies, Anson had the luck to fall in with a 
 galleon from Acapulco (June 20, 1743), from 
 which he secured " 1,413,843 pieces of eight 
 and 35,682 oz. of virgin silver," besides other 
 valuables. The Centurion reached Plymouth 
 on June 15, 1744, and her log for July 2 
 contains this entry : " Fresh gales and cloudy, 
 sent away treasure in 32 waggons to London 
 with 139 Officers and Seamen to guard it." 
 
 Anson was made a lord on June 13, 1747. 
 From 1751 until his death, on June 6, 1762, 
 except for one year, Anson was the " very 
 competent and energetic First Lord of the 
 Admiralty." In the British navy an ambi- 
 tious apprentice might, by efficient work, 
 obtain such honours as Anson gained. We 
 will remember, too, that the story of Anson' s 
 voyage around the world, as told by the 
 fleet chaplain, Richard Walter, is yet " one 
 of the most popular of the English books of 
 voyages." So Anson still turns the thoughts 
 of English boys toward the sea. 1 On the 
 
 1 " Books. The value of these consists . . . B. In 
 
202 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 whole, the French had the best of the fighting ; 
 and when they were ready to overrun Hol- 
 land, England was glad to make peace in 
 order to recuperate before fighting further. 
 
 The Seven Years' War followed. It was 
 then that the French and English in America 
 determined which civilization was fittest 
 for the evolution of a new world. As it is 
 now desirable to give special consideration to 
 a peculiarity of French naval policy, we may 
 recall a minor event of the war the capture 
 of Minorca from the English by the French 
 land and sea forces early in 1756. Admiral 
 Galissonikre carried the expedition to Minorca. 
 Admiral Byng, sent from England too late, 
 arrived off Port Mahon and was met by Galis- 
 soni&re. Our interest in the battle lies in the 
 fact that Galissoniere, instead of making 
 every effort to gain control of the sea, chose 
 to fight on the defensive, risking his ships as 
 little as possible so long as he prevented the 
 
 their power of exciting vital or noble emotion and intel- 
 lectual action." Buskin, " Essays on Political Economy." 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 208 
 
 relief of Port Mahon. That is, he chose to 
 make his fleet a mere adjunct of the army, 
 and nearly all French historians commend 
 that course of action. What Mahan calls 
 " circumspection, economy, defensive war " 
 was then and thereafter the " fixed policy of 
 the French navy." 
 
 By way of contrast with this policy, con- 
 sider now the story of Hawke at Quiberon 
 Bay. The French contemplated invading 
 England with a large force, and to this end 
 they endeavoured to unite two squadrons of 
 battleships, one of which had been assembled 
 at Brest and the other at Toulon. Hawke, 
 commanding a British squadron, overhauled 
 the Brest division off Quiberon Bay late in the 
 afternoon of November 20, 1759. Quiberon 
 Bay is formed by a peninsula that is extended 
 by a long half-drowned reef. Beyond the reef 
 and right in the mouth of the bay, lies a 
 rocky island. The English had no charts 
 of the coast nor was there a pilot in the 
 fleet who knew those waters. Moreover, a 
 
204 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 gale was blowing from the west, the half- 
 drowned reefs were alee, and night was not 
 far away ; but when Conflans was seen running 
 for the bay Hawke ordered his fleet in chase. 
 " Forty odd tall ships, pursuers and pursued, 
 drove furiously on; now rushing headlong 
 down the forward slope of a great sea, now 
 rising on its crest as it swept beyond them ; 
 the helmsmen straining at the wheels upon 
 which the huge hulls, tossing their prows 
 from side to side, tugged as though them- 
 selves feeling the wild rapture of the strife." 
 Then " the leaders mingled with the French 
 rear ; the roar and flashes of guns, the falling 
 spars and drifting clouds of smoke now adding 
 their part to the wild magnificence of the 
 scene." One French captain ventured to 
 open his lower ports to give the English a 
 broadside with the heaviest guns, but the 
 ship rolled to the send of a sea, the water 
 flooded in and down she went. Hawke 
 ranged alongside another, gave her a broad- 
 side, and sank her with all hands. Two 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 205 
 
 French ships were captured among the reefs, 
 and two were driven ashore. The remainder 
 escaped into the harbour or down the coast. 
 The English anchored to keep off the rocks, 
 and at daylight were able to work clear of 
 danger. 
 
 Because war was then the supreme test of 
 national efficiency, the effect of the French 
 policy of " circumspection," as compared 
 with Hawke's dash among the reefs, upon the 
 evolution of a people is notable. For these 
 fights kept the thoughts of the people con- 
 stantly upon the sea. Moreover, they drew 
 thousands of men afloat. In both navies 
 these men were trained in the technique of 
 ships ; but while the French seamen learned 
 also the policy of " circumspection," the 
 British were inspired by an aggressiveness 
 which not only won wars but prepared them 
 for those commercial conflicts of peace which 
 spread British civilization around the world. 
 
 Before leaving the period of the earlier 
 European wars that have been described a 
 
206 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 brief space must be given to the buccaneers. 
 The buccaneers were developed by the social, 
 commercial, and political conditions prevail- 
 ing in the West Indies region in the middle 
 of the seventeenth century. The profit in 
 sugar created a demand for labour so great that 
 white men as well as negroes were enslaved, 
 the former for limited periods only. Natur- 
 ally many white slaves ran away, and they 
 were encouraged to do so by the fact that men 
 who could handle an axe could make good 
 wages cutting logwood in the forests on 
 certain coasts of the mainland. Because of 
 isolation, the hardships of the location, and 
 occasional attacks by Spaniards the logwood 
 cutters lived savage lives, but the savage 
 life was attractive to many. The half-wild 
 cattle of the Spaniards afforded another 
 opportunity by which the venturesome of 
 the region might make money. The meat of 
 the cattle, when dried, found ready sale under 
 the name of boucan. Many men engaged in 
 the work of making boucan ; and they came 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 207 
 
 to be known as " boucaniers," and then 
 buccaneers. Logwood cutters often became 
 boucan makers. It is a fact that the buc- 
 caneers were the first " lumber Jacks " and 
 " Cowboys " of America. As nearly all these 
 men were also able seamen, we can believe 
 that the buccaneers were particularly alert 
 in mind as well as body. It is a matter of 
 record that many of them were educated and 
 read the classics as a pastime ; and we may 
 imagine that every one of them would have 
 understood the oft-quoted expression from 
 the Roman poet " Nunc est bibendum." 
 
 In the seventeenth century all merchant 
 ships carried arms. Governors of colonies 
 were authorized to issue letters of marque in 
 time of war, and some of them did so in 
 time of peace. " There is no peace beyond 
 the line " accurately described conditions in 
 out-of-the-way parts of the ocean, and the 
 difference between pirates and privateers 
 was but poorly defined. 
 
 With these conditions in mind it should be 
 
208 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 remembered that, while the Spaniards were 
 weaker than in the days of Drake, they were 
 as arrogant as ever in the treatment of adven- 
 turers who entered waters they considered 
 their own. Many stories of ill-treated seamen 
 were told beside the campfires of the logwood 
 cutters, and the stories of the Inquisition were 
 yet exasperating to Protestants in a way we 
 can scarcely understand. Other stories popu- 
 lar beside the campfires told of the wealth 
 gained by Hawkins and Drake. 
 
 We may suppose that the stories of this 
 class inspired an early buccaneer leader 
 called Pierre le Grande " Big Pete," as a 
 modern cowboy would say. Pierre knew 
 that at certain seasons of the year the Spanish 
 treasure ships (called the flota) sailed from the 
 Isthmus of Panama for Spain, carrying millions 
 of " pieces of eight " (silver dollars), besides 
 gold and silver in bars. Going afloat with 
 twenty-eight men in a ship's long boat, 
 Pierre lay in wait for the flota off Cape Tiburon, 
 and happened to see the vice-admiral of the 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 209 
 
 flota come within reach. Rowing alongside, 
 the buccaneers scuttled their boat and climbed 
 on board. Then they divided into two squads, 
 one of which quickly took possession of the 
 magazine, and the other captured the officers 
 in the high-poop cabin. " Jesus bless us," 
 said one of the prisoners, " are these devils, 
 or what are they ? " 
 
 The savage cruelty with which the buccan- 
 eers tortured their prisoners was by no means 
 as shocking to contemporaries as to the mod- 
 ern reader. Torture of witnesses and of sus- 
 pected criminals to compel them to tell the 
 truth was the custom of courts in all nations. 
 Of course, the cruelty of the buccaneers was 
 greatly intensified by race prejudices, a 
 matter quite within the comprehension of 
 those white Americans who in the twentieth 
 century have burned negroes at the stake. 
 
 Cruelty, however, was but one of several 
 impressive characteristics of the buccaneers. 
 For nothing were they more noted than for 
 their audacity, which shone forth in all their 
 
210 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 expeditions to the Spanish main, and especi- 
 ally in that to Panama. With a few hundred 
 men, who almost died of starvation on the 
 way, Henry Morgan captured the gateway 
 from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The buc- 
 caneers who first crossed the old Darien 
 route went afloat on the bay of Panama in 
 dugout canoes (the bongoes of modern 
 Panama), and then supplied themselves with 
 something better by capturing the armed 
 ships the Spaniards sent against them. 
 
 While Henry Morgan, who was afterwards 
 knighted and made governor of Jamaica, 
 is perhaps of all the buccaneers best known 
 to the average reader, William Dampier was 
 really a greater master mariner. After years 
 of adventure, he returned to England and was 
 employed by the Government as an explorer, 
 in which capacity he surveyed the coasts of 
 Australia and New Guinea. He sailed around 
 the world four times in all, published two 
 volumes describing his travels, and a valuable 
 " Discourse on the Winds." It was through 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 211 
 
 the books which Dampier and the other 
 writing buccaneers (Esquemeling, Sieur Rav- 
 enau de Lussan, and others) published that 
 the buccaneers made a lasting impression 
 upon the world. Those books were among 
 the " best sellers " of their day, and they are 
 yet read with interest. One who has perused 
 them with open mind finds it difficult to 
 resist the conclusion that the buccaneers, 
 on the whole, advanced the cause of civiliza- 
 tion. They were all explorers, after a fashion 
 men who were led on by eager curiosity 
 as well as rampaSit greed. In one view, their 
 work was a righteous protest against pig- 
 headed commercial exclusiveness. But more 
 important than all else, their deeds, which 
 now most deeply impress the reader, showed 
 wonderful courage, enterprise, fortitude, and 
 persistence. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 FROM THE DAYS OF BOUGAINVILLE TO THE 
 DEATH OF NELSON 
 
 IT might be interesting to relate in some 
 detail the work of the sailor men who were 
 afloat during the period of the American 
 Revolution, for the little fight on Lake Cham- 
 plain led to the surrender of Burgoyne at 
 Saratoga, while the timely arrival of a French 
 fleet under Comte de Grasse gave the Ameri- 
 cans the victory at Yorktown, and thus 
 determined that two English-speaking nations 
 should have part in the evolution of civiliza- 
 tion. Certain features of the next two wars 
 had such vast influence upon the maritime 
 affairs of the world that they must have more 
 extended consideration here. One of these 
 features is found in the aptitude for sea life 
 212 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 213 
 
 which the English people exhibited, and the 
 lack of it shown by the French. 
 
 The first sea fight of the war of the French 
 Revolution illustrates this point. In May, 
 1794, a British fleet sailed from the Channel 
 to intercept a convoy of 180 ships carrying 
 food to the starving French. Lord Howe 
 was in command. A French squadron of 
 approximately the same force was met on 
 June 1, the lines clashed ship to ship, and the 
 English won. Not because their ships were 
 in any way better ; the French were then the 
 better naval architects. They did not win 
 because they had had in that battle more or 
 better training in the technique of the sea ; 
 for most of the British crews had been recently 
 swept up from the streets by press gangs ; 
 indeed, one of the ships had only thirteen men 
 forward who could steer. They did not win 
 because they had greater courage, fortitude, 
 or enthusiasm ; for when one French ship 
 sank with two hundred men on board they 
 shouted " Vive la Republique ! " till the 
 
214 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 brine bubbled on their lips. The one defect 
 in the French personnel was inborn, heredi- 
 tary the result of the manner in which the 
 nation had developed. They had no sea 
 traditions, or rather instincts, to inspire or 
 guide them in time of need. 
 
 The English had been saturated with hero 
 tales of the sea for two hundred years ; the 
 French had been saturated with Boccaccio. 
 In a dim way the French authorities had 
 realized that they lacked a sea literature, and 
 had sought a remedy by publishing and dis- 
 tributing upon the ships a history of the great 
 deeds of the French navy. But all they 
 thereby accomplished was to demonstrate 
 that the sea instincts are not to be developed 
 in a week or a year. And we may add that 
 they cannot be developed in one generation. 
 The sea instincts that had spread English 
 civilization from the Mississippi to the Ganges 
 were now equally efficient in strangling the 
 French republicans as they strove to grope 
 their way. 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 215 
 
 Perhaps the most important service ren- 
 dered by the British navy in the wars with 
 the French was that of blockading the French 
 ports. A few handy frigates were stationed 
 close in to the rocks, and literally between the 
 reefs, at places, while ships of the line sailed 
 to and fro within easy signalling distance off 
 shore. For about twenty years during the 
 later wars, but for sixty, if we include those 
 of earlier date, the navy did this work. 
 Month after month and year after year, the 
 watch was maintained. Nelson himself at 
 one time remained with his ship for two years* 
 In fair weather the men endured the utter 
 monotony of life with such patience as they 
 could command ; in foul weather they reefed 
 down and fought the storm winds with the 
 flash of the surf upon the half-drowned reefs 
 in sight alee. During most of this period the 
 French ships were at anchor in port. It often 
 happened that, while the British sailors were 
 upon the yardarm in a sleet-laden gale, strug- 
 gling with the iron-hard canvas, the French 
 
216 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 sailors were sipping wine and smoking their 
 pipes in resorts on shore. The contrast made 
 the British crews curse their fate ; but the 
 effect of that prolonged offshore training upon 
 the English people can be traced, not only in 
 the story of their supremacy upon the seven 
 seas, but in the development of the most 
 important characteristics of the whole race, 
 whether at home or in the colonies. 
 
 Of the careers of the naval men who won 
 fame in those wars, little need be said here ; 
 but it is worth while to remember that Nelson 
 in his youth served in the lowest rank of the 
 merchant service. Horatio Nelson (of Viking 
 descent, as his name proves) began his career 
 when, as a lad of twelve, he went to sea (1770) 
 on the 64-gun ship Reasonable, of which his 
 uncle, Maurice Suckling, was captain. He was 
 rated as a midshipman, but after spending five 
 months in her he joined a West India merchant- 
 man named the Dreadnought, as a servant to 
 the captain. " I returned " from this voyage 
 *' a practical seaman with a horror of the 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 217 
 
 Royal Navy," wrote Nelson later, " and with 
 a saying then constant with the seamen, 
 * Aft the most honour, forward the better 
 man.' " In 1773 Nelson made a voyage to 
 the Arctic with " Mad Anthony " Wayne as 
 a shipmate ; and then, after voyages of no 
 interest here, he secured a berth as acting 
 lieutenant in the navy. The stirring days of 
 the war with France gave him opportunity ; 
 and at 21 years of age he was made a post 
 captain. It was possible then for a British 
 youth of ambition to work his way from the 
 berth of a servant on a merchant ship to the 
 commission of a post captain in seven years 
 a fact that needs no comment. Then, when 
 Nelson first gained fame, he made his own 
 opportunity by an act that was technically a 
 violation of orders. 
 
 It was in the battle of Cape St. Vincent. 
 The British line (under Jervis) was heading 
 south between two divisions of the enemy's 
 fleet, while the division at the west was 
 heading to the north parallel with the British 
 
218 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 line. After a time, Nelson saw (his ship was 
 near the rear) that the enemy was rounding 
 the British rear in order to joint the ships to 
 the eastward, and he thereupon left his line, 
 in violation of the signals on the flagship, and 
 headed off the enemy. He did this with a 
 74-gun ship, although the enemy had a number 
 of first-raters. That he captured two ships of 
 superior force is known to all ; the feature of 
 his work to be emphasized here is his ability to 
 see the need of the moment and his determina- 
 tion to make the stroke when he knew that 
 failure would cover him with lasting disgrace. 
 Of the effect of Nelson's last battle upon the 
 war we need say nothing, but we note that 
 the memorable signal, " England expects 
 every man to do his duty " yet stirs the 
 blood. Of equal influence, perhaps, was the 
 order saying that no one " can do very wrong 
 if he places his ship alongside an enemy" 
 Last of all, recall the scene when the British 
 fleet, with Nelson on the Victory in the lead, 
 sailed into the crescent which the enemy had 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 219 
 
 formed. Nelson's subordinates urged him to 
 avoid the extraordinary danger to which he 
 was exposing himself, but, seeing his duty more 
 clearly than they did, he replied with words 
 that were little short of jeers. Then the storm 
 of shot came. The studding sail booms were 
 sheered away. Great breadths of the sails 
 were ripped from the yards. The bulwarks 
 were splintered, and the sides were pierced ; 
 but the Victory held her way until she was 
 able to swing across the stern of one of the 
 enemy. The other British ships eagerly 
 followed ; the time had come when every 
 man would do his duty as England expected 
 him to do it. But while Nelson was pacing 
 the deck at the height of the conflict he 
 was struck down by a musket ball fired from 
 the enemy's ship Redoubtable, which was 
 alongside. 
 
 A great victory was, indeed, won, but 
 at a price that put a whole nation in mourning. 
 Nevertheless, if Nelson's death be rightly seen, 
 he served his country better when he took 
 
220 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 the risk and lost than he had ever done in any 
 other battle. For the destruction of the 
 allied fleet, however needful it may have been, 
 was in a broad view, only a secondary feature 
 of Trafalgar. The important fact is that 
 the battle brought to an end in a blaze of glory 
 the story of the life of a nation's hero. It was 
 necessary that this mariner, whom his country- 
 men would set up as an example for all time, 
 should die fighting afloat in the manner 
 pleasing to the god of his ancestors that he 
 should show, as those ancestors did, that he 
 understood in his heart that it was indis- 
 pensable to be brave. 
 
 A most interesting chapter in the maritime 
 history of the eighteenth century is that rela- 
 ting to the explorers, and especially those who 
 sailed through Australasia. The names of some 
 of these explorers Bass, Flinders, Hartog, 
 and Vlamingh, for example are now known 
 only to those who have made a special study 
 of the subject. Men like Byron, Wallis, 
 Vancouver, and Carteret are remembered in 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 221 
 
 a way. Their deeds were notable in their day, 
 and the stories they told had an influence in 
 developing the sea habit. A few, among 
 whom Captain Cook is a leader, are well 
 remembered by all, and these shall now have 
 consideration. 
 
 Louis Antoine de Bougainville was the first 
 French explorer to circumnavigate the world. 
 Bougainville began his public career as a 
 soldier. He was then made secretary to the 
 French embassy in London, where his attain- 
 ments as a mathematician led to his election 
 as a member of the Royal Society. Later, 
 he fought under Montcalm in Canada. When 
 the French Government considered the ad- 
 visability of colonizing the Falklands, Bou- 
 gainville carried a number of settlers there 
 at his own expense. Spain protested, and 
 Bougainville was placed in command of two 
 ships with orders to remove his colony, and 
 then go exploring in the Pacific. Leaving 
 Nantes in November, 1766, the expedition 
 sailed westward around the earth, and returned 
 
222 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 at the end of two years and four months. 
 While no discoveries of importance were made, 
 the account of the voyage which Bougainville 
 published was and is yet one of the most 
 interesting books of travels of the period, 
 and thus has had a wide influence. 
 
 The French expedition of two ships which 
 sailed from Brest under command of Jean 
 Franois Galaup de la Perouse, August 1, 
 1785, in order to search for a passage from the 
 Pacific north about to the Atlantic was of 
 unique interest. The ships reached Alaska 
 in June, 1786, but, being driven away by 
 storms, they crossed the Pacific by way of 
 Hawaii and the Philippines, and then dis- 
 covered Sanger and Perouse straits, thus 
 outlining Saghalien and Yezo Islands. In 
 December, 1787, the ships were among the 
 Navigator Islands, where eleven men from 
 one of them were massacred by natives. 
 Later, they were at Botany Bay, but when 
 they sailed thence they disappeared ; and 
 nothing was learned about their fate until 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 223 
 
 1825, when the remains of both ships were 
 found on a reef of Vanikoro, an island lying 
 north of the New Hebrides. They had been 
 stranded with the loss of all hands. 
 
 Turning now to the important explorations 
 of Australasia, it will be remembered that in 
 ancient time the learned had a vague idea 
 that land of continental proportions was to be 
 found south-east of the Indian Ocean. The 
 idea found crude expression in Ptolemy's 
 map. Polo heard about it in China. Perhaps 
 the idea came from a tradition from those pre- 
 historic days when mankind spread across the 
 Pacific from the Asiatic mainland. In modern 
 times, the first authentic record of Australia 
 was made by the Portuguese in the sixteenth 
 century. In 1606, Torres sailed through 
 the strait that bears his name. Dirk Hartog 
 was on the coast in 1616. Abel Janszen 
 Tasman discovered Tasmania in November, 
 1642, New Zealand in the month following, 
 the Friendly Islands in 1643, and explored a 
 part of the coast of Australia in 1644. Dam- 
 
224 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 pier was first on the Australian coast in 1688, 
 and he returned to extend his explorations 
 two years later. Thereafter nothing was 
 done in the region that is of interest here until 
 Cook appeared. 
 
 The story of Captain James Cook is of 
 perennial interest because of the worth of the 
 man, the extent of his work, and the manner 
 in which he lost his life. He was born on 
 October 28, 1728, at Marton, Yorkshire, 
 where his father was a farm labourer. At 
 thirteen he was apprenticed to a haber- 
 dasher, but soon ran away, and on shipping 
 aboard a collier found his career opening 
 before him, for he was a born navigator. In 
 1755 he entered the navy, where he soon 
 attained the rank of master, and then found 
 opportunity for scientific studies. He was in 
 the St. Lawrence when Quebec was captured, 
 and made the first accurate charts of those 
 waters. Thereafter, he was employed for 
 several years in charting important waters. 
 Finally he was commissioned as lieutenant, 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 225 
 
 and placed in charge of an expedition to 
 observe a transit of Venus from a station in 
 Tahiti, and then explore unknown waters in 
 Australasia. When the astronomical work 
 was done, he spent six months on the coast 
 of New Zealand. He then went to Botany 
 Bay, and took formal possession of Australia 
 in the name of the Crown. Finally, after 
 touching on the coast of New Guinea and at 
 Batavia, he returned to England, June 11, 
 1771. 
 
 On July 13 of the following year, Cook 
 sailed with the Resolution and the Adventure 
 to explore a specified region beyond Good 
 Hope. Finding no land within the limits he 
 went on to New Zealand and the Pacific, 
 where New Caledonia was one of the islands 
 he discovered. Returning to England he was 
 made a post-captain, elected captain of 
 Greenwich Hospital, and received a gold medal 
 from the Royal Society, of which he became 
 an honoured member. 
 
 Public interest in the discovery of a passage 
 
226 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 across the north end of America having been 
 revived, Cook volunteered to head an explor- 
 ing expedition to make a search for it. He 
 sailed from the Nore on June 25, 1776, in 
 command of the Resolution and Discovery. 
 After some time spent in the South Pacific, 
 Cook headed to the north in January, and 
 discovered the Hawaii group, now belonging 
 to the United States. The American coast 
 was reached in March and followed to Bering's 
 Strait, where an unbroken ice-field barred 
 the way. Thereupon the expedition returned 
 to Hawaii, and remained until February, 
 On the night of the 13th, the natives carried 
 away one of the Discovery's boats. To 
 recover it, Cook landed next day, intending 
 to capture the king and hold him until the 
 boat was returned, an expedient that had 
 served well on former occasions of the kind. 
 But on this day, February 14, 1779, the natives 
 fought with such courage and vigour that Cook 
 and his command were compelled to retreat. 
 At the edge of the surf Cook placed himself 
 
TO THE DEATH OF NELSON 227 
 
 behind his men in order to protect them as 
 they entered their boat, when the natives 
 closed in with overwhelming numbers. The 
 command all escaped, but the brave captain 
 was knocked down and killed 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SOME LATTER-DAY MARINERS 
 
 MOST picturesque among the sailors of the 
 sail were the whalers. When and where man 
 first went afloat to slay the monstrous mam- 
 mals of the sea is, of course, unknown, but 
 the red men of America did so in prehistoric 
 days the stone age of civilization and it 
 is reasonable to suppose that other aborigines 
 were equally enterprising and courageous. In 
 historic time, the hardy Basques were the first 
 to make records as whalemen. The whales 
 were first found in the southern seas ; but, 
 as they grew scarce, the fisheries were moved 
 northwards ; and many differences arose 
 between the different nations with regard to 
 the various " grounds," which are now looked 
 upon as unrestrictedly international. The 
 
 Dutch, who appear to have been the first 
 228 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 229 
 
 people to pursue the industry to any large 
 extent, discovered the accessibility of Spitz- 
 bergen waters ; but, after a while, the whales 
 were driven off, and the fisheries were carried 
 to the Greenland quarter, the blubber being 
 thence sent direct to Holland. In 1680, 
 there were 266 Dutch ships and 14,000 sailors 
 whale hunting ; and for many years Europe 
 drew her oil supply from Holland. Towards 
 the latter part of the eighteenth century the 
 Dutch whale fishery began to diminish. 
 
 The English colonists in America, and 
 especially those on Nantucket Island, had 
 now taken up the pursuit. Nantucket, as 
 described by an Indian myth, is but a moccasin 
 full of sand which a god, while asleep on Cape 
 Cod, kicked away to sea. In itself it is and 
 was devoid of resources of importance. The 
 white men who settled there were Quaker 
 farmers seeking a refuge from Puritan perse- 
 cution. There they tilled the soil until the 
 returns obtained from selling oil from dead 
 whales that drifted into the surf tempted 
 
230 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 them. Then (1690) they sent to Cape Cod 
 for an experienced whaleman to teach them 
 his arts. It was in this period that the people 
 of Quebec became animated by a similar desire, 
 and applied to their king for a subsidy with 
 which to hire Basques to kill whales for them. 
 
 At first the Nantucket whalers went afloat 
 only when they saw whales in the offing ; 
 but in 1712 Captain Christopher Hussey and 
 his boat's crew were blown away to sea by a 
 heavy gale in the midst of which a sperm 
 whale a kind that rarely came in shore 
 was seen. Because sperm sold at an immense 
 price, the crew forgot their peril in the killing 
 of the whale, and the profit thus secured led 
 to deep-water cruising. In 1730 Nantucket 
 had twenty-five ships in deep-water whaling 
 and the take sold for 3,200. 
 
 These vessels were owned by men who had 
 united their savings and labour to build or buy 
 them, and the owners manned their own ships. 
 The catch was divided so that while the 
 greater part went to the ship (i.e. the owners), 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 281 
 
 each member of the crew also received a share 
 instead of wages. This co-operation bred 
 enterprise which astonished the world. In 
 1730 American whalers were at work among 
 the ice-fields of Greenland. In 1763 they 
 were on the coast of Guinea. In 1767 no less 
 than fifty went south of the equator " by way 
 of experiment." In 1770 Nantucket owned 
 125 whalers of the average size of ninety- 
 three tons, and they sold 14,331 barrels of 
 oil for 71,640. Thereafter the whalers worked 
 their way over all the vast expanse of the 
 Pacific, passing through Bering's l Strait in 
 1848. In one of the volumes of the American 
 State Papers is a list of more than 400 islands 
 which the whalers discovered in the Pacific. 
 In 1846 there were 680 ships and barks in 
 the American whale fleet, besides fifty-six 
 smaller vessels. In 1854 the sales of oil and 
 bone reached 2,180,500. With the discovery 
 
 [ * Vitus Bering was a Dane, in the employ of Russia, who, 
 between 1728 and 1741, explored the eastern coasts of 
 Siberia and the coast of Alaska, 
 
282 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 and utilization of petroleum the whale fishery 
 declined rapidly, and the Civil War beginning 
 in 1861 destroyed most of the American ship- 
 ping that had been engaged in it. Meanwhile, 
 the British whale fishery struggled on. In 
 1815, when it was at its zenith, there were 
 only 164 ships engaged. In 1828, the number 
 of ships had dwindled down to eighty-nine, 
 forty-nine of which were equipped in Scottish 
 ports. During that season, 1,197 whales were 
 taken, which yielded 13,966 tons of oil, and 
 802 tons of whalebone. At the present time 
 the chief British whaling ports are Dundee 
 and Peterhead, and the number of ships em- 
 ployed is not more than thirty. By far the 
 largest cargo ever secured by a Scotch whaler 
 was that of the Revolution, of Peterhead, in 
 1814 ; forty-four whales were captured, giving 
 299 tons of oil, worth 9,568. This sum, 
 together with the bounty then allowed Green- 
 land whalers, made a total of 11,000, Allow- 
 ing a ton to each whale, the whalebone in our 
 day would have realised 110,000. 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 233 
 
 About this time, the Germans began to fit 
 out expeditions, seventy-nine vessels sailing 
 from Hambourg alone ; and they continued 
 to make voyages to the Spitzbergen waters 
 until 1873. In recent years the people of the 
 Scandinavian peninsula have made good profits 
 in various parts of the world by using steam 
 whaleboats with guns that fire bombs into 
 the whales, and by utilizing the bone and 
 meat for fertilizer as well as the blubber for 
 its oil. 
 
 But it is not because of the profits made 
 that the whalemen are memorable here. All 
 whales were monsters of strength, and some 
 were devilish in their ferocity. The right 
 whale, when angered, swept the sea with its 
 flukes, and when successful crushed its tor- 
 mentors with one mighty blow. The sperm 
 whale was not only able to use its tail in this 
 manner, but with its powerful jaws it picked 
 the harpooner from the bow of the boat and 
 bit him in two before the eyes of his mates, 
 or it crushed the boat with the men on the 
 
234 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 thwarts. It sank ships by ramming, and it 
 pursued the whalemen in the water with re- 
 lentless ferocity. And yet to meet and con- 
 quer these monsters was not only the business 
 of the whaleman, but his pride and joy. A 
 small wooden peg used at the bow of the boat 
 to keep the warp in place was worn by the 
 harpooner on public occasions as a badge of 
 honour, and as a badge of honour it was recog- 
 nized in all ports. Boys were known to wade 
 barefooted through the snow to " get a 
 chance " on a whaleship, because they knew 
 well that in her promotion waited on ambition 
 and energy. Clear-eyed the whaleman faced 
 the hurricane's blast, threaded his way through 
 reefs never before seen by civilized man, 
 and when whaleships disappeared the whale- 
 men remained to perpetuate among the race 
 the qualities which are summed up in the 
 word manhood. 
 
 The hunt for the fur seal was still more 
 picturesque. These seals were first hunted 
 at the Falklands, where they were seen in 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 285 
 
 vast herds as early as 1774 when whalers 
 visited the islands. The seal islands were 
 commonly shrouded in the blackest fogs, 
 they were washed for the year round by ice- 
 laden seas, and the fiercest gales swept over 
 them. But the undaunted seal hunters not 
 only anchored among the reefs, but they some- 
 times waited for the heavier storm winds before 
 launching their small boats, because the 
 highest waves were needed to lift the boats 
 up to a point at which the men could leap 
 forth to the tops of the rocks where the seals 
 lay. The men were continually drenched ; 
 the winds pierced them to the bone ; they 
 were cut and bruised by the ice and the rocks ; 
 some fell helpless into the sea and were 
 drowned. But they took their chances 
 without flinching. 
 
 The industry is now carried on in certain 
 parts where the fishing is restricted by a special 
 code of laws. Most of the fishing was formerly 
 confined to the North Atlantic, in the ice 
 fields on the eastern side of Newfoundland and 
 
236 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Labrador. In 1870, after Russia had trans- 
 ferred Alaska to the United States, the Ameri- 
 can Government leased the Prebylov Islands 
 to the Alaska Commercial Company, who 
 also rented the Commander Islands from 
 Russia. For this privilege the company paid 
 the United States a rent of 50,000 dollars 
 per annum, and an additional tax of two dol- 
 lars on each skin taken from the islands. In 
 1891, the British Government and that of the 
 United States agreed to send a joint com- 
 mission of experts to the seal islands to exam- 
 ine into the question of the seal slaughter, 
 so many having been killed that it was feared 
 the regulations on the breeding islands were 
 inadequate to prevent the extermination of 
 the species. The court of arbitration, which 
 was composed of representatives of Great 
 Britain, United States, France, and Norway 
 and Sweden, met in Paris in 1893, came to a 
 settlement with regard to the questions in 
 dispute, and agreed upon a series of articles 
 which effectually regulated the seal taking. 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 237 
 
 A curious chapter in the history of the 
 American merchant marine is that relating 
 to the Barbary pirates. The Barbary coast 
 gets its name from the Berbers, a remarkable 
 people described in " The Opening Up of 
 Africa." After the Saracen conquest of that 
 coast the outlaws of Europe found there a 
 safe refuge. Taught by these outlaws, the 
 rulers of the region inaugurated remarkable 
 systems of blackmail. Each maintained that 
 he was perpetually at war with all Christian 
 nations except such as paid him tribute. 
 The war consisted in raiding the shipping of 
 the " enemy." All ships captured were con- 
 fiscated and the crews enslaved. Thousands 
 of Europeans were thus held in slavery, but 
 any slave who could secure enough money 
 from home could buy his liberty. Even the 
 most powerful nations endured this system 
 of warfare and paid tribute until the early 
 part of the nineteenth century. In the state 
 of civilization then prevailing statesmen 
 believed they were benefiting their own ship- 
 
288 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 ping when they encouraged these pirates to 
 prey on the shipping of rival nations. 
 
 The American Government was among the 
 tribute payers. But when in the early days 
 of the nineteenth century the pirates demanded 
 an increase of tribute a war followed in which 
 a number of young naval officers found oppor- 
 tunity. They made heroic stories the story 
 of the burning of the frigate Philadelphia 
 in Tripoli harbour, for example which were 
 of influence in cultivating and preserving the 
 sea habit in America. 
 
 The American master mariner thrived on 
 aggressions. During the long wars between 
 the French and the English the skill of the 
 American seaman grew and the number of 
 American ships increased. The ports of 
 Europe were actually or nominally blockaded 
 for years at a stretch, and not only swift 
 warships but swift, unscrupulous privateers 
 swept the seas looking for vessels that might 
 be in fact, or by twist of law, good prize. On 
 salt water might was yet right the day 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 239 
 
 when men would see that the injury of one 
 nation was the concern of all was yet far away. 
 But through all that time human needs and 
 human fancies made calls for the oversea 
 exchange of products, and offered the car- 
 rier rich rewards 9 per ton for a trans- 
 atlantic voyage, for example. To earn such 
 freights the ships of the belligerents sailed 
 in fleets convoyed by warships, but the 
 Americans had no navy. Therefore the 
 American master mariner built a hull that 
 was shaped to skim rather than plough 
 through the seas, and above it he spread an 
 extraordinary breadth of canvas. With 
 schooner or brig he often dodged and some- 
 times outsailed the clean-lined frigates of the 
 warring Europeans ; and when one of his 
 vessels was captured her spars were always 
 cut down, because European sailors were 
 unable to handle such a rig. In the decade 
 immediately preceding the war of 1812 
 the American merchantman was the most 
 efficient ship of the world. 
 
240 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Between the war of 1812 and the advent 
 of the iron screw steamer, a number of ship- 
 owners began to send their vessels from New 
 York to Liverpool on specified days of the 
 month, regardless of whether the hold were 
 filled with cargo or not they organized a 
 packet service, that is to say, under the name 
 of the Black Ball Line. Regularity was so 
 advantageous to shippers that profits increased. 
 Then rivals appeared, thus calling for greater 
 speed of ships and more luxury in the cabins. 
 As late as 1824 the finest of the packets 
 measured but 500 tons, as compared with ships 
 of 45,000 tons in 1912. By 1838 there were 
 packets of 1000 tons, and the newspapers 
 described in detail the " Wilton carpets," 
 the " scarlet merino " drapery and the 
 " solid silver tableware " carried. But most 
 of all the reporters were interested in speed. 
 There was the Sheffield that crossed " five 
 times in succession in an aggregate of ninety- 
 one days," or eighteen days for each passage 
 to Liverpool. The Independence, the Monte- 
 
BATTER-DAY MARINERS 241 
 
 mma, the Patrick Henry and the Southampton 
 ill crossed in less than fifteen days at about 
 :hat time between 1835 and 1888. 
 
 The queen of the ships trading to Liverpool 
 ivas the Dreadnought, Captain Samuel Samuels. 
 Chough only a " semi-clipper " (rather full in 
 nodel), Samuels was able in one passage to 
 irive her from Sandy Hook to Rock Light, 
 Liverpool, in thirteen days and eight hours 
 1859). In 1860 he ran from Sandy Hook to 
 ^ueenstown in nine days and seventeen 
 lours the sail record of the Atlantic. " She 
 >vas on the rim of a cyclone most of the time," 
 >aid the captain in describing the passage to 
 :he writer. 
 
 In the meantime the China tea-trade clip- 
 3ers had been making records for speed. The 
 Rainbow, 750 tons. Captain John Land, made 
 ler first voyage to Canton (1843) in ninety- 
 :wo days, and returned in eighty-eight. 
 Captain Palmer, the old sealer, in the Russell 
 sailed 7,622 miles in thirty consecutive days 
 ind 318 in one of them. Captain " Bob " 
 
242 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Waterman, in the Water Witch, sailed from 
 Canton to New York in seventy-seven days 
 and covered 358 in one of them. Captain 
 Lacklan McKay, in the Sovereign of the Seas 
 (2,400 tons, the largest and sharpest ship of 
 her day), " in twenty-four consecutive hours 
 ran 430 geographical miles." The undisputed 
 record for a day's sail (436 sea miles) was made 
 by an English crew in the Lightning, built by 
 Donald McKay, of Boston. 
 
 Writers have talked much about the models 
 of these clippers. They had a peculiar model, 
 but modern yacht builders have demonstrated 
 that it was not the best. The clippers made 
 their records in spite of it. Indeed Captain 
 Waterman first made fame by driving the 
 full-lined and notably slow coaster Natchez 
 from Canton, 13,955 miles, to New York in 
 seventy-eight days, or only one more than 
 his record in the Water Witch. Where, then, 
 did the ships get their records for speed ? 
 It was from the man on the quarter deck, who 
 had been evolved by something more than 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 243 
 
 200 years of merchant-marine work among 
 the rocks of the South Shetlands. or on the 
 whaling grounds of the Pacific, or among the 
 pirates and privateers of the Atlantic. When 
 the wind served the captain remained on deck 
 day and night to keep her going. The sheets 
 and halliards were made of chains, and were 
 locked so that frightened sailors could not let 
 them fly. Studding sails were spread to the 
 zephyrs on the equator, and kept stretched 
 when the trade winds made the rigging scream. 
 
 But the clipper owner was living in a fool's 
 paradise, unable to see the revolution in 
 shipping that was to strand the ship of the sail. 
 The day of the steamship had dawned before 
 the Black Ball Line was organized, but early 
 evolution was slow. 
 
 Two of the most interesting names in the 
 early history of the steamship are those of 
 Robert Fulton (1765-1815) und Henry Bell 
 (1767-1830), who achieved fame by their 
 success, the one in America and the other in 
 Scotland. Fulton studied for some time in 
 
244 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 Paris (1797), and there experimented largely 
 with torpedo boats and submarine torpedos. 
 With Chancellor Livingstone, he built a steam 
 ship on the Seine (1801-2), but the engine was 
 too heavy. Recovering the engine, which had 
 gone down with the boat, Fulton had it 
 placed on a larger and stronger vessel. He 
 tried again on the Seine, August 9, 1803 ; but 
 the result was not successful, for the boat was 
 never able to attain any great speed. On 
 returning to England in 1804, Fulton ordered 
 and had built an engine which he and Living- 
 stone intended to use in America. He sailed 
 in the October of 1806, the engine following ; 
 and in the August of 1807 it was placed on 
 board the Claremont, which Fulton had 
 had specially built. She made her first trip 
 between New York and Albany, a distance 
 of 142 miles, in thirty-two hours, and made 
 the return journey in thirty hours. The 
 Claremont was the first steam navigation 
 boat to be used with any success. Henry 
 Bell designed the well known Comet, which was 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 245 
 
 launched from the Glasgow docks in 1812. 
 Her length was 42 feet, her breadth 11 feet, 
 and she drew 5J feet of water Her engine, 
 built by John Robertson, was of three-horse 
 power. She journeyed from Glasgow to 
 Helensburgh, and across to Greenock, doing 
 5 miles an hour. As time went on, and her 
 successors began to make longer voyages in 
 shorter time, the Comet was lengthened to 60 
 feet, fitted with a new engine and side paddles, 
 and reached a speed of six miles an hour. 
 
 In England the steam engine had been 
 developed more than twenty years earlier for 
 land use, leading to an immense growth in the 
 number of engineers who were employed in the 
 factory system of manufactures. When steam 
 was applied to navigation there the steamship 
 owners had not only a well-developed body 
 of engineers from which to draw the needed 
 personnel, but the steamship was from the 
 first adapted to the stormy waters of the 
 channels and then was sent across the Bay 
 of Biscay to Bordeaux 1,600 miles. Thus, 
 
246 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 after this natural development or preparation, 
 it was an English company that sent the 
 steamer Sirius, Lieutenant R. Roberts, R.N., 
 commanding, from Cork bound for New York 
 on April 4, 1838. She arrived in the morning 
 of April 23, and thus demonstrated the 
 feasibility of transatlantic steam navigation. 
 In confirmation of her work, the steamer 
 Great Western, built by the Great Western 
 Railway Company for the oversea trade, left 
 Bristol on the 7th of April and reached New 
 York on the 23rd, a few hours after the Slriiis. 
 While England had more shipping, the 
 American packet lines were then in undisputed 
 control of the New York-Liverpool trade ; 
 the American sailor of the sail was beyond 
 dispute without an equal in efficiency. But 
 when those two British steamers anchored in 
 New York, the supremacy of the British in all 
 trades was assured because the British en- 
 gineer (a Scotchman, he) was of unequalled 
 efficiency in his line. It is demonstrable that 
 in building smooth- water engines the American 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 247 
 
 engineer was unsurpassed, but his habits of 
 thought and traditions were against him when 
 he tried to build engines for the deep-water 
 ships. 
 
 The Siritis was a ship driven by paddle 
 wheels, and wheels of that kind were in use on 
 the Atlantic for many years ; but beginning 
 in 1836 John Ericsson proved the superiority 
 of the screw ; and at about the same time it 
 was demonstrated that iron was a better 
 material for building the hulls of ships than 
 wood. Since then British shipping has risen 
 gradually, steadily, irresistibly to her present 
 primacy in all the seas of the world. 
 
 The historians of the sea, in dealing with the 
 steamship era, give their space, save only for 
 brief references in general terms, to the great 
 packet lines lines that depend for profits 
 chiefly upon the passenger traffic and what is 
 called express freight. Naval architects have 
 from the first given their chief attention to 
 the evolution of the class of ships used by 
 these lines. The first compound engine placed 
 
248 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 upon a deep-water ship was built for a vessel 
 owned by a company trading around the Horn 
 (1856). Beginning about the year 1874 the 
 compound engine was developed in line ships 
 until the steam received four expansions in the 
 cylinders. The use of two propellers in 
 merchantmen came with improved liners, and, 
 finally, the value of the turbine engine for the 
 development of tremendous speed was demon- 
 strated in the liners where great speed was 
 wanted. From the twelve or thirteen knots 
 per hour of fifty years ago we have seen the 
 sustained speed of these ships rise to more 
 than twenty-five. And, along with increase 
 of speed, we have seen such an increase of 
 luxurious furnishings that lifts and tennis 
 courts and swimming pools and hot-house 
 gardens are considered matters of necessity. 
 The captain has developed into a society 
 leader. But while, with unthinking enthusi- 
 asm, we applauded these innovations, we 
 remained oblivious to the fact that the modern 
 packet hull is not as safe as that of the Great 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 249 
 
 Eastern until appalling disaster brought the 
 truth home to us. 
 
 The great liner thus fills the public eye ; 
 but the greater part of the world's work on 
 salt water has been done by the ship bearing 
 the name of tramp, and it is the tramp cap- 
 tain who is the real hero afloat. Fifty years 
 ago boiler pressure ranged from ten to twelve 
 pounds per square inch, and the boiler shells 
 were known to burst inward because of un- 
 expected condensation within. " I mind the 
 time we used to serve a broken pipe with 
 tow." A steam-driven passage was far more 
 expensive then than now, for it took from seven 
 to nine pounds of coal on the grate to produce 
 a horse-power hour of work. Nevertheless, 
 the tramps got the cargoes, because they 
 could deliver them punctually " And those 
 were the days of clippers, and the freights were 
 clipper freights." Steadily but without noise 
 these transient ships have grown in efficiency. 
 Hatches and holds were early adapted to many 
 kinds of cargo, and the engines were improved 
 
250 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 until " we came with our nine-knot freighters, 
 and collared the long-run trade." 
 
 The tramps have been the latter-day pioneers 
 and explorers. With her captain on the 
 bridge, the tramp has anchored in the harbours 
 of Africa and Brazil, where the fever-laden 
 mosquitoes swarmed off to destroy the crew. 
 It has anchored in the ports of Asia, where the 
 rats brought the plague-bearing fleas on board. 
 It is found taking on guano between the 
 coral reefs of an island of the Pacific, or lying 
 in wait for it where the water is a thousand 
 fathoms deep just off the rocks. And in 
 the next charter the same ship may go to a 
 fiord in Greenland for a load of cryolite. By 
 her low rates of freight, and her ability to 
 deliver the goods when they are wanted, the 
 transient steamer enlarges the trade she dis- 
 covers until in out-of-the-way ports regular 
 sailing days are found convenient and the 
 line traffic is adopted in addition to that of 
 the tramp. 
 
 But it is not alone in the trade of obscure 
 
LATTER-DAY MARINERS 251 
 
 ports that the tramp thrives. The hurrying 
 liner docks in all her majesty, overshadowing 
 a score of humble tramps lying here and there 
 taking on cargo perhaps grain or heavy 
 machinery for the very port from which the 
 liner came. Moreover, there is no route 
 too long for the tramp not even the grain 
 route from Oregon to Europe, or the lumber 
 route from the same coast to Australasia. 
 For, though smoky and blunt, the cargo ship 
 can carry a ton freight a mile on the heat 
 developed by a half ounce of coal on the grate. 
 As Kipling wrote, 
 
 " The liner she's a lady, but if she wasn't made 
 There still would be the cargo boats for 'ome an' 
 
 foreign trade. 
 
 The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, but if we was n't 'ere 
 I wouldn't 'ave to fight at all for 'ome an' friends so 
 dear," 
 
 It was the superior efficiency of the British 
 iron screw cargo boat that drove the American 
 clipper ships from the sea, and it is the same 
 class of ships that now controls the deep-water 
 trade. The domination of the British on all 
 
252 MASTER MARINERS 
 
 seas did but illustrate the survival of the 
 fittest. And in these days, when the rivalry 
 upon deep water is once more becoming in- 
 tense, and men are even talking about a 
 yellow " peril," that is a fact of the utmost 
 importance. For the law is inexorable ; in 
 the future, as in the past, the people who are 
 best fitted to carry on the trade will, in spite 
 of all opposition, rule the Seven Seas. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 THE reader who wishes to make a more extended study 
 of the commerce of the sea and of the men who promoted 
 its growth can find a comprehensive bibliography in Olive 
 Day's History of Commerce (Longmans, Green), an admir- 
 able introduction to this subject. The lis^t of books cited 
 includes many issued on the Continent as well as those 
 from England and the United States. W. S. Lindsay's 
 History of Merchant Shipping (issued in 1876 and now out 
 of print, but obtainable in large libraries) is devoted 
 chiefly to the history of British shipping, but it gives much 
 space to ancient navigation, the laws of the sea, and the 
 life of sailors at sea. John Charnock's History of Marine 
 Architecture, issued in London in 1802, is the best authority 
 on the early history of English ships and shipping, giving 
 especial attention to the navy. A large amount of space 
 is devoted to ancient shipping of the Mediterranean, how- 
 ever ; and with Charnock and Lindsay in hand the student 
 will be well prepared for further investigations. Lindsay 
 quotes a number of ancient writers, the most interesting 
 and perhaps the most important of them all being the 
 History of Herodotus (Everyman's Library, Dent, is a- 
 convenient edition). 
 
 Plutarch's Lives contains some nautical matter. Raw- 
 linson's works, and especially the convenient Phoenicia, 
 in the Stories of the Nations series (Putnam), are neces- 
 sary. Rawlinson places stress upon the geographical 
 influences in human development, a matter overlooked by 
 many historians. Johnston's Opening Up of Africa (Home 
 University Library) gives a remarkable summary of the 
 development of the Mediterranean peoples of the earliest 
 253 
 
254 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 times. Holm's History of Greece (Macmillan) and Momm- 
 sen's Provinces of the Roman Empire are recommended for 
 the study of Greek and Roman navigation. Volumes 1 
 and 2 of Mommsen are all that will be needed. For the 
 medieval period leading down to the time of Columbus 
 one should study C. R. Beazley's Prince Henry the 
 Navigator ; volume 1 of John Fiske's Discovery of 
 America ; Helen Zimmern's Hansa Towns ; J. E, T. 
 Rogers's Holland ; Travels of Marco Polo, and for a general 
 view of Europe during the period, H. W. C. Davis's 
 Medieval Europe (Home University Library). Weil's 
 Venice and Ruskin's Stones of Venice may very well be 
 read for side lights. Ruskin's portrayal of the Venetians 
 at their best and worst is unequalled. 
 
 For the opening up of the Atlantic three works will be 
 found entirely satisfactory Fiske's Discovery of America, 
 Justin Winaor's History of America a work that is parti- 
 cularly valuable for its references and maps ; Sir Arthur 
 Helps* Spanish Conquest of America (Lane), which gives 
 an intimate view of Spanish life in America. In the mean- 
 time one should have read J. L. Motley's Rise of the Dutch 
 Republic. Hakluyt's Principal Navigations is not always 
 absolutely trustworthy, but in no other work can one find 
 the point of view of the merchant and the sailor of the day 
 so well set forth. E. J. Payne's Voyages of Elizabethan 
 Seamen (Clarendon Press) is a compilation of the narra- 
 tives of the men who did the work and therefore indis- 
 pensable. Lindsay, mentioned above, is interesting in 
 the study of the Elizabethan period, and Charnock's lists 
 of ships and statements of fact regarding the sizes and 
 construction of the ships are necessary if one would'com- 
 prehend the work done by the seamen of the period some- 
 thing that is difficult at best. The story of Lord Anson's 
 voyage around the world is another helpful work. Cun- 
 ningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce 
 (Maomillan) sets forth the development of agriculture as 
 well as of manufacturing and shipping. Seeley's Expan- 
 sion of England and Mahan's Influence of Sea Power 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 255 
 
 are already famous. J. R. MoCulloch's Dictionary of 
 Commerce, printed in a number of editions in England and 
 the United States during the first half of the nineteenth 
 century, although chiefly a mass of commercial statistics, 
 contains some most valuable papers having a direct 
 bearing upon the work of the master mariners. The 
 discussion of the Navigation Laws may be cited as an 
 example. 
 
 The chief original sources of the history of American 
 shipping are found in the colonial documents of Massa- 
 chusetts and New York. Weeden's Economic History of 
 New England is by far the best work written frm these 
 documents and it contains much matter from the papers 
 of colonial merchants. In my own American Merchant 
 Marine (Macmillan) I gave special attention to the in- 
 fluences of environment upon the development of American 
 ships and sailors. Steam navigation received as much 
 space as the size of the book permitted, but that branch of 
 sea history is treated at length in Fry's History of North 
 Atlantic Steam Navigation (Scribner). A file of London 
 Engineering and the New York Scientific American 
 will yield many facts in connection with the development 
 of ships during the last sixty years or more. In Master 
 Mariners it has been impossible to do more than suggest 
 the influence of race peculiarities in the evolution of sea 
 power. I have been unable to find any work that deals 
 with the subject, but in Davenport's Principles of Breeding 
 (Ginn) is a discussion of " bathmic influences " which will 
 serve very well for a start in a study of the matter. 
 
INDEX 
 
 AMUNDSEN, Captain Roald, 167 
 
 168 
 
 Anglo-American War of 1812, 239 
 Anson, Lord, 199-201 
 
 Baffin, William, 162, 163 
 
 Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 106 
 
 Bart, Jean, 196 
 
 Bjaroi, 52, 53, 128 
 
 Blake, Admiral Robert, 177-180, 
 
 185 
 Bougainville, Louis Antoine de, 
 
 221, 222 
 Buccaneers, the, 205-211 
 
 Cabot, John, 113-115, 145 
 
 Cabot, Sebastian, 113-115, 161 
 
 Cabral, Pedro Alvarez de, 102 
 
 Champlain, Samuel de, 157, 158 
 
 Chrysor, 9 
 
 Cintra, Pedro de, 65 
 
 Clippers, 240-243 
 
 Columbus, Christopher, 10, 66, 
 
 69-98, 106, 111 
 Cook, Captain James, 221, 224-227 
 
 Dampier, William, 210, 211, 224 
 Davis, John, 162 
 Diaz, Bartholomew, 67, 68, 98 
 Drake, Sir Francis, 125, 127, 128- 
 
 138, 142, 144, 147, 149, 162, 
 
 170 
 
 Escobar, Pedro de, 65, 70 
 
 Franklin, Sir John, 163, 164 
 Frobisher, Sir Martin, 162 
 
 Garaa, Vasco da, 94, 98-100 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 149 
 Gomez, Diego, 65 
 Greeks, the, 33-37, 194 
 Grenville, Sir Richard, 139, 140, 
 142 
 
 Hanno, 23, 24, 32 
 
 Hawke, 203-205 
 
 Hawkins, John, 123-127, 142, 149 
 
 Himilco, 24 
 
 Hudson, Henry, 155-167 
 
 La Cosa, Juan, 101 
 Lancaster, Captain James, 171 
 McClintock, Leopold, 164, 165 
 McClure, Captain Robert, 165 
 Magellan, 109-112 
 Malocello, Launcelot, 60 
 Marck, William de la, 119, 120, 142 
 Nansen, Fridjof, 166 
 Nelson, Horatio, 140, 216-220 
 Niku, 7, 8, 13, 16 
 Nordenskiold, Nils Adolf Eric 
 165, 166 
 
 Parry, William Edward, 163 
 Peary, Commander R.E., 166, 167 
 Penn, Admiral, 180-182, 184 
 PhoBnicians, the, 10-16, 30-33, 194 
 Pinzon, Vincente, 100 
 Pirates, Barbary, 237-238 
 Pizarro, Francisco, 10, 107-109 
 Prince Henry of Portugal, 58, 
 
 61-65 
 Ptolemy, 61, 62, 72, 223 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 149 
 Ruyter, Admiral Michael de, 179 
 187, 189-193 
 
 Santarem, Jofio de, 65, 70 
 
 Sealing, 234-236 
 
 Smith, Captain John, 150, 151 
 
 156 
 
 Steamship, Development of, 240 
 Steamships, 243-249 
 Toscanelli, 72. 73 
 Tourville, Comte de, 195, 196 
 Tramps, 249-251 
 Transatlantic Packets, 240, 241 
 Tromp, Admiral Martin Harpert- 
 
 zoon, 175, 177, 178-183 
 Usous, 9 
 
 Venetians, the, 40-46, 48, 194 
 Vespucius, Americus, 100, 101. 
 
 103-106 
 Vikings, the, 48-53 
 
 Whaling, 228-234 
 
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