CHAPTER 3. Pioneers of England

PIONEERS OF ENGLAND

21. Sir John Hawkins.--For many years after Cabot's voyage Englishmen were too busy at home to pay much attention to distant expeditions. But in Queen Elizabeth's time English seamen began to sail to America. The first of them to win a place in history was John Hawkins. He carried cargoes of negro slaves from Africa to the West Indies and sold them to the Spanish planters. On his third voyage he was basely attacked by the Spaniards and lost four of his five ships. Returning home, he became one of the leading men of Elizabeth's little navy and fought most gallantly for his country.

22. Sir Francis Drake.--A greater and a more famous man was Hawkins's cousin, Francis Drake. He had been with Hawkins on his third voyage and had come to hate Spaniards most vigorously. In 1577 he made a famous voyage round the world. Steering through the Straits of Magellan, he plundered the Spanish towns on the western coasts of South America. At one place his sailors went on shore and found a man sound asleep. Near him were four bars of silver. "We took the silver and left the man," wrote the old historian of the voyage. Drake also captured vessels loaded with gold and silver and pearls. Sailing northward, he repaired his ship, the Pelican, on the coast of California, and returned home by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.

23. Sir Walter Ralegh.--Still another famous Englishman of Elizabeth's time was Walter Ralegh. He never saw the coasts of the United States, but his name is rightly connected with our history, because he tried again and again to found colonies on our shores. In 1584 he sent Amadas and Barlowe to explore the Atlantic seashore of North America. Their reports were so favorable that he sent a strong colony to settle on Roanoke Island in Virginia, as he named that region. But the settlers soon became unhappy because they found no gold. Then, too, their food began to fail, and Drake, happening along, took them back to England.

24. The "Lost Colony," 1587.--Ralegh made still one more attempt to found a colony in Virginia. But the fate of this colony was most dreadful. For the settlers entirely disappeared,--men, women, and children. Among the lost was little Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America. No one really knows what became of these people. But the Indians told the later settlers of Jamestown that they had been killed by the savages.

25. Destruction of the Spanish Armada, 1588.--This activity of the English in America was very distressing to the King of Spain. For he claimed all America for himself and did not wish Englishmen to go thither. He determined to conquer England and thus put an end to these English voyages. But Hawkins, Drake, Ralegh, and the men behind the English guns were too strong even for the Invincible Armada. Spain's sea-power never recovered from this terrible blow. Englishmen could now found colonies with slight fear of the Spaniards. When the Spanish king learned of the settlement of Jamestown, he ordered an expedition to go from St. Augustine to destroy the English colony. But the Spaniards never got farther than the mouth of the James River. For when they reached that point, they thought they saw the masts and spars of an English ship. They at once turned about and sailed back to Florida as fast as they could go.

* * * * *

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS