THE COMING OF SEA-POWER

      When English sailors first began to feel the lure of the far horizon there were two enterprises that attracted them with peculiar power. One was the quest of the northwest passage to the Indies, and one was the trade of the Spanish Main. The former was to attract English explorers for three centuries and was to immortalize some of the most notable names in the annals of British seamanship. The latter had all the fascination of adventure, conflict, and unguessable turns of chance. Between them, they were the school of Elizabethan seamen. In the polar seas, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, Englishmen learned the lessons that were to stand them in good stead in 1588 and were ultimately to make them the first among sea-faring peoples. So that, roughly speaking, the reign of Elizabeth marks the beginning of England's sea-power; and if we open at random the pages of "Hakluyt's Voyages" we may obtain a glimpse into the training school.

      On the eighth of June, 1576, Martin Frobisher left Deptford with two small barks (25 and 20 tons), the Gabriel and the Michael, and a pinnace of 10 tons, to seek in the northwest a nearer passage to Cathay than by the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan. On the 11th of July "he had sight of a high and ragged land "  –  probably Greenland  –  "but durst not approach the same by reason of the great store of ice that lay along the coast and the great mists that troubled them not a little." Not far from here he lost the pinnace and was deserted by the Michael, but "notwithstanding these discomforts the worthy captain, although his mast was sprung and his topmast blown overboard with extreme foul weather, continued his course towards the northwest, knowing that the sea at length must needs have an ending." So he passed on and did at length sight two great forelands, with a great open passage between them, which he entered, and sailed above fifty leagues, believing that he had Asia on his right hand and America on his left.

      After some time "he went ashore and found signs where fire had been made. He saw mighty deer . . . which ran at him: and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way, where he was fain to use defense and policy to save his life. In this place he saw and perceived sundry token of the peoples resorting thither. And being ashore upon the top of a hill, he perceived a number of small things floating in the sea afar off, which he supposed to be porpoises, or seals, or some strange kind of fish; but coming nearer, he discovered them to be men in small boats made of leather." These were a troop of Esquimaux, who after nearly taking the captain himself, did some trading with the sailors and by treachery captured five of them. After this they kept away from the ships, but one was taken by a stratagem and brought back to England. So "with this new prey, which was a sufficient witness of the Captain's far and tedious travel towards the unknown parts of the world . . . the said Captain Frobisher returned homeward and arrived in England the second of October following. Thence he came to London, where he was highly commended of all men for his great and notable attempt, but specially famous for the great hope he brought of the passage to Cathay." Besides the unfortunate native there was by chance brought back a black stone  –  really iron pyrites  –  which certain refiners pronounced to be rich in gold. Thereafter it was gold, not the northwest passage, which formed the chief attraction to the desolate region of the north. In Frobisher's second voyage 200 tons and in the third 1,700 tons of the stuff were brought with great labor to England to the sore loss of those who had borne the expense of the enterprise. But the interest of it all to us is not so much the success or ill success of these voyages. It is the persistent and purposeful daring, the awakening interest in a world wider than England, the determination against all obstacles to search the untried and immense posssibilities of the New World. Every sentence of the old sailor narratives assures us that the narrowness, the pettiness, the morbid interest in unreal things, of the Middle Ages have passed away. It is like breathing in a draught of fresh sea air to see again the little ships of England  –  struggling against the terrors and dangers of the north, stemming and striking great rocks of ice, compassed about with floes and bergs, and so driven by tempests against the crystal reefs that "planks of timber of more than three inches thick by the surging of the sea with the ice were shivered and cut in sunder."

      To these northern voyagers the elements themselves were the most formidable foes. But to the all-expecting imaginations of the Elizabethan mariners there was even more terror in the strange beasts and devils of the new seas. An iceberg was an iceberg  –  dangerous enough but avoidable. But what of the strange monster that Sir Humphrey Gilbert saw "swimming or rather sliding upon the water off the coast of Labrador,  –  a monster like a lion in shape, hair and color, which passed along turning his head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide with ugly demonstration of long teeth and glaring eyes, and which coming right against the ship sent forth a horrible voice, roaring and bellowing as doth a lion"? Might not this be the devil himself? And every voyager had to face beasts equally strange and equally invested with the halo of marvel that belonged to the newly discovered regions,  –  serpents with three heads, monsters in the shape and color of men who rose from the sea and might bring on many days of foul weather, and evil creatures such as the "monstrous venemous worme" encountered by the companions of Hawkins, "with two heads and a body as bigge as a man's arme, whose blood made the sword that cut him asunder as black as ink."

      Fearsome tales, surely. And yet these encounters with beasts and devils are after all only incidents. Even the conflicts with storms, with heat, and with cold were not the epoch-making ones of the age, significant as they are of its spirit. The great battles of the English were with a power more cruel and far more hated than ice, heat, storms, or savage monsters. The fierce and withering grip of Spain and the Inquisition on the wealthiest part of the New World and on the empire of the sea still remained to be matched and shaken before England's introduction to her new future could be complete. In the summer of 1568 John Hawkins, having accomplished a profitable bit of trade in negroes with those of the Spaniards who were willing to defy their own law for the sake of profit, headed northwest from the Gulf of Mexico intending to make for England. It was his third voyage, and he was well known in both England and Spain. It had been his avowed practice to simply disregard the Spanish laws as to trade, and since his living merchandise was badly needed for heavy labor by the Spanish mine owners and planters, he had driven a profitable business. In dining with the Spanish ambassador, after his second voyage, he had quite coolly declared his intention of visiting the African coast and the Indies again. And so he did; but as might be expected, this cool violation of Spanish law aroused irritation at the court of Philip II, and orders were sent out to treat Hawkins as an open enemy if the opportunity occurred. Now it happened that on this very trip, as the English ships passed by the west end of Cuba, heavy storms came upon them and, being driven far into the Gulf and failing to find any other harbor, they took refuge in the port of Vera Cruz, guarded by the castle of San Juan de Ullua. Here to their surprise they found twelve ships  –  part of the annual silver fleet for Spain  –  which were awaiting there the rest of the fleet and its armed convoy. Hawkins was a trader, not either a pirate or an enemy of the Spaniards. He did not touch the prize before him accordingly, but sent word of his arrival to the Spanish Council at Mexico, and asked permission to remain in the harbor to refit. But, says Hawkins, "the message being sent away the sixteenth of September at night, being the very day of our arrival, in the next morning, which was the seventeenth day of the same month, we saw open off the haven thirteen great ships. And understanding them to be the fleet of Spain I sent immediately to advise the general of the fleet of my being there: giving him to understand that, before I would suffer them to enter the port, there should some orders of conditions pass between us for our safe being there, and maintenance of peace."

      Now the harbor was so guarded by an island that the English ships in possession could easily keep out an enemy five times as strong. But the English admiral was torn between two difficulties. If he prevented the Spanish fleet entering, they must inevitably be shipwrecked by the next storm from the north. In view of the peace existing between the two countries  –  peace which Elizabeth was very anxious to maintain  –  such a disaster would be a very grave matter and would probably mean trouble from the Queen. On the other hand, if entrance were permitted, there was the danger of treachery. At last Hawkins resolved on the more generous course, and giving the Spaniards the benefit of the doubt he made a convention, exchanged hostages and allowed them to come in.

      All was apparently satisfactory for a time, and the English sailors set to work busily to repair their ships. It was Monday, the twentieth of September, when the Spanish fleet entered the port. On Thursday morning the...