Chap. IX.] FENTON'S VOYAGE TO THE EAST. 215
launched out to .sea. In the beginning of August, they reached the coast of ad. i582.
Guinea ; and then the commander, instead of deciding on his own responsibility
as to the propriety of taking in water, deemed it necessary to summon a formal c'ouree of
. . /» 1 proceedings.
meeting of his a.ssistant.s, or councd, and submit two pomts for decision — first, whether they ouglit to water at all ; and, secondly, assuming this was resolved upon, at what place? These points, it seems, occasioned long debates; and while all unanimously approved of watering, only a majority agreed in thinking that it ought to be at Sierra Leone. They accordingly proceeded for this locality, but had gone so far out of their reckoning that they were several days in finding it ; and the council was again summoned to decide, after long debate, in what direction they ought to steer.
After leaving Sierra Leone, they appear to have acted as if they had thrown Faiiura their instructions overboard ; for they are afterwards found far south, on the expedition coast of Brazil, not considering, in terms of their instructions, how they might best double the Cape of Good Hope, but debating on the expediency or inexpe- diency of passing the Straits of Magalhaens, though this was the direction which they had been expressly forbidden to take. It seems, however, that they would have taken it, had they not feared an encounter with the Spaniards. On this ground alone they abandoned the idea of prosecuting their voyage, and had determined to retrace their steps, when the vessels were obliged to part com- pany. The Bonaventure was the only one which reached England; and this it did by sailing northwards to St. Vincent, and then across the Atlantic. The blundering manner in which the expedition had been conducted, may perhaps explain the silence which has been kept respecting it; and yet it undoubtedly entitles England to claim the high honour of having been the fii*st European state which entered into competition with the Portuguese on their peculiar line of traffic, and sent a regular expedition for the purpose of trading with the E<ist by the way of the Cape of Good Hope. The failm-e of the expedition was not owing to its projectors; and, however much it is to be lamented, cannot derogate from their merit in having both devised the expedition, and liberally furnished it with everything deemed necessary to insure its success.
Nine years passed away before any expedition intended to reach the East by Preparations
. , . for another
the Cape quitted the shores of England. This apparent supineness, however, must voyage. })e imputed, not to indiff*erence to the object or despair of being able to accom- pUsh it, but to political causes. Philip II. of Spain was engaged in fitting out his boasted Armada, and Queen Elizabeth, in her heroic efforts to defeat him, could not spare a single seaman ; but no sooner Wcis the battle of national independence fought and won, than the determination to establish a trade in the East was resumed. Accordingly, in October, 1 589, the verj^ year after the invincible Armada was discomfited, a body of English merchants presented a memorial to the lords in council, in which, after a rapid survey of the Portuguese settlements in the East, for the purpose of showing that, in the countries bordering on the Indian
