ative; at all events, it was
written by some person actually engaged in the voyage. It is very
singular that Sir Edward Michelburne, though a member of the first East
India Company, and the fourth of the list in the original patent, should
have set forth this voyage on private account.

[Footnote 65: Purchas his Pilgrims, I. 192. Astley, I. 306.]

We learn from the annals, of the India Company, that the lord-treasurer
of England, in 1600, when the company was first instituted, proposed
that Sir Edward Michelburne should be appointed to command the first
fleet dispatched to India; but this was firmly declined, as will
afterwards appear. Sir Edward now commanded what may be called an
interloping trading voyage to India, under a licence granted by James I.
in absolute contravention of the exclusive privilege granted to the
Company.--E.

* * * * *

The 5th of December, 1604, we sailed from Cowes, in the Isle of Wight,
and arrived in the road of Aratana, in the island of Teneriffe, on the
23d of that month. During the whole night of the 14th January, 1605, we
were troubled with excessive heat, thunder, lightning, and rain. The 6th
we passed the line, shaping our course for the isle of _Noronha_, with
the wind at S.S.E., our course being S.S.W. About three degrees south of
the line, we met with incredible multitudes of fish; so that, with hooks
and harping irons, we took so many dolphins, bonitos, and other fishes,
that our men were quite weary with eating them. There were likewise many
fowls, called _parharaboves_ and _alcatrarzes_. We took many of the
former, as it delights to come to a ship in the night-time, insomuch,
that if you hold up your hand, they will light upon it. The alcatrarze
is a kind of hawk that lives on fish; for, when the bonitos and dolphins
chase the flying fishes in the water till they are forced to take wing
for safety, the alcatrarzes fly after them like hawks after partridges.
I have seen often so many of these flying fishes at one time in the air,
that they appeared at a distance like a large flock of birds. They are
small fishes, hardly so large as a herring.

The 22d of January we came to anchor at the island of Fernando Noronba,
in lat. 4 deg. S. where our skiff was overset going ashore, by the violence
of the surf, and Richard Michelburne, a kinsman of our general, was
drowned, all the rest being saved. The 25th, our long-boat, while going
to fill some empty