haps
greatest of all were the sailors, who, as Clarendon said, "were a
nation by themselves;" and their leaders--Drake, Frobisher, Cavendish,
Hawkins, Howard, Raleigh, Davis, and many more distinguished seamen.

They were the representative men of their time, the creation in a great
measure of the national spirit. They were the offspring of long
generations of seamen and lovers of the sea. They could not have been
great but for the nation which gave them birth, and imbued them with
their worth and spirit. The great sailors, for instance, could not
have originated in a nation of mere landsmen.

They simply took the lead in a country whose coasts were fringed with
sailors. Their greatness was but the result of an excellence in
seamanship which prevailed widely around them.

The age of English maritime adventure only began in the reign of
Elizabeth. England had then no colonies--no foreign possessions
whatever. The first of her extensive colonial possessions was
established in this reign. "Ships, colonies, and commerce" began to be
the national motto--not that colonies make ships and commerce, but that
ships and commerce make colonies. Yet what cockle-shells of ships our
pioneer navigators first sailed in!

Although John Cabot or Gabota, of Bristol, originally a citizen of
Venice, had discovered the continent of North America in 1496, in the
reign of Henry VII., he made no settlement there, but returned to
Bristol with his four small ships. Columbus did not see the continent
of America until two years later, in 1498, his first discoveries being
the islands of the West Indies.

It was not until the year 1553 that an attempt was made to discover a
North-west passage to Cathaya or China. Sir Hugh Willonghby was put in
command of the expedition, which consisted of three ships,--the Bona
Esperanza, the Bona Ventura (Captain Chancellor), and the Bona
Confidentia (Captain Durforth),--most probably ships built by
Venetians. Sir Hugh reached 72 degrees of north latitude, and was
compelled by the buffeting of the winds to take refuge with Captain
Durforth's vessel at Arcina Keca, in Russian Lapland, where the two
captains and the crews of these ships, seventy in number, were frozen
to death. In the following year some Russian fishermen found Sir John
Willonghby sitting dead in his cabin, with his diary and other papers
beside him.

Captain Chancellor was more fortunate. He reached Archangel in the
White Sea, whe