Sir Martin Frobisher was an English sailor and privateer who made three voyages to the New World looking for the North-west Passage. He probably sighted Resolution Island near Labrador in north-eastern Canada, before entering Frobisher Bay and landing on present-day Baffin Island. On his second voyage, Frobisher found what he thought was gold ore and carried 200 tons of it home on three ships, where initial assaying determined it to be worth a profit of £5.20 per ton. Encouraged, Frobisher returned to Canada with an even larger fleet and dug several mines around Frobisher Bay. He carried 1,350 tons of the ore back to England, where, after years of smelting, it was realized that the ore was a worthless rock containing the mineral hornblende. As an English privateer, he plundered riches from French ships. He was later knighted for his service in repelling the Spanish Armada in 1588.
Sir Thomas Cavendish was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavigating the globe. Magellan's, Loaisa's, Drake's, and Loyola's expeditions had preceded Cavendish in circumnavigating the globe. His first trip and successful circumnavigation made him rich from captured Spanish gold, silk and treasure from the Pacific and the Philippines. His richest prize was the captured 600-ton sailing ship the Manila Galleon Santa Ana. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I of England after his return. He later set out for a second raiding and circumnavigation trip but was not as fortunate and died at sea at the age of 31.
Galleon were typically a three-masted, multi-decked sailing ships type developed in the 16th century Spain. Contrary to the popular opinion, the galleone isn't a cumbersome merchant-ship, but rather in its original application a warship that was quick for its era. Due to its superior military properties, the galleon was adopted by almost all seafaring nations in Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail.
John Davis was one of the chief navigators of Queen Elizabeth I of England. He led several voyages to discover the Northwest Passage and served as pilot and captain on both Dutch and English voyages to the East Indies. He discovered the Falkland Islands in August 1592.
Revenge was an English race-built galleon of 46 guns, built in 1577 and captured by the Spanish in 1591, sinking soon afterwards. She was the first of 13 English and Royal Navy ships to bear the name.
A carrack is a three- or four-masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolved from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for European trade from the Mediterranean to the Baltic and quickly found use with the newly found wealth of the trade between Europe and Africa and then the trans-Atlantic trade with the Americas. In their most advanced forms, they were used by the Portuguese for trade between Europe and Asia starting in the late 15th century, before eventually being superseded in the 17th century by the galleon, introduced in the 16th century.
The naval Battle of Vila Franca do Campo, also known as Battle of Ponta Delgada and Naval Battle of Terceira Island, took place on 26 July 1582, off the coast of the island of São Miguel in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores, during the War of the Portuguese Succession. A combined corsair expedition, mainly French, sailed against a Spanish naval force made up of Portuguese and Castilian ships, to preserve control of the Azores under the pretender António, Prior of Crato and to defend the islands from incorporation into the Iberian Union, the largest French force sent overseas before the age of Louis XIV.
Madre de Deus was a Portuguese ocean-going carrack, renowned for her capacious cargo and provisions for long voyages. She was returning from her second voyage East under Captain Fernão de Mendonça Furtado when she was captured by the English during the Battle of Flores in 1592 during the Anglo–Spanish War. Her subsequent capture stoked the English appetite for trade with the Far East, then a Portuguese monopoly.
Singeing the King of Spain's Beard is the derisive name given to a series of attacks by the English privateer Francis Drake against the Spanish in the summer of 1587, beginning in April with a raid on Cádiz. This was an attack on the Spanish naval forces assembling in the Bay of Cádiz in preparation for the planned expedition against England. Much of the Spanish fleet was destroyed, and substantial supplies were destroyed or captured. There followed a series of raiding parties against several forts along the Portuguese coast. A Spanish treasure ship, returning from the Indies, was also captured. The damage caused by the English delayed Spanish preparations for the Armada by at least a year.
The Islands Voyage, also known as the Essex-Raleigh Expedition, was an ambitious, but unsuccessful naval campaign sent by Queen Elizabeth I of England, and supported by the United Provinces, against the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire of Philip II from the House of Habsburg during the Anglo–Spanish War (1585–1604) and the Eighty Years' War.
The Battle of Sesimbra Bay was a naval engagement that took place on 3 June 1602, during the Anglo-Spanish War. It was fought off the coast of Portugal between an English naval expeditionary force sent out with orders by Queen Elizabeth I to prevent any further Spanish incursions against Ireland or England itself. The English force under Richard Leveson and William Monson met a fleet of Spanish galleys and a large carrack at Sesimbra Bay commanded by Álvaro de Bazán and Federico Spinola. The English were victorious in battle, sinking two galleys, forced the rest to retreat, neutralized the fort, and captured the carrack in what was the last expedition to be sent to Spain by orders of the Queen before her death the following year.
The Action of Faial or the Battle of Faial Island was a naval engagement that took place on 22–23 June 1594 during the Anglo-Spanish War in which the large and richly laden 2,000-ton Portuguese carrack Cinco Chagas was destroyed by an English fleet after a long and bitter battle off Faial Island in the Azores. The carrack, which was reputedly one of the richest ever to set sail from the Indies, was lost in an explosion which denied the English, as well as the Portuguese and Spanish, the treasure.
The Capture of Recife also known as James Lancaster's 1595 Expedition or Lancaster's Pernambucan expedition was an English military expedition during the Anglo–Spanish War in which the primary objective was the capture of the town and port of Recife in the Captaincy of Pernambuco in the Portuguese colony of Brazil in April 1595. An English expedition of ships led by James Lancaster sailed via the Atlantic capturing numerous prizes before he captured Recife. He held the place for nearly a month and then proceeded to defeat a number of Portuguese counterattacks before leaving. The booty captured was substantial, Lancaster chartered Dutch and French ships that were also present there thus making the expedition a military and financial success.
The Nossa Senhora da Graça incident (ノサ・セニョーラ・ダ・グラサ号事件), alternatively called the Madre de Deus incident (マードレ・デ・デウス号事件), was a four-day naval battle between a Portuguese carrack and Japanese samurai junks belonging to the Arima clan near the waters of Nagasaki in 1610. The richly laden "great ship of commerce", famed as the "black ship" by the Japanese, sank after its captain André Pessoa set the gunpowder storage on fire as samurai overran the vessel. This desperate and fatal resistance impressed the Japanese, and memories of the event persisted even into the 19th century.
The Blockade of Western Cuba, also known as the Watts' West Indies Expedition of 1591, was an English privateering naval operation that took place off the Spanish colonial island of Cuba in the Caribbean during the Anglo–Spanish War. The expedition along with the blockade took place between May and July 1591 led by Ralph Lane and Michael Geare with a large financial investment from John Watts and Sir Walter Raleigh. They intercepted and took a number of Spanish ships, some of which belonged to a Spanish plate convoy of Admiral Antonio Navarro, and protected by the Spanish navy under Admiral Diego de la Ribera intending to rid English privateers. The English took or burnt a total of ten Spanish ships including two galleons, one of which was a valuable prize. With this success and the loss of only one ship the blockade and expedition was terminated for the return to England. The blockade was one of the most successful English expeditions to the Spanish Main during the war militarily and financially.
The Azores Voyage of 1589, also known as Cumberland's Third Voyage, was a series of conflicts in the Azores islands between August and September 1589 by an English military joint stock expedition led by George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, during the Anglo–Spanish War. All the islands were attacked either for provisions or the attainment of Spanish and Portuguese prizes. A number of Portuguese and Spanish ships were captured and also included a battle at Faial which resulted in the capture of the fort and the main town, which was subsequently sacked and burned. The English were able to return home unmolested with a total of thirteen prizes – the expedition was a success and with a good profit for the investors although many people died to disease and storms.
Watts' West Indies and Virginia expedition also known as the Action of Cape Tiburon was an English expedition to the Spanish Main during the Anglo–Spanish War. The expedition began on 10 May and ended by 18 July 1590 and was commanded by Abraham Cocke and Christopher Newport. This was financed by the highly renowned London merchant John Watts. The English ships intercepted and dispersed Spanish convoys capturing, sinking, and grounding many ships off the Spanish colonies of Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica. Despite losing an arm, Newport was victorious and captured a good haul of booty. A breakaway expedition from this discovered that the Roanoke Colony was completely deserted and which gave the name The Lost Colony.
Dainty was an English race-built galleon that began to be built in 1588. The original name was Repentance, but this was soon changed. It participated in some naval engagements in the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). In 1593 it sailed from England under Richard Hawkins to navigate the Pacific Ocean and circumnavigate the world, but was captured the following year by the Spaniards when it was sailing off the coast of what is now Ecuador. It was commissioned by the Spaniards as Nuestra Señora de la Visitación, serving in the South Pacific for several years.
Sir John Burgh (1562–1594) was an English military and naval commander and privateer. He took troops from Lincolnshire to serve in the Netherlands in 1585; was subsequently knighted; made governor of Doesburg; and governor of the Briel in early 1588; commanded one of the English regiments which helped Henry IV of France in 1589–90, and was knighted on the field at Ivry in 1590; finally commanded the squadron which captured the great Spanish treasure-ship off the Azores in 1592, and was killed in a duel respecting the plunder.
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