coast of Brazil. It was equipped under the auspices of the Earl of Leicester, and the queen contributed two of her ships. But the instructions were ambiguous. The North-West Passage was to be discovered if it was to be found south of 40° N., but the ships were not to be taken north of that parallel; they were not to pass through Magellan's Strait; yet they were to visit the Moluccas. The command was given to Captain Edward Fenton, the companion of Frobiser in his Arctic voyages. He was on board the galleon Leicester, of 400 tons, with young William Hawkyns, a nephew of Sir John, and Mr. Maddox, the chaplain and historian of the voyage. The other vessels were the Bonaventure, of 300 tons, commanded by Luke Ward, and the Francis, of 40 tons, under Captain John Drake, with William Markham, who had been in the Elizabeth with Captain Wynter, as master. There was also a pinnace. The expedition sailed in May, 1582, and went to the coast of Guinea, anchoring at Sierra Leone on the 10th of August. It would appear, from the journal of young Hawkyns, that Fenton wanted from a very early period to give up the voyage, and that he was only induced to proceed owing to the protests of his officers. On the 1st of November the ships crossed the line; and Fenton seems to have gone as far as 33° S. But he then turned back, and anchored in the Bay of St. Vincent, on the coast of Brazil.
At this time Don Pedro Sarmiento, with indomitable patience and perseverance, was striving to induce the incompetent commander of the Spanish fleet to proceed to Magellan's Strait, and land his colonists. Once this incapable officer, whose name was Valdez, sailed to the entrance of the strait; but, on the excuse of bad weather, he returned with the ships to ports on the coast of Brazil. Fenton was in the Bay of St. Vincent when, on the 23rd of December, 1582, three of these Spanish ships arrived and opened fire at about ten o'clock at night. The action continued until noon next day. The English succeeded in sinking one of the Spanish ships, and then put to sea, with a loss of six killed and twenty wounded. After being nearly a month off the coast, Fenton anchored in the mouth of the River Espíritu Santo, and obtained a small cargo of sugar, with which he sailed home, arriving at Kinsale on the 14th of June, 1583. This was a mismanaged business, although Fenton afterwards did good service in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. He died at Deptford in 1603.
The Francis parted company in a gale before Fenton put into
