But as the Italian whom we mentioned just now got to India by the overland route, so an Englishman named Ralph Fitch, a London merchant, being desirous to see the Orient, reached Goa in India via Syria and Ormuz. He set sail from Gravesend on 13th February 1582, left Falmouth on 11th March, and then never put in anywhere till the ship landed him at Tripoli in Syria on the following 30th April. After being absent from home nine years, Fitch came back in an English ship to London in April 1591. The reports which he brought were similar to the Italian’s verdict. India was rich in pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmegs, sandalwood, camphor, amber, sapphires, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and so on. There was not the slightest doubt that it was the country to trade with. But, as yet, no English ship had found the way thither.
During the years 1585-1587 John Davis tried to find a way thither by the North-West Passage. Davis had a fine reputation as “a man very well grounded in the principles of the Arte of Navigation,” but none the less his efforts were unavailing. In 1588 the coming of the expected Armada turned the energies of the English seamen into another channel. But already, in the year 1586, Thomas Candish had set out from Plymouth with the _Desire_, 120 tons, the _Content_ of 60 tons and the _Hugh Gallant_ of 40 tons, victualled for two years and well found at his own expense. Journeying via Sierra Leone, Brazil and the Magellan Straits, he reached the Pacifice and China, and after touching at the Philippine Islands passed through the Straits of Java. From Java he crossed the ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, was able to correct the errors in the Portuguese sea “carts,” and in September 1588 reached Plymouth once more, having learnt from a Flemish craft bound from Lisbon that the Spanish Armada had been defeated, “to the singular rejoycing and comfort of us all.”[A]
The value of this voyage round the world was, from a navigator’s point of view, of inestimable advantage. For the benefit of those English navigators who were, a few years later, to begin the ceaseless voyages backwards and forwards round the Cape of Good Hope, between England and India, Candish made the most elaborate notes and sailing directions, giving the latitudes (or, as the Elizabethans called them, “the heights”) of most of the places passed or visited. Very elaborate soundings were taken and recorded, giving the depth in fathoms and the nature of the sea-bed, wherever they went round the world, if the depth was not too great. In addition, he gave the courses from place to place, the distances, where to anchor, what dangers to avoid, providing warning of any difficult straits or channels, the variation of the compass at different places, the direction of the wind from certain dates to certain dates, and so on. But this, valuable as it undoubtedly was in many ways, did not exhaust the utility of the voyage. From China, whither the ships of the East India Company some years later were to trade, “I have brought such intelligence,” he wrote on his return to the Lord Chamberlain, “as hath not bene heard of in these parts. The stateliness and riches of which countrey I feare to make report of, least I should not be credited: for if I had not knowen sufficiently the incomparable wealth of that countrey, I should have bene as incredulous thereof, as others will be that have not had the like experience.”