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day as the fowls of the air do'. 6 At last, on 24 February, they passed
Cape Pilar and Cavendish became the first commander to lead a con-
voy intact into the Pacific.
The soft underbelly of Spain's American empire now lay ex-
posed, and he was intent on inflicting severe wounds upon it en
passant. In the event, he indulged in an orgy of destruction surpass-
ing even that perpetrated by Drake. One reason for this was that the
enemy was now in a better state of preparedness than it had been
eight years before. As the English fleet proceeded northwards, alarm
signals went before it, carried by sea and land. Coastal towns looked
to their defences and occasionally the colonists went onto the of-
fensive. When Cavendish sent a party ashore for fresh water south of
Valparaiso two hundred horsemen appeared over the dunes. In the
ensuing skirmish twelve Englishmen were slain and several others
were taken prisoner.
In April 1587 the fleet entered the tropic zone and Cavendish
put into Arica where he took four merchant ships and held them to
ransom, demanding the return of his captured men. But the Span-
ish authorities were under strict instructions not to give way to ter-
rorism. Thus when the English sailed away without their colleagues
they left four prime merchant vessels at the bottom of the harbour.
Those were the first of more than a dozen ships and three towns that
Cavendish burned along that coast, having first plundered them of
anything of value. Among the assorted merchandise that fell into his
hands there was very little in the way of treasure, but food, wine,
navigational instruments and charts were almost as welcome to men
with thousands of miles sailing still ahead. Cavendish was particu-
larly pleased to capture a Greek pilot, Jorge Carandino, who knew
the local waters, and to replace the leaky Hugh Gallant with another
vessel renamed the George.
The fleet had been careened and refitted on the coast of Mexico
when Cavendish received news of a great ship on her way back from
 
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