Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
was ever heard of her. The most likely explanation is that her captain
turned the vessel round and tried to return home the way he had
come and that the
Content
was either lost at sea or fell foul of the
Spaniards. After the capture of the
Santa Ana
there had been argu-
ment among the men over the spoil. Cavendish had given in to their
demands for an immediate share-out. This was his first real sign of
weakness as a leader and it was certainly a tactical blunder. With
their purses already well lined, the sailors had no incentive to face
the largely-unknown dangers of the wide, empty Pacific. Small won-
der, then, if the
Content
's captain, either willingly or under pressure
from his crew, took what he believed to be the easier route home.
Cavendish, holding to his purpose, now came to what he re-
garded as the most important part of the voyage: gathering informa-
tion about the Orient trade. The
Desire
reached the Philippines on 14
January 1588 and anchored off Samoór whose people proved friendly
and informative about the Spaniards. Cavendish was scarcely cir-
cumspect in his dealings with the enemy. He toured the islands,
carefully noting details of strategic interest. His men had occasional
brushes with the Spaniards. And he even sent messages of defiance
to the authorities. Yet, when the pilot, Alonso, was detected smug-
gling a message to the Spanish governor, Cavendish promptly had
him hanged from a yardarm. The English swaggered around with
such braggadocio that the outraged Bishop of the Philippines com-
plained to his royal master:
The grief that afflicts me is not because the barbarian infidel has
robbed us of the ship Santa Ana . . . but because an English youth
of about twenty-two years, with a wretched little vessel of about a
hundred tons and forty or fifty companions, should dare to come to
my own place of residence, defy us, and boast of the damage he had
wrought . . . He went from our midst laughing, without anyone molest-
ing or troubling him
.
8
