Cavendish, THOMAS

Cavendish, THOMAS, circumnavigator, was born about 1555 at Trimley St Martin, near Ipswich, and, after squandering his patrimony at court, shared in Grenville's expedition to Virginia (1585). On 21st July of the following year he sailed from Plymouth with 122 men and three ships of 40, 60, and 140 tons, and, by Sierra Leone and Brazil, reached the Strait of Magellan, whose passage took seven weeks. During the nine months that he cruised in the Pacific, he burned three Spanish towns and thirteen ships; then, with a rich booty, but only the largest of his three vessels, he returned by way of the Indian Archipelago and the Cape of Good Hope to England, 10th September 1588. Elizabeth knighted him, and he took to his old mode of life, till in August 1591 he sailed on a second expedition, intended to rival the first. It ended in utter disaster, and in 1592 Cavendish died broken-hearted off Ascension.