Note 1 — THOMAS CAVENDISH, GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER. CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND ENGLISHMAN WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED THE GLOBE.

Captain John Davis achieved in this early age deserved celebrity as a navigator and discoverer. He made three voyages, under the sanction and authority of the English Government, in search of a North-West passage to the Pacific. In the first, in 1585, he pushed his way round the southern end of Greenland, across the strait that from then until now has borne his name—Davis Strait—and along the coast of what is now known as Baffin’s Land, to the Cape of God’s Mercy, which he thus named in the belief that his task was virtually accomplished. In the second voyage, 1586, he made little further progress; in the third, 1587, he reached the entrance to the strait afterwards explored by, and named after, Hudson. Davis, after other important nautical services, was, when on his return from the East Indies, killed by pirates off the coast of Malacca. Davis was an author as well as a navigator.