united crews, of officers, men, and boys, did not exceed 123!
Cavendish sailed along the South American continent, and made
through the Straits of Magellan, reaching the Pacific Ocean. He
burnt and plundered the Spanish settlements along the coast,
captured some Spanish ships, and took by boarding the galleon St.
Anna, with 122,000 Spanish dollars on board. He then sailed
across the Pacific to the Ladrone Islands, and returned home
through the Straits of Java and the Indian Archipelago by the
Cape of Good Hope, and reached England after an absence of two
years and a month.

The sacred and invincible Armada was now ready, Philip II. was
determined to put down those English adventurers who had swept
the coasts of Spain and plundered his galleons on the high seas.
The English sailors knew that the sword of Philip was forged in
the gold mines of South America, and that the only way to defend
their country was to intercept the plunder on its voyage home to
Spain. But the sailors and their captains--Drake, Hawkins,
Frobisher, Howard, Grenville, Raleigh, and the rest--could not
altogether interrupt the enterprise of the King of Spain. The
Armada sailed, and came in sight of the English coast on the 20th
of July, 1588.

The struggle was of an extraordinary character. On the one side
was the most powerful naval armament that had ever put to sea.
It consisted of six squadrons of sixty fine large ships, the
smallest being of 700 tons. Besides these were four gigantic
galleasses, each carrying fifty guns, four large armed galleys,
fifty-six armed merchant ships, and twenty caravels--in all, 149
vessels. On board were 8000 sailors, 20,000 soldiers, and a