spirited assertions of English independence of the famous decree of Pope Alexander VI dividing the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese were amongst the most potent of the causes which led to the despatch of the Spanish Armada in 1588. And the defeat of the Armada in its turn was another important link in the chain of circumstances which associates Drake's adventure with the establishment of British power in the East. For the victory not only freed England from a foreign religious despotism, but it threw open the seas of the world to her trade. The influence which for nearly a century had made the whole of the opulent markets of the Orient a close preserve for Spain and Portugal was, in fact, fatally undermined by the three days' struggle in the English Channel and the subsequent chase. The bleaching timbers of the Spanish galleons on the Irish and Scotch coasts were the monuments of a dead era. From that time England set her face towards the East, never again to turn from it.
Though the defeat of the Spanish Armada was the real turning point in the history of English expansion overseas the keen spirit of adventure which had been aroused by Drake's circumnavigation of the world found active expression in several directions prior to the great sea victory. One enterprise which grew out of the enthusiasm of the period was an expedition organized by the Earl of Leicester under the direct patronage of Elizabeth for purposes of trade with the East by way of the Cape. To disguise the real purpose of the voyage it was given out that its object was the discovery of the North-West passage to India—that will o' the wisp which in the earlier period of the century then closing had lured so many intrepid English and Dutch navigators to splendid failures in the
