ships. At the age of twenty he made his first long voyage to the West Indies, with his uncle William, and displayed both boldness and sagacity. One of the ships had been reported to he unseaworthy, and it had been arranged that the stores should be taken out of her and that she should be sunk. But young Richard volunteered, with as many men as would stand by him, to take her home. From his return in 1583 to 1588 he was constantly employed, and he commanded the Swallow in the fleet which defeated the Spanish Armada.
At the end of the same year, with the consent and help of his father, he prepared for a voyage to India by way of the Strait of Magellan and the South Sea, with the intention of discovering and exploring unknown lands, and reporting upon their inhabitants, governments, and the commodities they yielded. With this object he caused a ship to be built in the Thames, "pleasing to the eye, profitable for stowage, good for sayle, and well-conditioned." His step-mother asked to be allowed to christen the ship, and named her the Repentance, saying it was the safest ship we could sail in to purchase the haven of heaven. But when Queen Elizabeth passed on her way to Greenwich Palace she ordered her bargemen to row round her, and said that she misliked nothing but the name. Her majesty christened her anew, and ordered that henceforth she should be called the Dainty. She was a ship of about 350 tons. Other duties delayed the voyage, and meanwhile the Dainty was employed in the queen's service; but in April, 1593, Richard Hawkyns sailed on his daring enterprise. He was then in his thirtieth year, with several years' experience as a sea-captain, observant and eager to adopt every improvement, and paying close attention to each detail of his work. The most important event in his voyage across the Atlantic was the sighting of land on the 2nd of February, 1594, in 50° S., and about fifty leagues from the Strait of Magellan. He called it "Hawkyns's Maiden Land," not being aware that it had already been discovered by John Davis in 1592.
On the 10th of February, Richard Hawkyns entered the Strait of Magellan. He described the appearance of the land, the different birds met with, and those available for fresh food, and prepared useful sailing directions throughout. His was the mind of an observant explorer. He also enriched his narrative with valuable suggestions respecting the sheathing of ships' bottoms and the
