Sir Martin Frobisher, the first navigator to attempt to find the north-west passage to India, and from whom comes the name Frobisher’s Strait, to the south of Baffin Land, was knighted, along with Townshend and Beeston, for his services in the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Sir Francis Drake, the great Admiral of Queen Elizabeth’s time, made many adventurous voyages, partly for discovery and partly for plunder, and was the first Englishman to sail round the world.  He brought news of the existence of gold in some places where he had been, and when he returned his well-filled ship stimulated others to emulate the Spaniards in that direction.

Sir Walter Raleigh, who was described as a scholar, courtier, soldier, sailor, and statesman, discovered Virginia in 1584.  He was in great favour at Court, but he quarrelled with Queen Elizabeth, who had granted him a Patent for the discovery and settlement of unknown countries in the West.  When James I ascended the throne he was suspected of being a conspirator and was sentenced to death, but the sentence was altered to imprisonment in the Tower of London, where during his twelve years’ confinement he wrote his History of the World.  In 1615 James set him at liberty, and put him at the head of an expedition to Guinea to find gold, but, being unsuccessful, on his return he was beheaded in Old Palace Yard in 1618—­a sad ending to a great career.  It was at Virginia that he discovered tobacco, and possibly the potato, for he introduced both these plants into England; and “Virginia Leaf” tobacco is still the finest produced in America.  Sir Walter explored the place when it was named Pamlico Sound, but it was afterwards named “Virginia” by Queen Elizabeth herself, and to Sir Walter Raleigh’s efforts to colonise this and other places we owe many of our possessions to-day.  In the struggle for independence Virginia took the lead, and the first Representative Assembly in America was held there, while in the war between the North and South it was the scene of the last battle and the final surrender.

Captain James Cook, whose book Voyages round the World is now a classic, made many discoveries for Great Britain, including that of the Sandwich Islands; and he sailed from Plymouth on two occasions, 1768 and 1772.  He made three voyages round the world, but on the third was murdered by natives at Hawaii.  He discovered Botany Bay in New South Wales in 1770, which was afterwards made a penal colony, whither early in the year 1787 eleven ships sailed from Plymouth, with 800 criminals, over 200 officials, and many free settlers.