Thomas Cavendish: Blue Silk Sails and the Unarmed Santa Ana Galleon

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Thomas Cavendish was born in 1560 in Suffolk, inherited a large estate at 12, enrolled at Cambridge at 15, then dropped out and spent his fortune in Elizabethan high society. Between 1583 and 1585 he was dragged into court for unpaid debts. His friends Richard Hakluyt, Thomas Harriot and Walter Raleigh became his lifeline: Raleigh shielded him from creditors and helped him learn navigation. In 1585 Cavendish sailed as second in command to Richard Grenville on the Roanoke colony voyage, steering the Elizabeth through a storm to the Caribbean rendezvous, but came home with experience and no profit. When England and Spain went to war in 1586, he planned a pure raiding voyage with the 120-ton Desire, the Content and the Hugh Gallant, and became the first to set out deliberately to circumnavigate the globe.

After the Strait of Magellan he scuttled the Hugh Gallant for lack of crew, raided about nine Spanish ships, and learned from a captured pilot where the Manila galleon stopped. In November 1587 off Cape San Lucas he caught the 600-ton Santa Ana, stripped of heavy cannon to carry more cargo, and took about 122,000 pesos of gold plus silk, musk and wine. He marooned the prisoners and burned the ship. The Content vanished days later. Cavendish reached Plymouth in September 1588, just after the Armada's defeat, and was knighted by Elizabeth. His 1591 return voyage with John Davis collapsed on the Brazilian coast, and he died at sea in 1592, aged 31.

• His crew salted two barrels of penguin meat in two hours while passing the Strait of Magellan.
• Grapeshot let him shred the Santa Ana's rigging and crew without sinking the treasure.
• The stranded Spaniards put out the fire on the Santa Ana and limped to Acapulco.
• Sailors traded rotting wool for uniforms of stolen damask silk, and the Desire sailed up the Thames under blue silk sails.
• His last letter blamed John Davis as the villain behind the second voyage's failure.