[Footnote 64:  This portion of the voyage is taken from the supplement in the Collection of Harris, to the circumnavigation of Sir Thomas Candish.—­E.]

In this letter he complained also of mutinies, and that, by adverse winds at S W. and W.S.W. he had been driven 400 leagues from the shore, and from the latitude of 50 deg. to that of 40 deg. both S. He says also, that he was surprised by winter in the straits, and sore vexed by storms, having such frosts and snows in May as he had never before witnessed,[65] so that forty of his men died, and seventy more of them sickened, in the course of seven or eight days.  Davis, as he says, deserted him in the Desire, in lat. 47 deg.  S. The Roebuck continued along with him to lat. 36 deg.  S. In consequence of transgressing his directions, Captain Barker was slain on land with twenty-five men, and the boat lost; and soon afterwards other twenty-five men met with a similar fate.  Ten others were forsaken at Spiritu Santo, by the cowardice of the master of the Roebuck, who stole away, having six months provisions on board for 120 men, and only forty-seven men in his ship.  Another mutiny happened at St Sebastians by the treachery of an Irishman, when Mr Knivet and other six persons were left on shore.

[Footnote 65:  Sir Thomas Candish seems not to have been aware, that the month of May, in these high antarctic or southern latitudes, was precisely analogous with November in the high latitudes of the north, and therefore utterly unfit for navigation.—­E.]

Intending again to have attempted passing through the straits, he was tossed up and down in the tempestuous seas of the Southern Atlantic, and came even at one time within two leagues of St Helena, but was unable to reach that island.  In his last letter, he declares that, rather than return to England after so many disasters, he would willingly have gone ashore in an island placed in lat. 8 deg. in the charts.  In this letter, he states himself to be then scarcely able to hold a pen; and we learn that he soon afterwards died of grief.  The Leicester, in which Candish sailed, came home, as did the Desire.  The Black pinnace was lost; but the fates of the Roebuck and the Dainty are no where mentioned.

The miscarriage of this voyage was certainly prejudicial to the rising trade and spirit of naval adventure in England.  The ruin of Sir Thomas Candish threw a damp on such undertakings among the English gentlemen; and, on the return of these ships, several able and experienced seamen were turned adrift, to gain their livings as they best might.  These thorough-bred seamen went to other countries; and, as knowledge is a portable commodity, they made the best market they could of their nautical experience in Holland and elsewhere.  Among these was one Mr Mellish, who had been a favourite of Sir Thomas Candish, and the companion of all his voyages.  This person offered his services to the East India Company of Holland, then in its infancy; and, his proposals being accepted, he was employed as pilot in the circumnavigation of Oliver van Noort, which falls next in order to be related.