Commerce with Eussia and the Levant was established.

The slave-trade in its worst form was commenced by the celebrated Hawkins.

Sir Martin Frobisher explored the northern shores of America as far as Hudsons Bay.

The most celebrated navigator of the day was Francis Drake, who, after various adventures in commerce and piracy, took, with a pri- vate force, a Spanish town on the isthmus of Panama, and ascending the mountains, beheld the Pacific Ocean.

Five years afterwards, in 1577, he set sail, with a very small equipment, for the Pacific, and having lost all his vessels except one, cruised along the western coast of South America, plundering all Spanish vessels which he intend; then stretching boldly to the west, he weathered the Cape of Good Hope, and reached England, after a voyage of three years, during which he had circumnavigated the globe, and taken plunder to the amount of near four millions of dollars.