English sailors

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The Eastland Company, chartered in 1579 to trade with the Baltic, and the East India Company, chartered in 1600 to trade with Asia.

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Interpretation A is convincing in several ways. England and Spain were not at war in the 1570s, yet Drake attacked Spanish territory. In 1572-73 he raided Nombre de Dios in Panama and, with the help of the Cimarrons and French privateers, captured a mule train carrying Spanish silver. On his voyage of 1577-80 he raided Valparaíso and Callao and in March 1579 captured the treasure ship known as the Cacafuego, taking a vast cargo of silver, gold and jewels. The interpretation is also right about the queen. Elizabeth invested in the voyage in secret, while Burghley, who wanted peace, was kept in the dark. When Drake returned with treasure often estimated at about £400,000, she refused the Spanish ambassador's demands to give it back, took a large share and knighted Drake on board the Golden Hind in 1581.

However, it is less convincing to say that the voyage was only about plunder. It probably also aimed to explore the lands beyond the Strait of Magellan and find new routes to Asia. Drake found open sea south of Tierra del Fuego, searched for a North-West Passage from the Pacific side, claimed California as Nova Albion and agreed to trade with the Sultan of Ternate in the Spice Islands, loading cloves. It was the first English voyage around the world. The description of terror is also exaggerated: few people were killed during the voyage, and Spanish prisoners reported that Drake treated them courteously.

The interpretation also ignores the English view. The English saw Drake's raids as revenge for the Spanish attack at San Juan de Ulúa in 1568 and as a challenge to Spain's unfair claim to all the trade of the Americas.

Overall, Interpretation A is convincing that plunder was at the heart of Drake's activities and that Elizabeth shared in it, but it is too one-sided, because the voyage also achieved real discoveries.

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The new trading companies were important first because they found new markets for English goods when the old ones were in trouble. England's main export was woollen cloth, sold mainly through Antwerp, but the revolt in the Netherlands, the trade embargo of 1569-73 and the sack of Antwerp in 1576 badly disrupted this trade. Companies such as the Eastland Company (1579), the Turkey Company (1581), the Barbary Company (1585) and the Levant Company (1592), shown in Figure 1, gave English merchants new outlets in the Baltic, the Ottoman Empire and Morocco.

Secondly, they brought valuable goods into England. The Eastland Company imported timber, hemp, pitch and tar from the Baltic, which were vital for building and repairing ships, including the queen's navy. The Levant trade brought silks, spices and currants, and the Barbary Company brought sugar and saltpetre, which was needed for gunpowder.

Thirdly, the way they were organised was important. A royal charter gave each company the sole right to English trade with its region, and many were joint-stock companies in which investors bought shares. This spread the risks of long and dangerous voyages and allowed large sums to be raised. The queen and her courtiers invested, and the Crown gained customs duties. The companies also brought closer links with distant rulers: William Harborne became the first English ambassador to the Ottoman Sultan in 1583.

The most important long-term result was the East India Company, chartered at the very end of Elizabeth's reign in 1600. Its first voyage in 1601 began a trade with Asia that later made it one of the most powerful companies in the world and led to British rule in India. So, although cloth exports to Europe still made up most of England's trade, the companies laid the foundations of England's later trading empire.

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The desire for wealth was the most important reason for Elizabethan voyages, because it explains why investors, including the queen, were willing to pay for them. However, it was closely bound up with other reasons, especially rivalry with Catholic Spain, and some voyages were also driven by the search for glory, land and knowledge.

Wealth was clearly a powerful motive. Many voyages aimed to seize Spanish silver and gold from the Americas. Drake raided Nombre de Dios in Panama in 1572-73 and captured the treasure ship known as the Cacafuego in 1579, and the investors in his voyage around the world gained about £47 for every £1 they had put in. After war began in 1585, hundreds of privateering voyages set out to capture Spanish ships, such as the Madre de Deus in 1592. Other voyages sought wealth through trade. Hawkins's voyages of the 1560s traded enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies. When the Antwerp cloth market collapsed, culminating in the sack of Antwerp in 1576, merchants looked for new markets and for routes to the spices and silks of Asia. Frobisher's search for a North-West Passage in 1576-78 was paid for by investors hoping for trade and gold, and chartered companies such as the Levant Company (1592) and the East India Company (1600) existed to make profits. Even Raleigh, in 1595, went to Guiana in search of the gold of El Dorado.

However, rivalry with Spain and religion were also important. After the Spanish attack on Hawkins's fleet at San Juan de Ulúa in 1568, sailors such as Drake wanted revenge. Many Englishmen were Protestants who saw Catholic Spain as an enemy, and they resented Spain's claim to the Americas under the Treaty of Tordesillas. Richard Hakluyt's Discourse of Western Planting (1584), written to win support for Raleigh's plans, argued that colonies in America would provide bases against Spain and spread Protestantism. This rivalry made plunder seem patriotic rather than greedy.

The search for glory and royal favour also mattered. Drake was knighted in 1581 and Raleigh in 1585, and Raleigh named Virginia after the Virgin Queen. Some voyages aimed at colonisation: Gilbert claimed Newfoundland in 1583, and Raleigh sponsored the Roanoke colonies of 1585 and 1587, partly to find land for settlers. Curiosity and knowledge played a part as well: Thomas Harriot and John White studied and recorded the land and people of Virginia, and Hakluyt collected accounts of voyages in his Principal Navigations (1589). New ships and instruments, such as race-built galleons, the compass and the astrolabe, made such voyages possible, but they explain how rather than why people sailed.

These reasons were linked. Hostility to Spain and the hope of glory encouraged sailors, but voyages were expensive and risky, and they only happened when investors expected a profit. The queen herself invested secretly in Drake's voyage and took a large share of the treasure. Even the colonies were promoted as a source of wealth from new crops and goods.

Overall, I largely agree with the statement. The desire for wealth was the main reason, because almost every voyage depended on investors who wanted a return, but it was strengthened by rivalry with Spain and Protestant feeling, which made attacks on Spanish wealth seem a patriotic duty.