Thomas Cavendish

Sir Thomas Cavendish (* 1555 in Trimley St. Martin near Ipswich, Suffolk, England; † February 1592 on the Atlantic ) was an English privateer and the fifth Erdumsegler.

Cavendish studied from 1575 to 1577 a short time in Cambridge to make without a degree. In 1585 he accompanied Sir Richard Grenville to Roanoke Iceland before North Carolina.

Soon after his return to England, he undertook an elaborate imitation of the great voyage of Sir Francis Drake. He equipped from its own funds three ships with 123 crew members from ( Desiré, Hugh Gallant and content ) to circumnavigate the Earth on 26 July 1586 by Plymouth from. He went to pass through the Strait of Magellan to Chile, Peru and Mexico, where he sank 19 Spanish ships. At the estuary of the Río Deseado Cavendish went ashore in 1586 and named the place Port Desire ( Puerto Deseado today ). In 1587 he reached the town of Puerto Hambre ( trans. port of hunger ) in the Strait of Magellan, where he starved the remains of the settlement and about 300 settlers and frozen vorfand. He named the place, in the English translation of the Spanish name, Port Famine.

Later, he seized on the coast of California to Santa Ana, a 600 -ton galleon of the King of Spain, the large values ​​carried with him, including 122,000 Spanish Dolaros. ( These silver dollar coins was Philip II of Spain from 1575 mint in Potosí in present-day Bolivia. They were the same weight with the Dutch Phillipusdaaldern and were often used by English privateers ( privateers ) captured. ) Reached over the Pacific Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope a ship, the Desiré (140 tons ), on September 10, 1588 Plymouth again. This trip is considered the third circumnavigation of the time.

1591 Cavendish undertook a new voyage with five ships, but had to turn back in the Strait of Magellan, as his crew mutinied. He died during the return trip on the Atlantic Ocean.