Perhaps the deficiency, being 40 in
the largest ships of this list, was made up by what were then called
_grummets:_ servants, ship-boys, or landsmen. - E.]
[Footnote B: This name ought probably to have been the Cygnet.]
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY VOYAGES OF THE ENGLISH TO THE EAST INDIES, BEFORE THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF AN EXCLUSIVE COMPANY.
SECTION I.
_Voyage to Goa in 1579, in the Portuguese fleet, by Thomas
Stevens_[396].
INTRODUCTION.
We now begin to draw towards India, the following being the first
voyage we know of, that was performed to that country by any Englishman.
Though Stevens was only a passenger in the ship of another nation, yet
the account he gave of the navigation was doubtless one of the motives
that induced his countrymen to visit India a few years afterwards in
their own bottoms. Indeed the chief and more immediate causes seem to
have been the rich caraks, taken in the cruizing voyages against the
Spaniards and Portuguese about this time, which both gave the English
some insight into the India trade, and inflamed their desire of
participating in so rich a commerce.
[Footnote 396: Hakluyt, II, 581. Astley, I. 191.]
The account of this voyage is contained in the following letter from
Thomas Stevens, to his father Thomas Stevens in London:
