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: In this letter,
preserved by Hakluyt, several very good remarks will be found respecting
the navigation to India, as practised in those days; yet no mention is
made in the letter, as to the profession of Stevens, or on what occasion
he went to India. By the letters of Newberry and Fitch[397], which will
be found in their proper place, written from Goa in 1584, it appears
that he was a priest or Jesuit, belonging to the college of St Paul at
that place; whence it may be concluded that the design of his voyage was
to propagate the Romish religion in India. In a marginal note to one of
these letters, Hakluyt intimates that _Padre_ Thomas Stevens was born in
Wiltshire, and was sometime of New College Oxford. He was very
serviceable to Newberry and Fitch, who acknowledge that they owed the
recovery of their liberty and goods, if not their lives, to him and
another _Padre_. This is also mentioned by Pyrard de la Val, who was
prisoner at Goa in 1608, at which time Stevens was rector of Morgan
College in the island of Salcet[398]."--_Astley._

[Footnote 397: In Hakluyts Collection, new edition, II. 376. et seq.]

[Footnote 398: Purchas his Pilgrims, II. 1670.]

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