United States or Macao ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


But when was Jacob Heemskerk ever known to shrink from an encounter whether from single-handed combat with a polar bear, or from leading a forlorn hope against a Spanish fort, or from assailing a Portuguese armada. The carrack, more than one thousand tons burthen, carried seventeen guns, and at least eight times as many men as he commanded.

Nevertheless, after a combat of but brief duration Heemskerk was master of the carrack: He spared the lives of his seven hundred prisoners, and set them on shore before they should have time to discover to what a handful of Dutchmen they had surrendered.

Then dividing about a million florins' worth of booty among his men, who doubtless found such cruising among the spice-islands more attractive than wintering at the North Pole, he sailed in the carrack for Macao, where he found no difficulty in convincing the authorities of the celestial empire that the friendship of the Dutch republic was worth cultivating.

But when was Jacob Heemskerk ever known to shrink from an encounter whether from single-handed combat with a polar bear, or from leading a forlorn hope against a Spanish fort, or from assailing a Portuguese armada. The carrack, more than one thousand tons burthen, carried seventeen guns, and at least eight times as many men as he commanded.

But when was Jacob Heemskerk ever known to shrink from an encounter whether from single-handed combat with a polar bear, or from leading a forlorn hope against a Spanish fort, or from assailing a Portuguese armada. The carrack, more than one thousand tons burthen, carried seventeen guns, and at least eight times as many men as he commanded.

Many varieties of vessels are mentioned in the records of Prince Henry's time the barca, barinel, caravel, nau, fusta; the galley, galiot, galeass, and galleon; the brigantine and carrack. Of all these the caravel became the favored for the long, exploring voyages. It was usually from sixty to one hundred feet long and eighteen to twenty-five feet broad, and of about two hundred tons burden.

It was March, 1496, when he sailed in the Nina. It was the summer of 1498 when Juan Lepe was sent as physician with two ships put forth from San Domingo by the Adelantado upon a rumor that the Portuguese had trespassed, landing from a great carrack upon Guadaloupe. Five days from Hispaniola we met a hurricane that carried us out of all reckoning. When stillness came again we were far south.

That very year, a Spanish carrack had been captured by the English off the Barbary coast, with an assorted cargo, the miscellaneous nature of which gives an idea of royal commercial pursuits at that period.