CAVENDISH or CANDISH, THOMAS the third circumnavigator of the globe, was born in Trimley St. Martin, Suffolk, and educated at Corpus Christi college, Cam bridge. In 1585 he accompanied Sir Richard Grenville to America. Soon returning to England, he undertook an elaborate imitation of Drake's great voyage. On July 21, 1586, he sailed from Plymouth with 123 men in three vessels, only one of which (the "Desire," of 140 tons) came home. By way of Sierra Leone, the Cape Verde islands and C. Frio in Brazil, he coasted down to Pata gonia (where he discovered "Port Desire," his only important con tribution to knowledge), and passing through Magellan's straits fell upon the Spanish settlements and shipping on the west coast of South and Central America and of Mexico. Among his captures was the treasure-galleon, the "Great St. Anne," which he cap tured off Cape St. Lucas, the southern extremity of California (Nov. 14, 1587) . After this success he struck across the Pacific for home ; touched at the Ladrones, Philippines, Moluccas and Java; rounded the Cape of Good Hope ; and arrived again at Plymouth (Sept. 9-10, 1588), having circumnavigated the globe in two years and 5o days. It is said that his sailors were clothed in silk, his sails were damask, and his top-mast covered with cloth of gold. Yet by 1S91 he was again in difficulties, and planned a fresh American and Pacific venture. John Davis (q.v.) accom panied him, but the voyage (undertaken with five vessels) was an utter failure. He died and was buried at sea, on the way home, May 20, 1592.
See Hakluyt's Principal Navigation, (a) edition of 1589, p. 809 (N.H.'s narrative of the voyage of 1586-1588) ; (b) edition of 1599 (60o, vol. iii. pp. 803-825 (Francis Pretty's narrative of the same) ; (c) edition of 1599-1600, vol. iii. pp. 251-253 (on the venture of 1585) ; (d) edition of 1599-160o, vol. iii. pp. 845-852 (John Lane's narrative of the last voyage, of 1591-1592) ; also Stationer? Registers (Arber) , vol. ii. pp. 505-509; the Molyneux Globe of 1592, in the library of the Middle Temple, London, and the Ballads in Biog. Brit., vol. i. p. 1196; E. S. Payne, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America (2 vols., 1893-1900) .