western coast: Wyndham led an expedition to Guinea in 1553 , John Lok an-
other in 1554 , and William Towerson several, in 1555 – 58.^19 During this period,
Turkish advances in the Mediterranean were temporarily obstructing En-
gland’s access to North Africa as well as to the Levant. But if the Turkish pres-
ence necessitated the move toward Guinea, the Portuguese provided both the
model, and, in some cases, the means—the pilots, captains, routes, and even
ships. The Portuguese were the first to discover how Atlantic winds and cur-
rents moved; and though the English were already fairly able to sail south-
wards, this new navigational information allowed them to negotiate the more
forbidding and treacherous return north.^20 In fact, the Portuguese seaman
Francisco Rodrigues piloted Wyndham’s first Guinea voyage, and the Por-
tuguese Antonio Pinteado, “one of the foremost commanders in Atlantic
trade,” served as co-commander.^21 One record in Hakluyt actually credits the
“expert Pilot” and “politike captaine” Pinteado with “perswad[ing] [English]
marchants to attempt the said voyages to Guinea” in the first place (Hakluyt,
6 : 145 , 152 ).^22
Moreover, although Queen Elizabeth maintained the Barbary trade
throughout her reign, English expeditions to Africa—like those of the Por-
tuguese—were nonetheless shadowed if not driven by hopes to reach the East.
It was there, after all, “in the eastern rocks” and not in Africa, that Marlowe’s
gold-hungry Jew of Malta imagines a “wealthy Moor” who could “without
control” “pick his riches up, / And in his house heap pearl like pebble-stones”
(Jew of Malta 1. 1. 21 – 23 ). On Marlowe’s globally materialist stage, the prospect
of acquiring of “infinite riches”—“bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts,
/ Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds, / Beauteous rubies, sparkling dia-
monds, / And seld-seen costly stones of so great price”—lies not with the
Moors or other Africans (Jew of Malta 1. 1. 37 , 25 – 28 ), but with “the Arabians,
who so richly pay / The things they traffic for with wedge of gold / Whereof a
man may easily in a day / Tell that which may maintain him all his life”
( 1. 1. 8 – 11 ); with “the merchants of the Indian mines, / That trade in metal of
the purest mold” ( 1. 1. 19 – 20 ); with “Persian ships” and argosies “from Alexan-
dria,” “laden with riches and exceeding store / Of Persian silks, of gold, and
orient pearl” ( 1. 1. 2 , 84 , 86 – 87 ).
However these fantasies took hold, the English press eastward may well
have been predicated on the practical reality that the African trades were al-
ready monopolized by the Portuguese—not to mention, frequently plundered
by the Spanish.^23 Still, prospects in Africa never had the draw of those to the
East. The first of England’s merchant companies, the Merchant Adventurers
Imperialist Beginnings 49