Privateering was a form of legal private warfare at sea in which individuals who possessed suitable ships took the opportunity offered by a war to plunder enemy commerce. In this study of privateering during the Elizabethan war with Spain, which was originally published in 1966, Dr Andrews shows that it was closely connected with trade, in particular having a stimulating effect on oceanic commerce and that it was at the time the main form of English maritime warfare. Dr Andrews begins with an account of how privateering became legal and how it was organised. He then examines the various types of venture, describing the sort of people who took part and showing how profitable it was for some, particularly the bigger merchants and the professional seamen. Two contemporary narratives are included. Finally, Dr Andrews studies the role privateering played in overseas expansion.

This is an account of the expedition of royal and private ships which left Plymouth in 1595 under the command of Drake and Hawkins with the aim of capturing the city of Panama. The expedition ended in total failure, both leaders died and attempts to capture Grand Canary, Puerto Rico and Panama were all repulsed. For each of the main episodes, Dr Andrews presents documents chosen to illustrate a wide variety of aspects and view, points. Most of the material, whether from Spanish or English sources, casts light on the events and their background. Information on the equipment, financing and personnel of the expedition will be of particular interest to naval historians while the Spanish evidence elucidates the condition and con, duct of Spain's imperial defences. There is also a short essay by D. W. Waters on the art of navigation in the age of Drake.

Not since 1945 has a general account of the origins of the British Empire been published, as if the demise of the empire had freed us from our imperial past and historians from any obligation to digest it. Of course it has done nothing of the kind, but it does enable the historian today to approach that past in a more critical spirit and to attempt a deeper and more detached analysis than could have been expected a generation ago. The purpose of this work is therefore not merely to recount but to explain the course of English overseas empire: a prolonged pregnancy, culminating in a difficult birth and sickly infancy.

The long introductory essay discusses the forces and motives involved in the expansion movement, which is seen as being part of a wider European movement and derivative in many ways from it. The author considers the attitude and conduct of the Tudors and early Stuarts towards this fundamentally commercial movement and examines the nature and importance of English sea power, the contribution of different social groups, and the relevance of religious and economic ideals as well as nationalistic sentiment. These various themes are taken up again in the narrative chapters which follow, dealing with the enterprises of exploration, trade, plunder and colonization successively through from the early Bristol quest for 'Brasil' to the diverse ventures of the 1620s. The last chapter comments on the interaction of trade, plunder and settlement and the wave-like chronological pattern of the English advance to oceanic empire.