After capturing the galleon, Cavendish had the Spanish crew put shore. The Santa Ana had no cannon and the crewmembers tried, unsuccessfully, to defend themselves using small arms. In November 1587, the Desire and the smaller ship Content, intercepted the Spanish galleon Santa Ana, which was proceeding south along the coast of Baja California. The largest was the 120-ton Desire, carrying 18 cannons. With a commission from Queen Elizabeth I, he departed England with three ships. In 1586, though, an English privateer named Thomas Cavendish decided to attack this weak link. Because the Pacific was considered a Spanish lake, many of the galleons were unarmed (allowing them to be loaded with even more valuable cargo). In an era when a ship of 200 tons was considered large, the Manila-Acapulco galleons were about 600 tons. In order to carry all the cargo required, though, the galleons grew in size. Only one or two galleons were dispatched each year. It also brought to New Spain and thence to Europe highly-valued Chinese products, such as silk, damask, and porcelain. It provided an outlet for the large amounts of silver being mined in Peru, which was overwhelming the European economy. The Spanish trade route across the Pacific served two purposes. Not long thereafter, the colony at Manila opened trade with China and found that the Chinese Empire had a great thirst for silver. After conquering the Inca Empire, the Spanish conquistadors had discovered a huge deposit of silver in Peru. From there, the ships would travel south to Acapulco. From the Philippines, the ships would sail north and east to about 36° north latitude and then turn east and utilize the prevailing winds to reach the coast of California. From Acapulco, the ships would sail almost due west to the Marianas and Philippine Islands. Relying on the base founded in Manila by the Spanish explorer Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and the sailing route east across the Pacific Ocean pioneered by Andres de Urdaneta, Spain in 1565 established a regular trade route between its colony in the Philippines and its empire in New Spain (modern-day Mexico).
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