At Sandbridge was born the famous navigator John
Davis, who was the first to explore the Arctic regions. On June 7th,
1575, he left Dartmouth with two small barques--the _Sunshine_, 50 tons,
carrying 23 men, and the _Moonshine_, 35 tons, and 19 men--and after
many difficulties reached a passage between Greenland and North
America, which was so narrowed between the ice that it was named Davis'
Straits. He made other voyages to the Arctic regions, and was said to
have discovered Hudson's Straits. Afterwards he sailed several times to
the East Indies; but whilst returning from one of these expeditions was
killed on December 27th, 1605, in a fight with some Malay pirates on the
coast of Malacca.
Greenway House, on the other hand, was at one time the residence of
those two remarkable half-brothers Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter
Raleigh, and it was there that Sir Walter planted the first potato ever
grown in England, which he had brought from abroad. As he was the first
to introduce tobacco, it was probably at Greenway that his servant
coming in with a jug of beer, and seeing his master as he thought
burning, threw it in his face--"to put his master out," as he afterwards
explained.
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