The snaphance first appeared in the late 1550s as an improvement of the earlier snaplock in one or more of the following countries: Spain, Holland, Germany, Scotland, or Sweden. The main improvement was that the pan-cover opened automatically (to keep the priming dry until the exact moment of firing), as in the wheel-lock. (The snaplock had a manually operated pan cover similar to that of the matchlock. Some definitions class the snaphaunce as a sub-type of snaplock.) Also like the wheel-lock, the snaphance used a lateral sear mechanism to connect trigger to cock. Later models had a variety of safety mechanisms to prevent accidental discharge of the gun. Without these the weapons, like any firearm, could be highly dangerous: Hakluyt's "Voyages" records the death of one of the men on Cavendish's circumnavigation in the 1580s due to an accidental discharge during a hurried re-embarkation on the coast of Ecuador, specifically mentioning the weapon was a snaphance. The snaphaunce has a form of safety built into its design, since the steel (frizzen) could be manually moved forward so that if the cock should be released accidentally it would not strike sparks. This led to an inherent disadvantage: in the flintlock when at half-cock and the frizzen is closed, the flint is in close proximity to the steel and can easily be adjusted to strike square to and in the center of the steel; in the snaphaunce the cock can only be at full-cock or down, where it prevents the steel from being brought back to the firing position, so the flint is more difficult to align. The development of the snaphance occurred separately but at the same time as the creation of the miquelet.