It was a curious consequence of the Reformation that life became even of less value after it. Before, men were anxious to receive before they died the last ceremonies of the Church and absolution for their sins. The ghost of Hamlet’s father made his moan of the centuries of punishment he was to undergo because he had died “unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled.” But after the Reformation, men could face their Creator without the interpolation of a priest and be none the worse for the want of him. To men, themselves inured to a hard life and not affronted by the terror of death, the slave-trade presented no moral difficulty. Many of the slaves died upon the voyage, but so did many of themselves.
So utterly unaware, indeed, were the Elizabethans of any inconsistency between a belief in God and the slave-trade that men engaged in it could consider themselves especially under His care. Thus John Spark, the younger, wrote of an earlier expedition under Hawkins: “If these men had come down in the evening, they had done us great displeasure, for that wee were on shore filling water: but God, who worketh all things for the best, would not have it so, and by him we escaped without danger, his name be praysed for it”; and a little later: the calms and ternados happened to us very ill, beeing but reasonably watered, for so great a companie of Negroes, and our selves, which pinched us all, and that which was worst, put us in such feare that many never thought to have reached to the Indies, without great death of Negros, and of ourselves: but the Almightie God, who never suffereth his elect to perish sent us the sixteenth of Februarie, the ordinary Brise, which never left us, till wee came to an Island called Dominica.”
Drake was in advance of his age. Many instances will be noticed of that when he exercised an untrammelled command. He owed much of his success to the friendships which he established with native tribes and negroes; and even when he had nothing to gain by it, he used a gentleness and consideration towards them which was then uncommonly rare.
Hawkins, therefore, and the Queen were engaged in a reputable trade; and the Queen’s ships having been repaired, Hawkins hoisted his flag on the Jesus. The fleet left Plymouth on October 2nd, 1567— “the third troublesome voyage” Hawkins was to call it. For the first five days the ships sailed in calm weather, closing together at nightfall behind the General and spreading out by day. But off Finisterre they were caught in a gale and scattered. The Jesus had her longboats carried away and sprang so many leaks that Hawkins turned back towards Plymouth, meaning to abandon the expedition. After four days, however, wind and sea abated and he resumed his voyage. A rendezvous had been fixed at the island of Gomera in the Canaries, and there all the ships gathered. They watered there and, departing on the 4th of November, arrived at Cape Verde on the 18th. At Cape Verde, Hawkins landed one hundred and fifty men to capture negroes, but the negroes fought with wicker shields and poisoned arrows and only a hundred and fifty were taken. Hawkins’ losses, on the other hand, were heavy, for although the poisoned arrows seemed at the first not to do much harm, after a few days tetanus supervened and hardly a wounded man was saved. Hawkins himself was one of the few who escaped alive, for, taking the advice of a native, he applied to his wound a clove of garlic which sucked out the poison and left him cured. From Cape Verde he sailed on to Capo Blanco and the Guinea Coast. They saw, according to the sailors’ tales, such marvels as a man of this day can hardly account for. They found crocodiles which wept, until they drew sympathetically near you, when they bit you in half; they found oyster-trees and an extraordinary kind of sea-horse which “bulged” their pinnaces and when the men were swimming in the river snatched one or two of them away. They found plantains with their fruit at the top of the tree, which they found very good and dainty to eat. “Sugar is not more delicate in taste then they be,” says one of them.
At Sierra Leone, which they reached on the 12th of January, 1568, they again suffered from a scarcity of negroes; on the other hand, they captured a Portuguese caravel commanded by a French captain from Rochelle, of the name of Bland. This caravel was annexed to Hawkins’ fleet, renamed the Grace of God, and Captain Drake of the Judith was transferred to her as Captain.
After searching the rivers about that part for negroes with little result, Hawkins was in doubt, the time of the year being late, whether to sell his negroes for the best price he could get there or thereabouts and make his way home again. But whilst he was in two minds what he should do, a negro, sent from a local King, came to implore his aid. The King offered to Hawkins all the negroes that were taken prisoners as the price of his support. Hawkins consented and sent one hundred and twenty of his men, who, on the 15th of January, delivered an attack upon a negro town of eight thousand inhabitants which was well fenced and well defended. In that attack, six of Hawkins’ men were killed and forty wounded; whereupon the next day, Hawkins took over the command in person, burnt the town and captured two hundred and fifty prisoners. His ally, the King, on the other hand, took six hundred prisoners, of whom Hawkins expected, under the agreement, to make his choice. “But the negro,” Hawkins wrote, “(in which nation is seldome or never found truth) meant nothing lesse”: and during the night the negro removed his camp and his prisoners. Hawkins had, however, by now between four and five hundred blacks whom he could sell with a handsome profit in the West. He had also a seventh ship, the caravel the Grace of God. Captain Bland, now linking his fortunes with those of Hawkins, was restored to the command of her, and Francis Drake returned to his own ship the Judith.
Hawkins, then, having watered, taken fuel on board and such fruits and provisions as he could, sailed from the coast of Guinea on the 3rd of February, and meeting storms and heavy seas came after a long voyage of fifty-four days to the island of Dominica on the 27th day of March.
From Dominica, Hawkins made without delay for the Terra Firma and coasted along, selling his slaves, but with more difficulty than before owing to the greater stringency of the local Governors. By conducting his traffic with the Spaniards at night, however, “we had reasonable trade and courteous entertainment.” He supplied himself with water, fresh food and turtles with their eggs — a new delicacy to these voyagers — at the island of Margarita, careened and cleaned his ships and repaired their rigging at Burboroata — it sounds less like a South Sea island under its present name of Puerto Cabello — and paid a call upon Curaçao.
So far the voyage, even to the mariners’ stories of oyster-trees and vanishing islands and fantastic animals, was conventional enough to need no more than a summary. But it becomes of importance here. For Hawkins sent forward to Rio de la Hacha the Judith and the Angel, his two smallest ships, under the command of Francis Drake. It was the first time that the young Captain had been entrusted with independent authority, even if it were only to last for a few days. No doubt the shallow waters about the Cabo de la Vela induced Hawkins to send forward his vessels with the least draught; and no doubt Drake’s acquaintance with the town persuaded him to put them under his kinsman’s control. But dealing with these Spanish Governors who had troops and cannon under their orders was a delicate business; and it is clear that Drake’s conduct of his little bark must have inspired Hawkins with confidence in his discretion as well as his ability as a navigator. Hawkins was a prudent merchant-adventurer who wanted as little warfare and impetuosity as possible to interfere with the prosecution of his business. He had older and more experienced men in command of the Minion, the William and John and the Swallow, but he chose young Francis Drake; and it is against common sense to believe that he did it without reason. It has so often been the fashion to represent Drake as the dashing Impresario of the Caribbean Seas, that it is necessary to realize how gradually that great name of his was made, and with what study. He was, certainly up to the date of the Armada battles, always learning — consciously learning. It would be utterly to misread his life not to understand that. And from no text did he learn so much as from the book of his own mistakes.
He made two at Rio de la Hacha. He sailed through the little bay up to the town. The Treasurer, Miguel de Cas
tellanos, who had weathered the breeze over his accounts, had a troop of one hundred arquebusiers and a few pieces of cannon. He shot off two or three of them and did no harm to ship or man. Drake replied with two shots, and one of them popped right through the Treasurer’s house and out at the other side. It was no doubt a consolation to Drake to smash a hole in the house of the man who had jockeyed him out of a small fortune eighteen months before, but it was not the way in which Hawkins conducted his business. Drake, having left his mark upon the town, retired out of range and dropped his anchor.
He was in that position when he made his second blunder. The Spanish Viceroy of the Indies had his headquarters then on the island of San Domingo and sent his orders to his various stations by small fast despatch boats. One of these came in from San Domingo to Rio de la Hacha whilst Drake was at anchor, and Drake at once attacked it. Philip and Elizabeth were, politically, at peace, and this was a Spanish Government ship. Again this was not the way of Hawkins. Drake drove the despatch boat on shore and then, with the audacity which was natural to him, cut it out under the fire of the arquebusiers and brought it back in triumph to his own ships. For five days he waited, keeping guard over the town, and then Hawkins arrived with the rest of the fleet.
Hawkins returned the despatch boat to the Treasurer, who, thinking to repeat the trick he had played upon Lovell, would neither allow him to sell his slaves nor obtain enough water to keep them alive. Castellanos had fortified his town and indeed seemed prepared to put up a serious fight. Hawkins, however, landed two hundred musketeers and broke his way through the defences. The Spaniards fired the one volley which was obligatory on such occasions, and by a mischance killed a certain Thomas Surgeon and another. They then retired unmolested to the woods until nightfall; after which time the friendliest messages passed to and fro not only between Hawkins and the Spaniards who were in need of slaves, but between Hawkins and the Treasurer himself. A good deal of haggling took place — that was usual — and Castellanos put in a claim for a rake-off or, more politely, a tax of thirty ducats a head. He was satisfied with 7/2 per cent, of the sale price, and since Hawkins sold here no less than two hundred slaves, he did not do so badly.
Hawkins coasted along, selling as it were parcels of his cargo at different small ports, until he came to Cartagena. This was the last town which he proposed to visit. He had only fifty-seven slaves now to dispose of, and it was high time that he should depart from these waters. The season of the hurricanes, or furicanos as Hawkins called them, is regular, and the sailors of trading ships in those parts have to this day a sort of memoria tecnica:
“June — too soon
July — stand by
August — you must
September — remember!
October — all over.”
Hawkins was now half-way through July. He had to stand by. Cartagena was a very different town in size, in importance and in strength from any which Hawkins had so far visited. The Governor answered all Hawkins solicitations with a refusal. He was “so straight,” Hawkins said, that “we could by no means obtain to deal with any Spaniard.” The Minion on the day following Hawkins’ arrival drew close to the shore and fired its cannon at the town, but Cartagena was too strong, and the Minion, standing away, landed a party of sailors upon an island, where they discovered some great tuns of malmsey wine, which they took, leaving in exchange for them as a sign of their honesty a proportionate amount of linen and cloth.
Hawkins left Cartagena on July 24th, but he had overstayed his time. He made for the Florida Channel and reached the western cape of Cuba without mishap, but here on the 12th day of August a storm of extraordinary violence struck the little fleet, so that it was compelled to seek shelter under the land of Florida. But the water was too shallow along that coast for him to find an anchorage. The storm blew for four days. It was necessary to cut down the cage of the Jesus of Lübeck level with the deck, and when the weather abated she was left with her rudder dangerously strained and her planks leaking like a sieve. The calm lasted for one day, and then a second hurricane swept them down to the little harbour of St. John de Ulua in the Gulf of Campeche.
The harbour was small and untidy but important; for it was the only one which served the city of Mexico on the high plateau two hundred miles away. St. John de Ulua was to become more important still. For it was to be the scene of a vile piece of treachery which made Englishmen scoff at the boasted gentility of the Spaniards and did more than any other event to convert English dislike into hatred and contempt. For the moment the treachery prospered. Hawkins lost the fruits of his voyage. Drake too. It was the occasion, besides, on which Drake made the most grave fault in all of his career. Many lives were lost; many sailors endured years of cruel enslavement. But in the end, and chiefly because Drake rose above his faults, Philip of Spain paid for it a thousandfold.
The harbour was a poor one and it faced north. That is to say, the habitual wind of that zone blew straight into it. But it was protected by a flat ledge of rock which stretched nearly across the northern entrance, leaving a narrow harbour mouth at the western end and a shallow strip of water between it and the mainland on the east. This ledge is described as reaching either way the length of a bow-shot, so that it must have been square, and it was raised about three feet above the water. Along the inner edge a stone quay had been built, and ships making use of it were moored head on so that their bows stretched above the quay and sailors could swing themselves on shore. The violence of the sea, however, pouring through the narrow channel into the pool, caused a swirl of such strength that anchors had to be dropped astern to keep the ships straight.
Hawkins would have avoided it, had it been possible. He was never the man to meet trouble half-way. St. John de Ulua was the port from which the Mexican gold fleet sailed once a year with its treasure to Spain; and the time for its sailing was near. It no longer sailed unprotected. Pero Menendez de Aviles, Captain-General of the Indian trade and the only sailor Philip had in the class of Santa Cruz, had persuaded his Master to build at Cadiz twelve small and heavily armoured galleons to guard its passage through the Bahama Channel into the Atlantic. This fleet was owned by the Casa de Contractacion at Seville, and its upkeep was a charge upon the treasure which it guarded. It was practically a form of insurance.
From Spanish prisoners and other information, Hawkins knew that it was now on its way across the Atlantic, making for St. John de Ulua. He, however, had no choice. His own ships must be repaired if he was to reach home; and as he sailed into the harbour he saw twelve ships already anchored there. An anxious moment for Hawkins! Were these twelve ships Menendez and the Indian Guard? Enquiry revealed that they were Spanish merchant vessels and that they were carrying, as part of their cargo, a treasure of £200,000.
Hawkins had picked up on the way down from Florida three Spanish ships with one hundred passengers. As a sign of his honest intentions he now let those ships go, keeping only as hostages three men of importance: Don Lorenzo de Alva, Don Pedro de Rivera, and a third Spaniard, Augustin de Villa Nueva, of whom, to his great peril, he made much account, treating him as a friend rather than as a hostage. He informed the Governor that the ships would not be molested nor their treasure touched by him, but that he wanted food and water and was ready to pay for them at the current price. While he was sending his messenger into the town which lay at the back of the harbour, he landed, for prudence’ sake, a body of men upon the natural breakwater of rock, and they found there some eleven pieces of brass cannon. These were seized and loaded, and a camp was formed to control them. Hawkins also asked the Governor to send forthwith a couple of messengers to the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico City, reminding him that his own Queen was the loving sister of the Viceroy’s King Philip and asking for his protection should the Indian Guard arrive before he had made good the damage to his ships. All, indeed, seemed to be going as favourably as a man could wish. But on the very next morning, the morning of Friday the 17th of September, a fleet of thirteen great ships hove
into sight on the edge of the horizon.
This was not the Indian Guard, but the great gold fleet from Nombre de Dios with its armed escort of an “Admiral” and “Vice-Admiral.” Hawkins sent a pinnace immediately to meet it. He had the two advantages: with the guns upon the breakwater and the batteries upon his ships he could so enfilade the harbour mouth that entrance without his consent would be impossible; and there was no anchorage outside. “Unless the ships be very safely moored with their anchors fastened upon the island,” he writes, “there is no remedy for these North Winds but Death.” His messenger insisted, therefore, that before the fleet took shelter behind the reef, some necessary arrangements must be made which would safeguard his own vessels whilst they were being repaired.
The fleet was on its way to Spain under the command of Don Francisco de Luxan, but had put in to St. John de Ulua to land the new Viceroy of Mexico, Don Martin Enriquez. The Viceroy himself sent back a honeyed message to Hawkins. He asked that the conditions should be sent to him, and declared that for the sake of the amity between the two Princes they should be granted. He added many fair words. He had heard of Hawkins’ fair dealings in the harbours of the Spanish Main as well as in this port of Ulua; “the which,” said Hawkins, “I let passe.” Hawkins had no faith in the honesty of any Spaniard, whether he were officer or no. He drew up his recommendations: he claimed that he should be entitled to buy food on shore and sell enough slaves to cover the cost. In the second place, he must be suffered peaceably to repair his ships. In the third place, the island and the guns upon it must remain in his possession until he left the harbour. No Spaniard must land upon it armed. The last condition demanded that, for the more certain maintenance of peace, the Viceroy and himself should exchange twelve hostages who should be gentlemen of credit.
Against these definite conditions the Viceroy hotly protested. He had given his word and nothing more was needed; he was Viceroy with a thousand men under his command and he would come in. That sort of language meant nothing to John Hawkins. He answered, “If he be a Viceroy I represent my Queen’s person and I am a Viceroy as well as he, and if he have a thousand men my powder and shot will take the better place.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 858