HAWKINS IN FLORIDA

The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery by Richard Hakluyt is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. HAWKINS IN FLORIDA

HAWKINS IN FLORIDA

Adecade before Martin Frobisher had opened the north parts of the North American continent to Englishmen, John Hawkins had surveyed the southern tip at Florida, and upon his return had represented this fair and favoured region, then to indefinite bounds included among Spain’s American possessions, and in a corner of which France for more than a year had maintained a slender foothold, as ripe for England to venture in and colonize. His was the first account in detail of Florida by an Englishman, and it was the germ from which fruitage later developed in Raleigh’s schemes.

Hawkins’s were purely trading voyages, and he was a fighting trader, demanding the open market for his wares at the point of the sword when it was denied him by representatives of foreign governments. His wares, too, were more or less fought for. The most profitable of them were Negroes seized on the African coast and bartered into slavery in the West Indies and on the Spanish Main—along the north coast of South America. He was the first (or his father before him as some historians say) to bring the African slave trade into English commerce, and to plant Negro slavery in America. Discovery was only an incident in the pursuit of his trade. Yet what he accomplished in this direction was of no slight import, since it opened the way to others of loftier aims. While his fame is tarnished by the blotch of traffic in human beings (in his day, we must remember, deemed by the godly and godless alike as not an unrighteous traffic), it is enduring by virtue of heroic deeds, and his place is fairly with the great English captains of the sea who had part in the beginnings of America.

SR. John Hawkins.

John Hawkins, born in Plymouth in or about 1532, was the son and grandson of notable mariners, and so well born to the sea. His grandfather, John Hawkyns, had served in Henry the eighth’s navy; his father, William Hawkyns, shipbuilder and merchant, had been one of the principal sea-captains of the west parts of England, and was the first Englishman to carry on a trade with Brazil. Hakluyt informs us that William Hawkyns was “for his wisdome, valure [valour], experience, and skill in sea causes much esteemed, and beloved of K. Henry the 8.” His Brazilian voyages comprised “three long and famous” ones, made in his own “tall and goodly shippe” of two hundred and fifty tons, the “Paul of Plymouth,” between the years 1530 and 1532. He sailed first to the coast of Guinea where he traded with the Negroes for elephants’ teeth and other commodities of the region, and thence crossed to Brazil, where he “used such discretion and behaved himself so wisely with those savage people that he grew into great familiarity and friendship with them.” His greatest exploit, or that which won him largest attention, seems to have been the bringing to England on a visit one of the kings of the country, leaving behind as a pledge of his safety and return a member of the ship’s company—Martin Cockeram, a Plymouth man. The savage monarch was brought over on the second voyage and his appearance created great astonishment in London and at court when he was presented to King Henry at Whitehall, as well it might. For, as Hakluyt describes, “in his cheekes were holes made according to their savage maner, and therein small bones were planted, standing an inch out from the said holes, which in his own Countrey were reputed for a great braverie. He had also another hole in his nether lip, wherein was set a precious stone about the bigness of a pease [pea]. All his apparel, behaviour, and jesture were very strange to the beholders.” He remained in London for nearly a year, and then, satiated with his entertainment, embarked for his home in Master Hawkins’s care, on the latter’s third voyage to Brazil. But it was his fate to sicken and die at sea. Thereat Master Hawkins was much troubled, fearing that the life of Cockeram would be forfeited. But when he arrived at port and told his story, the savages were “fully persuaded” that their prince had been honestly dealt with, and freely gave up the hostage. Cockeram returned with his captain none the worse for his sojourn here, and lived to spin, long years after, among his fellows at home in Plymouth, rare sailors’ yarns about the Simple Life among savages.

John Hawkins followed early in his father’s footsteps. His earliest voyages were made when quite a young man to the Canary Islands. How he came to engage in the slave trade between the African coast and the West Indies Hakluyt thus naïvely relates:

“Master John Haukins having made divers voyages to the Iles of the Canaries, and there by his good and upright dealing being growen in love and favour with the people, informed himselfe amongst them by diligent inquisition, of the state of the West India, whereof he had received some knowledge by the instructions of his father, but increased the same by the advertisements and reports of that people. And being amongst other particulars assured that Negroes were very good merchandise in Hispaniola, and that store of Negroes might easily be had upon the coast of Guinea, resolved with himselfe to make triall thereof, and communicated that devise with his worshipfull friendes of London; namely with Sir Lionel Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, M. Gunson, his father in law [Benjamin Gonson, then treasurer of the navy], Sir Wm. Winter [also of the navy], M. Bromfield and others. All which persons liked so well of his intention, that they became liberall contributers and adventurers in the action.”

The first voyage of this enterprise was made in 1562–1563 with a fleet of three ships and a company of one hundred men. Sailing in October he touched first in his course at Teneriffe. Thence he passed down to the Sierra Leone Coast, where he stayed “some good time” and collected, “partly by the sword and partly by other meanes,” at least three hundred Negroes, whom he packed in his ships, besides “other merchandises which that countrey yieldeth.” With this “praye” (prey) he sailed over the “ocean sea” bound for Hispaniola—San Domingo. Arriving at the port of Isabella he there disposed of some of the English commodities he had brought out, and a part of his living freight, meanwhile alert, “trusting the Spaniards no further then [than] by his owne strength he was able still to master them.” Thence he went to Porto Plata, where he made his sales, while, as at Isabella, “standing alwaies [always] on his guard”; and lastly to Monte Christi, disposing there of the remainder of the Negroes. In these three ports he took by way of exchange “such quantitie of merchandise that he did not onely lade his owne 3 shippes with hides, ginger, sugars, and some quantitie of pearles, but he freighted also two other hulkes with hides and other like commodities which he sent into Spaine.” Then he returned to England with “much gain to himselfe and the aforesayd venturers” as the outcome of this voyage. The two hulks sent to Spain were seized at Seville as smugglers, under the law of the country against unlicensed trading in the Spanish colonies, and their goods confiscated. These Hawkins valued at twenty thousand pounds. Notwithstanding their loss the balance of the profits remained large.

The second voyage, begun in 1564, was that in which Florida was visited. In this venture the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Robert Dudley, afterward the Earl of Leicester, were foremost as investors. Four ships constituted the fleet. These were the “Jesus of Lubec,” as “admiral,” or flag-ship, a fine vessel of seven hundred tons belonging to the queen and lent by her; the “Solomon,” Hawkins’s flag-ship in the previous voyage; the “Tiger,” a bark of fifty tons; and the “Swallow,” a bark of thirty tons. The fleet were well supplied with ordnance, including several “faulcons of brasse”—small brass guns—and a plenty of small arms for the men. The company enlisted numbered one hundred and seventy in all.

They sailed from Plymouth on the eighteenth of October. On the ninth of November they had arrived at Teneriffe; and later in November and through December they were cruising along the African coast in the hunt for Negroes. This time the natives were everywhere hostile and they had to be fought for. The sharpest battle was at a point below Cape Verde. An attack was made upon a town from which Hawkins expected to capture a hundred and more Negroes, men, women, and children, comprising the most of the population. But they fought desperately and only ten were taken while seven of Hawkins’s men were slain and twenty-seven wounded. Farther down the coast the hunt was more successful. By the close of January the ships were at Sierra Leone all laden with “a great company of Negroes”; and on the twenty-ninth of that month they set sail with a crowded freight for the West Indies. But they were “only reasonably watered,” and before they had been long at sea there was much suffering among the ships’ companies and the living cargo alike. For eighteen days they were becalmed; afterward they were beset by baffling winds. By mid-February, however, fortune again favoured them, when, as the devout slave-catcher’s chronicler recorded, “The Almightie God who never suffereth the elect to perish,” sent just the right breeze to waft them to their destination.

On the ninth of March they had come to the island of Dominica. Here they landed in search of water. Only rain-water was found “and such as fell from the hills and remained as a puddle in the dale”; and with this they filled for the Negroes. Then they cruised among the neighbouring islands, and along the Spanish Main, but were denied traffic by the Spanish officials at all places. At Burburata, Venezuela, in April, after arguing the point Hawkins brought the governor to terms with a demonstration of his fighting spirit. Landing with a hundred men “well armed with bowes, arrowes, harquebuzes, and pikes,” he marched them in battle array toward the town. Thereupon the governor threw up his hands, as the modern phrase is, and trade was opened without more ado. Here a number of the Negroes were profitably disposed of. Next, in May, they came to Rio del Hacha, now of Colombia. A sharper demonstration was necessary at this place before the Spanish officials would remove the prohibition. When they would listen to no argument, and were even unmoved by Hawkins’s “diplomacy” in the audacious pretension that he was “in an armada of the Queens Majesties of England and sent about her other affaires,” and had been driven out of his intended course and into these parts by contrary winds, he sent them the word “to determine either to give him license to trade or else stand to their own harmes [arms].” With this ultimatum he landed again the one hundred men in armour, with two of his “faulcons.” At the first firing of these little guns the officials surrendered with the desired grant. Traffic then proceeded briskly, and within ten days the remainder of the Negroes were bartered off prosperously. This accomplished, the fleet sailed northward, now in search of a good place to take on a supply of fresh water. After beating about Jamaica they passed the west end of Cuba and came into the gulf of Florida: and so the mainland of Florida was reached.

As they ranged along this coast pursuing their quest for several days, dropping anchors at night wherever they happened to be, the voyagers observed the luxurious country with keen interest. They found it “marvellously sweete with both marish and medow ground, and goodly woods among.” As they sailed onward Hawkins in his shipboat explored the creeks and estuaries, and frequent landings were made from the fleet on the green shores. Sorrel was seen growing “as abundantly as grasse,” and about the habitations of the natives were “great store of maiz [maize: Indian corn] and mill, and grapes of great bignesse,” tasting much like the English grape. Deer were “in great plentie, which came upon the sands before them.” There were quantities of “divers other beasts, and fowle, serviceable to the use of man”; and luscious fish with strange creatures of the waters. The natives were observed apparelled in deer skins, hand-painted, “some yellow and red, some blacke and russet, and every man according to his own fancy.” Their bodies were also painted, “with curious knots or antike worke.” The colours were picked into the flesh with a thorn. When arrayed for war their faces were daubed with “a sleighter colour” to give them a fiercer show. Their weapons were bows and arrows of hard wood and reeds. The arrows were of great length, feathered, and variously tipped: with viper’s teeth, or bones of fishes, flint stones, occasionally with silver. The women’s apparel, besides painted deer skins, comprised “gowns of mosse,” long mosses, “which they sew together artificially.”

Hawkins was impressed with the spaciousness as well as the richness of the region ready for the white man’s cultivation. As he put it: “The commodities of this land are more then [than] are yet knowen to any man: for besides the land itselfe, whereof there is more then any king Christian is able to inhabit, it flourisheth with meadow, pasture ground, with woods of Cedar and Cypress and other sorts as better can not be in the world.” There were of “apothecary herbs, trees, roots, and gummes great store.” Turpentine, myrrh, and frankincense were abundant. As for the precious metals, the natives wanted neither gold nor silver, for both were worn for ornament; but where they were to be obtained had not yet come to light. It was thought that the hills would be found to yield them, when sufficient people, Europeans, were here to abide. Life could easily be sustained in this land with its plenty of maize, which made “good savoury bread and cakes as fine as floure [flour].”

The voyagers penetrated to the “River of May,” now St. John’s River, coming to the seat on its banks of Laudonnière’s colony of French Huguenots. They had been established here for fourteen months, and were now in a wretched condition. The fleet anchored off their port, and Hawkins and his chief men going ashore were “very gently entertained” by Laudonnière and his captains. The Frenchmen gave a pitiful account of the extremities to which the colony had been put for food. They had brought out a scant stock of provisions expecting to receive fresh supplies from France by ships that were to follow them with recruits. But these had not arrived. From two hundred strong at the beginning the colonists were now reduced by death and desertions to about half that number. They had early exhausted all the maize that they could buy of the natives. New supplies were got in return for the service of a number of their soldiers with a king of the Floridians in a tribal war. But the relief thus obtained was only temporary. When this supply had gone they resorted to acorns and roots. The acorns “stamped [crushed] small and often washed to take away the bitterness” were used for bread; the roots as vegetables. Many of the roots albeit the sort that “served rather for medicine than for meats alone,” they found to be “good and wholesome.” They must, however, have had rich drink with this dull food, for Hawkins noted that during the fourteen months here they had made twenty hogsheads of wine from the native grapes. In the midst of the colony’s distresses a rebellion arose. Some of the soldiers turned upon Laudonnière, seized his armour, and imprisoned him. Then taking a bark and a pinnace they set off, “to the number of fourscore,” on a piratical cruise. They went “a roaming” to Jamaica and Hispaniola, spoiling the Spaniards. Having taken the caravels laden with wine and “casair [cassava], which is bread made of roots, and much other victuall and treasure,” the marauding crew hovered about Jamaica, with frequent carousals on shore. At length their revels were cut short when a ship that had come out from Hispaniola bore down upon them. Twenty were taken prisoners, “whereof the most part were hanged, the rest sent to Spain.” Some twenty-five escaped in the pinnace and returned to the colony. Upon landing they were thrown into prison, and four of the ringleaders were “hanged at a gibbet.” Other troubles had come upon the colony through the enmity of natives, hitherto friendly, who had been robbed of maize by some of the colonists when nothing was left to barter for it. For such offences several Frenchmen had been seized by the Floridians and slain in the woods. When 208Hawkins’s fleet appeared the colony had not more than forty soldiers unhurt and “not above ten days’ victuals” in store.

Hawkins relieved their immediate wants with provisions and other comforts and offered to convey them back to France. The generous offer was declined with expressions of gratitude, and instead Laudonnière arranged for the purchase of one of his ships, stocked with provisions, to make the home voyage independently. Then with mutual exchange of good wishes Hawkins departed for his homeward voyage.

The tragic end of the hapless Huguenot colony was not far off. When shortly after Hawkins’s departure, Laudonnière and his people were about to embark on the ship bought from him, sails were descried of the long-looked-for French fleet approaching their port. These welcome ships brought out Ribault to take the command, with emigrants in families, implements of husbandry, domestic animals, and every supply for a well-equipped colony. New life and hope were instilled into the colony by the new comers. Then suddenly the terrible Pedro Menendez de Aviles burst upon them with an invading army of Spaniards and destroyed them with awful massacre, “Not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans,” as he proclaimed, only a few escaping, Laudonnière and Le Moyne, the artist of the colony (to whom we are indebted for the first drawings of American natives and scenes), among these, to tell the tale. And then, two years afterward, Menendez’s act was avenged by the fiery soldier of Gascony, Dominic de Gourgues, with massacre of Spaniards in Florida, “Not,” as he in turn proclaimed, “as unto Spaniards but as unto Traitors, Robbers and Murderers.” All this as told in the accounts of Laudonnière and others reproduced by Hakluyt, constitutes one of the saddest and bloodiest chapters in early American history.

Hawkins’s return voyage was tempestuous. Contrary winds beset the fleet and so prolonged the passage that their provisions ran short. Relief was had, however, on the banks of Newfoundland by a large take of cod; and farther along when two French ships were met sufficient supplies for the remainder of the voyage were bought from them. Home was at length reached on the twentieth of September, when the fleet arrived at Padstow, Cornwall. Commercially it had been a most prosperous voyage, for it had brought “great profit” not alone to the venturers but “to the whole realme.” In addition to the gains from the unholy traffic in human beings Hawkins brought his ship home freighted with “great store” of gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels. Accordingly the chronicler reverently closes his account with the pious and doubtless sincere prayer, “His Name therefore be praised for evermore Amen.”

A third voyage was soon planned, to be made over the same course, with a second visit to Florida. In this Francis Drake, a young kinsman of Hawkins, later destined to be the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe, had part. It ended in disaster through conflict with a Spanish fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, but its consequences were large in after performances, especially of Drake.

The fleet assembled for this third voyage comprised six ships. The “admiral” was again the “Jesus of Lubec,” commanded by Hawkins. Young Drake had charge of the smallest of the lot—the “Judith,” a staunch little craft of only fifty tons. The others were the “Minion,” the “William and John,” the “Angel,” and the “Swallow.” Hakluyt gives us Hawkins’s signed narrative of the adventure under a title foreshadowing its unhappy nature: “The third troublesome voyage made with the Jesus of Lubeck, the Minion, and foure other ships, to the parts of Guinea, and the West Indies, in the yeeres 1567 and 1568 by M. John Hawkins.”

The fleet left Plymouth on the second of October. After only a week out the first trouble came with a dispersion of the ships in an “extreme” storm, which raged for four days and with such damage to the “Jesus” that Hawkins felt obliged to turn her back homeward. Soon afterward, however, the wind veered and the weather cleared, when she was returned to the outward course. The other ships were met at the Canaries, where repairs were made. Again in sailing trim the hunt for Negroes was begun along the African coast. As before, the natives were found ready to fight for their liberty. Arrived at Cape Verde, Hawkins landed one hundred and fifty men, expecting to make a large catch here. But a battle ensued in which many of the English force, Hawkins among them, were 211hurt, and several mortally, by the natives’ envenomed arrows; and only a few captures were made. Similar luck followed down to Sierra Leone, scarcely one hundred and fifty Negroes having been got together. Since this number was too small profitably to take to the West Indies, and it was now quite time to get away, Hawkins decided to give over further quest and to go to the “coast of the Mine” (the Gold Coast) in the hope of obtaining enough gold for his merchandise at least to meet the expenses of the voyage. But just as this decision was reached it was overruled by an unexpected opening to more captures. A messenger from a Negro “king” at war with neighbouring “kings” came aboard the flag-ship asking the Englishmen’s aid in his war, with the promise that all the natives he might capture should be “at their pleasure” as well as those taken by them. The proposal was eagerly accepted and one hundred and twenty men were sent ashore to join the king’s forces. The allies began an assault upon a fortified town of eight thousand inhabitants. It was, however, so strongly impaled, and so valiantly defended, that they could not prevail against it. Six of the English were killed and forty wounded in this attack, and reinforcements were called for. Thereupon Hawkins himself took a hand. An assault now opened both by land and sea, Hawkins with the king leading the land attack. Shortly the frail little houses, covered with dry palm leaves, were set afire and the inhabitants put to flight. So the town fell. Hawkins and his men captured two hundred and fifty of the fleeing people, men, women, and children, while the king’s men took six hundred. Of the king’s lot Hawkins was expecting to take his pick, when, lo! during the following night the artful monarch secretly moved his camp and stole away with all of his prisoners.

This breach of faith scandalized Hawkins and led him to write down that in the Negro “nation is seldome or never found truth.” But later during this “troublesome” voyage he was to experience a greater treachery, and one more disastrous in its results, on the part of representatives of a civilized nation, as we shall presently see.

Having, with his acquisitions from the spoiled town and a few other takings, a cargo of between four and five hundred Negroes, Hawkins set his fleet without further delay on his original course. The West Indies were duly reached, at the island of Dominica, toward the close of March, after a harder passage than before. They coasted from place to place, making their traffic with the planters “somewhat hardly,” because the Spanish governors had been more strictly commanded to suffer no trade with foreigners. Still they did a fairly thriving business, and had “courteous entertainment” all along from the island of Margarita to Cartagena, “without anything greatly worth the noting,” saving at Rio de la Hacha—the same where the sharpest opposition had been met on the previous voyage. The officer in authority here not only denied them permission to trade, but would not suffer them even to stop and take water. The place, too, was found to be newly fortified with “divers bulwarks.” No time was wasted in arguments at this port. Two hundred men were put ashore and the bulwarks stormed. They were speedily broken through with a loss to the Englishmen of only two men, and none at all to the Spaniards, for “after their voly of shot discharged they all fled.” No further obstacles appearing, a semi-secret trade was opened and carried on briskly till two hundred of the Negroes had been sold. When Cartegena was reached the Negroes had been nearly all disposed of.

Leaving this point on the twenty-fourth of July Hawkins sailed the fleet northward, hoping to escape the dangers of the season of hurricanes, and to do some profitable trading in that direction. On the twelfth of August they were passing the west end of Cuba, toward the Florida coast, when a fierce storm struck them. The gale continued through four days, causing havoc among the fleet, and most seriously afflicting the “Jesus.” She was so “beat” that all her “higher buildings” had to be cut down. Her rudder was also “sore shaken,” and she was “in so extreme a leake” that it was feared she must be abandoned. Yet “hoping to bring all to good passe” they sped on for Florida. But no haven could be found into which the ships could enter, because of the shallowness of the water. While off this coast a second storm burst upon them and raged for three days. In this extremity their only alternative was to make across the Gulf of Mexico for the port of “Sant John de Ullua [San Juan d’Ulloa, the port of Vera Cruz], which serveth the citie of Mexico,” in “New Spain.” On the way they fell in with three ships carrying an hundred passengers, and with these they kept helpful company, hoping that the passengers would be “a meane” to them the better to obtain a quiet place for the repairing of the fleet, and to purchase supplies.

This port was safely reached on the sixteenth of September and being mistaken for an expected fleet from Spain their reception was most cordial. But when upon coming aboard the “admiral” the Spanish officers discovered their mistake they were “greatly dismayed” till Hawkins assured them that only stress of weather had brought him hither and that he desired “nothing but victuals.” In the same little port were found anchored twelve Spanish ships which “had in them by report 200,000 pounds in gold and silver.” For the moment Hawkins with his superior force had control of things. But although these tempting ships, as he says, were in his “possession,” together with the passenger-ships that had come with him, and he also held an island guarding the mouth of the harbour, he magnanimously set them “at libertie without taking from them the weight of a groat.” This was done, however, not through any excess of virtue on his part, but, as he frankly explains, “onely because I could not be delayed of my despatch.” Since his needs were urgent, and also because some authoritative understanding was imperative to prevent collision with the Spanish fleet daily expected, he immediately despatched a messenger to the “Presidente [the Spanish viceroy] and Councill,” at the distant city of Mexico, with report of his arrival at this port by the force of weather, and the necessity for repairs to his vessels, and provisions for his company, which they asked as peaceful Englishmen, “friends to King Philip,” to be furnished them for their money; and also with a request that the viceroy should issue “with all convenient speede,” commands for the “better maintenance of amitie” between the expected Spanish fleet and his own, that no cause of quarrel need arise. Meanwhile he retained on his ship “two men of estimation” from those who had come aboard at his arrival. The messenger left for Mexico at the close of his first day in port, and the very next morning the Spanish fleet, “thirteene great shippes,” hove in sight.

Action was now necessary on Hawkins’s part without waiting the movements of the local officials, and it was promptly taken directly with the general of the fleet. Hawkins held the point of advantage. The Spanish fleet could not enter the port while he commanded the entrance. This was the situation as he defined it. “It is to be understood that this Port is made by a little Iland of stones not three foote above the water in the highest place, and but a bow-shoot of length any way: this Iland standeth from the maine land two bow-shootes or more; also it is to be understood that there is not in all this coast any other place for ships to arrive in safety, because the North winde hath there such violence that unlesse the shippes be very safely mored with their ankers fasted upon this Iland, there is no remedie for these North windes but death: also the place of the Haven is so little that of necessitie the shippes must ride one aboord the other, so that we could not give place to them or they to us.” But strong as his position was, it was also embarrassing, and he found himself on the horns of a dilemma: “and here I beganne to bewaile that which after followed, for now, said I, I am in two dangers, and forced to receive the one of them. That was, either I must have kept out the fleete from entring the Port, the which with Gods helpe I was very well able to doe, or else suffer them to enter in with their accustomed treason, which they never faile to execute where they may have opportunitie to compasse it by any meanes: if I had kept them out, then had there bene present shipwrack of all the fleete which amounted in value to sixe Millions, which was in value of our money 1,800,000 li., which I considered I was not able to answere, fearing the Queenes Majesties indignation in so weightie a matter. Thus with my selfe revolving the doubts, I thought rather better to abide the Jutt [jut—push or thrust] of the uncertainty, then [than] the certaintie. The uncertaine doubt I account was their treason which by good policie I hoped might be prevented, and therefore by chusing the least mischiefe I proceeded to conditions.”

His first move was the sending of a messenger to the Spanish general with courteous greetings, advising him of the circumstances of the presence of the English fleet, and desiring him to understand that before he could be suffered to enter the port some order of conditions should pass between them for the safety of the English fleet and the maintenance of peace. This messenger returned with the report that a viceroy was on the fleet (Don Martin Henriques, coming out as a successor of the one at Mexico), who had authority “both in all this Province of Mexico, otherwise Neva Espanna, and in the sea,” and that this official had requested Hawkins’s conditions, promising on his part that they should be “both favourably granted and faithfully performed,” with “many faire wordes,” or compliments, as to favourable things he had heard of Hawkins. These conditions were despatched forthwith: victuals for their money; license to sell as much of their wares as might furnish their wants; twelve gentlemen from either side as hostages for the maintenance of peace; the island to remain in their possession during their stay, for their “better safetie,” with the ordnance they had planted there: eleven brass pieces; and orders issued that no Spaniard should land at the island with any kind of weapon.

The viceroy at first “somewhat misliked” the condition as to the guard of the island in the keeping of the Englishmen; but in the end he acceded to them all, with the exception that the number of hostages was cut to ten. The agreement was then put in writing and sealed with the viceroy’s seal: the hostages were received on either side; the orders were duly proclaimed with trumpet blasts; the two generals met and “gave faith ech to other for the performances of the premisses;” and then the Spanish fleet passed into the harbour, each fleet saluting the other “as the maner of the sea doth require.”

All went well for nearly three days. Two of the three were spent in “placing the English ships by themselves and the Spanish ships by themselves, the captaines of ech part & inferiour men of their parts promising great amity on al sides.” But with all the show of faithfulness to the agreement the Spaniards were plotting mischief. A thousand men from the mainland were being secretly taken on their ships, and they were proposing, on the third day, at dinner time, suddenly to set upon the Englishmen on all sides.

On the morning of this third day the Englishmen’s suspicion was aroused by various activities on the Spanish ships: “as shifting of weapon from ship to ship, planting and bending of ordnance from the ships to the Iland where our men warded, passing to and fro of companies of men more then [than] required for their necessary busines, & many other ill likelihoods.” Hawkins sent a peremptory demand to the viceroy for an explanation of these goings on. His reply was the issue of a “commandement to unplant all things suspicious,” and an assurance to Hawkins that “he in the faith of a Viceroy would be our defence from all villanies.” But Hawkins and his chiefs were not satisfied with this assurance for they now “suspected a great number of men to be hid in a great ship of nine hundred tunnes which was mored next unto the Minion.” A second messenger was sent, this time the master of the “Jesus,” who could speak Spanish, to demand of the viceroy “if any such thing were or were not.” This brought matters to a crisis. “The Viceroy now seeing that the treason must be discovered foorthwith stayed [held] our master, blew the Trumpet, and of all sides set upon us.”

Desperately brief as was the time for preparation, the English ships had been made ready for the awful assault. But the men on the island were taken quite unawares, and abandoning their guns fell a quick prey to their onrushing assailants. The story of the unequal battle Hawkins graphically relates with soldierlike brevity.

"Our men which warded a shore being stricken with sudden feare, gave place, fled, and sought to recover succour of our ships; the Spaniardes being before provided for the purpose landed in all places in multitudes from their ships which they might easily doe without boates, and slewe all our men a shore without mercie, a fewe of them escaped aboord the Jesus. The great ship which had by the estimation three hundred men placed in her secretly, immediately fel aboord the Minion, but by Gods appointment, in the time of the suspicion we had, which was onely one halfe houre, the Minion was made readie to avoide, and so leesing her hedfasts, and hayling away by the sternefastes she was gotten out: thus with Gods helpe she defended the violence of the first brunt of these three hundred men. The Minion being past out, they came aboord the Jesus, which also with very much a doe and the losse of manie of our men were defended and kept out. Then there were also two other ships that assaulted the Jesus at the same instant, so that she had hard getting loose, but yet with some time we had cut our headfastes and gotten out by the sternefastes.

“Nowe when the Jesus and the Minion were gotten about two shippes length from the Spanish fleete the fight beganne so hotte on all sides that within one houre the Admirall of the Spaniards was supposed to be sunke, their Viceadmirall burned, and one other of their principall ships supposed to be sunke, so that the shippes were little able to annoy us.” But the guns on the island which had fallen into the Spaniards’ hands, were worked with direful results. All the masts and yards of the “Jesus” were so cut by their shot that “there was no hope to carrie her away”; and one of the small ships was sunk. Thereupon it was decided to bring the battered “Jesus” to the land side of the “Minion” and use her as a defence for the “Minion” against the batteries, till night, and then to shift as much of her provisions and other necessities to the “Minion” as time would permit, and abandon her. But just as the “Jesus” had been so placed alongside the “Minion,” suddenly the Spaniards had “fired two great shippes which were comming directly with” them. Having no means to avoid the fire this “bredde among our men a marvellous feare, so that some sayd let us depart with the Minion, other said, let us see whither [whether] the winde will carrie the fire from us.” Then “the Minions men which had alwayes their sayles in a readinesse, thought to make sure worke, and so without either consent of the Captaine or Master cut their saile, so that very hardly I was received into the Minion. The most part of the men that were left alive in the Jesus made shift and followed the Minion in a small boat, the rest which the little boate was not able to receive, were inforced to abide the mercie of the Spaniards (which I doubt was very little) so that with the Minion only and the Judith [Drake’s little bark] we escaped.”

Throughout the engagement Hawkins was at the fore, and his coolness was superb, as this dramatic incident at the height of the action, quaintly related by one of the survivors, Job Hartop, shows: "Our Generall couragiously cheered up his souldiers and gunners, and called to Samuel his page for a cup of Beere, who brought it to him in a silver cup; and hee, drinking it to all men, willed the gunners to stand by their ordnance lustily like men. He had no sooner set the cup out of his hand but a demy Culverin shot stroke away the cup and a Coopers plane that stoode by the maine mast, and ranne out on the other side of the ship; which nothing dismaied our Generall, for he ceased not to incourage us, saying ‘feare nothing, for God who hath preserved me from this shot, will also deliver us from these traitours and villaines.’"

That night the “Minion” rode only two “bow-shootes” off from the Spanish ships with her crowded company. During the night the “Judith” "forsake" them in their “great miserie,” as Hawkins wrote; but it was afterward stated that she had lost sight of the “Minion” in the confusion of the disaster. The following morning the “Minion” attained an island about a mile from the scene of the furious action, and the fugitives hoped for a little relief. But here the dreaded north wind took them; “and being left onely with two ankers and two cables (for in this conflict we lost three cables and two ankers),” they “thought alwayes upon death which ever was present.” On the next day, however, the “weather waxed reasonable” and they again set sail. For fourteen days “with many sorowful hearts” they wandered about the gulf till hunger enforced them to seek the land. At this time such were their straits that “hides were thought very good meat, rats, cats, mice, and dogs, none escaped that might be gotten, parrats and monkeyes that were had in great price, were thought there very profitable if they served the turne [of] one dinner.” They at length came to land in the bottom of the gulf, but it afforded them no haven of relief or place where they could repair the “sore beaten” ship. But they were able to take on a supply of fresh water. Here a number desired to remain and take their chances in the unknown country. Accordingly Hawkins divided the crowded company. “Such as were willing to land I put them apart, and such as were desirous to go homewardes I put apart, so that they were indifferently parted a hundred of one side and a hundred of the other side: these hundred men we set a land with all diligence in this little place beforesaid, which being landed, we determined there to take in fresh water, and so with our little remaine of victuals to take the sea.”

They departed hence with their lighter load on the sixteenth of October. A month later they were “clear from the coast of the Indies and out of the channel and gulf of Bahama.” Afterward approaching the “cold country” many of the company “oppressed with famine” died, while those that were left “grew into such weaknesses” that they were scarcely able to manage the ship. Shortly new perils came upon them. “The winde alwayes ill for us to recover England, we determined to goe with Galicia in Spaine, with intent there to relieve our companie and other extreame wantes. And being arrived the last day of December in a place neere unto Vigo called Ponte Vedra, our men with excesse of fresh meate grew into miserable diseases, and died a great part of them. This matter was borne out as long as it might be, but in the end although there were none of our men suffered to goe a land, yet by accesse of the Spaniards our feeblenesse was knowen to them. Whereupon they ceased not to seeke by all meanes to betray us.” To escape this danger they made with all speed for Vigo. Here at last fortune favoured them. With the help of some English ships in this port and “twelve fresh men” they “repaired their wants” sufficiently to complete the voyage; and on the twenty-fifth of January, 1568/9 the “Minion” entered Mounts Bay, Cornwall, and the worn and shattered survivors were at home.

“If all the miseries and troublesome affaires of this sorowful voyage should be perfectly and throughly written,” Hawkins opined in closing his narration, “there should neede a painefull man with his pen, and as great a time as he had that wrote the lives and deathes of the Martyrs.”

The tribulations of the hundred and more men who were landed in the Gulf of Mexico to shift for themselves, and the marvellous adventures of those who lived through awful hardships, were related in large detail by three of them: Miles Philips, David Ingram, and Job Hartop. The tales of Philips and Hartop fill many of Hakluyt’s ample pages. Both supplement Hawkins’s official report of the San Juan d’Ulloa affair in small particulars. Philips told of miseries sustained by himself and companions among savage people; of their ultimate falling into the Spaniards’ hands; of how they were worked as slaves; how they were reviled as “English dogs and Lutheran heretics,” suffered the Inquisition, which was brought into “New Spain” while they were there, and were hardly used in the “religious houses”; and how some of them escaped after years of bondage. Philips also told of meeting in the city of Mexico the English hostages whom Hawkins had given at San Juan d’Ulloa. They were there prisoners in the viceroy’s house. After four months’ imprisonment they were sent to Spain, where, Philips had heard it “credibly reported,” many of them died “with the cruel handling of the Spaniards in the Inquisition house.” In Mexico, too, and at the viceroy’s house, Captain Barret, the captured master of the “Jesus,” was found. He also was afterward sent to Spain, and suffered the Inquisition; and at the last that Philips had heard, he was condemned to be burned, and with him another of Hawkins’s men named John Gilbert. Philips got back to England and told his story in 1582. Hartop was one of the gunners of the “Jesus.” The sum of his experiences covered twenty-three years, and included two years’ imprisonment in Mexico; a year in an Inquisition house in Spain; twelve years in the galleys; four years in the “everlasting prison remidilesse” with the “coat of St. Andrews cross on his back”; and three years a “drudge” to the treasurer of the king’s mint. Ingram’s experiences were the most marvellous of all, according to his narration, and the things that he saw, or imagined he saw, were amazing. He told of travelling with two companions afoot along the coast of North America, from the Gulf of Mexico to near Cape Breton. He averred that he “never continued in any one place above three or four days, saving in the city of Balma,” wherever that may have been, where he tarried about a week. He saw fair dwellings topped with “banquetting houses” built with “pillars of massy silver and crystal”; many strange peoples; wondrous beasts, elephants, a “monster beast twice as big as a horse,” another “bigger than a bear,” with neither head nor neck, the eyes and mouth in the breast; and many strange birds, “thrice as big as an eagle and beautiful to behold.” Hakluyt gave his story in the first edition of the Principal Navigations, but left it out of the later 226editions, because, as Purchas in his Pilgrimies afterward explained, of some of its “incredibilities”: the “reward of lying,” Purchas observes, “being not to be believed in truths.”

Hawkins made no more voyages for a period of two decades. In 1572 he was returned to Parliament from Plymouth, and the next year was made treasurer of the navy. He was a vice-admiral in the fleet against the Spanish Armada (1588), commanding the “Victory,” and he was created a knight for his effective services in that great engagement. His last voyage was made in 1595, again with Drake, and once more against the Spanish West Indies: and there he died, at Porto Rico, on the twelfth of November that year.

Drake returned from the bitter experience at San Juan d’Ulloa the implacable foe of Spaniards. After fruitless efforts to obtain compensation from Spain for his losses in the San Juan affair, he determined on a campaign of revenge, and in 1570 he was found again at sea on the forerunner of astonishing voyages of reprisal.

From these buccaneering expeditions he was led to his greater exploit in “ploughing a furrow” round the globe, with the incidental discovery of California for the English.

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books.

This book is part of the public domain. Richard Hakluyt (2018). The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57917/pg57917-images.html

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.