Said Francis I of France to Charles V, King of Spain: 'Your Majesty and
the King of Portugal have divided the world between you, offering no
part of it to me. Show me, I pray you, the will of our father Adam, so
that I may see if he has really made you his only universal heirs!'
Then Francis sent out the Italian navigator Verrazano, who first
explored the coast from Florida to Newfoundland. Afterwards Jacques
Cartier discovered the St. Lawrence; Frenchmen took Havana twice,
plundered the Spanish treasure-ships, and tried to found
colonies—Catholic in Canada, Protestant in Florida and Brazil.
Thus, at the time when Elizabeth ascended the throne of England in
1558, there was a long-established New Spain extending over Mexico, the
West Indies, and most of South America; a small New Portugal confined
to part of Brazil; and a shadowy New France running vaguely inland from
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, nowhere effectively occupied, and mostly
overlapping prior English claims based on the discoveries of the
Cabots.
England and France had often been enemies. England and Spain had just
been allied in a war against France as well as by the marriage of
Philip and Mary. William Hawkins had traded with Portuguese Brazil
under Henry VIII, as the Southampton merchants were to do later on.
English merchants lived in Lisbon and Cadiz; a few were even settled in
New Spain; and a friendly Spaniard had been so delighted by the
prospective union of the English with the Spanish crown that he had
given the name of Londres (London) to a new settlement in the Argentine
Andes.
Presently, however, Elizabethan England began to part company with
Spain, to become more anti-Papal, to sympathize with Huguenots and
other heretics, and, like Francis I, to wonder why an immense new world
should be nothing but New Spain. Besides, Englishmen knew what the rest
of Europe knew, that the discovery of Potosi had put out of business
nearly all the Old-World silver mines, and that the Burgundian Ass (as
Spanish treasure-mules were called, from Charles's love of Burgundy)
had enabled Spain to make conquests, impose her will on her neighbors,
and keep paid spies in every foreign court, the English court included.
Londoners had seen Spanish gold and silver paraded through the streets
when Philip married Mary—'27 chests of bullion, 99 horseloads + 2
cartloads of gold and silver coin, and 97 boxes full of silver bars!'
Moreover, the Holy Inquisition was making Spanish seaports pretty hot
for heretics. In 1562, twenty-six English subjects were burnt alive in
Spain itself. Ten times as many were in prison. No wonder sea-dogs were
straining at the leash.
Neither Philip nor Elizabeth wanted war just then, though each enjoyed
a thrust at the other by any kind of fighting short of that, and though
each winked at all kinds of armed trade, such as privateering and even
downright piracy. The English and Spanish merchants had commercial
connections going back for centuries; and business men on both sides
were always ready to do a good stroke for themselves.
This was the state of affairs in 1562 when young John Hawkins, son of
'Olde Master William,' went into the slave trade with New Spain. Except
for the fact that both Portugal and Spain allowed no trade with their
oversea possessions in any ships but their own, the circumstances
appeared to favor his enterprise. The American Indians were withering
away before the atrocious cruelties of the Portuguese and Spaniards,
being either killed in battle, used up in merciless slavery, or driven
off to alien wilds. Already the Portuguese had commenced to import
negroes from their West African possessions, both for themselves and
for trade with the Spaniards, who had none. Brazil prospered beyond
expectation and absorbed all the blacks that Portuguese shipping could
supply. The Spaniards had no spare tonnage at the time.
John Hawkins, aged thirty, had made several trips to the Canaries. He
now formed a joint-stock company to trade with the Spaniards farther
off. Two Lord Mayors of London and the Treasurer of the Royal Navy were
among the subscribers. Three small vessels, with only two hundred and
sixty tons between them, formed the flotilla. The crews numbered just a
hundred men. 'At Teneriffe he received friendly treatment. From thence
he passed to Sierra Leona, where he stayed a good time, and got into
his possession, partly by the sword and partly by other means, to the
number of 300 Negroes at the least, besides other merchandises.... With
this prey he sailed over the ocean sea unto the island of Hispaniola
[Hayti] ... and here he had reasonable utterance [sale] of his English
commodities, as also of some part of his Negroes, trusting the
Spaniards no further than that by his own strength he was able still to
master them.' At 'Monte Christi, another port on the north side of
Hispaniola ... he made vent of [sold] the whole number of his Negroes,
for which he received by way of exchange such a quantity of merchandise
that he did not only lade his own three ships with hides, ginger,
sugars, and some quantity of pearls, but he freighted also two other
hulks with hides and other like commodities, which he sent into Spain,'
where both hulks and hides were confiscated as being contraband.
Nothing daunted, he was off again in 1564 with four ships and a hundred
and seventy men. This time Elizabeth herself took shares and lent the
_Jesus of Lubeck_, a vessel of seven hundred tons which Henry VIII had
bought for the navy. Nobody questioned slavery in those days. The great
Spanish missionary Las Casas denounced the Spanish atrocities against
the Indians. But he thought negroes, who could be domesticated, would
do as substitutes for Indians, who could not be domesticated. The
Indians withered at the white man's touch. The negroes, if properly
treated, throve, and were safer than among their enemies at home. Such
was the argument for slavery; and it was true so far as it went. The
argument against, on the score of ill treatment, was only gradually
heard. On the score of general human rights it was never heard at all.
'At departing, in cutting the foresail lashings a marvellous misfortune
happened to one of the officers in the ship, who by the pulley of the
sheet was slain out of hand.' Hawkins 'appointed all the masters of his
ships an Order for the keeping of good company in this manner:—The
small ships to be always ahead and aweather of the _Jesus_, and to
speak twice a-day with the _Jesus_ at least.... If the weather be
extreme, that the small ships cannot keep company with the _Jesus_,
then all to keep company with the _Solomon_.... If any happen to any
misfortune, then to show two lights, and to shoot off a piece of
ordnance. If any lose company and come in sight again, to make three
yaws [zigzags in their course] and strike the mizzen three times. SERVE
GOD DAILY. LOVE ONE ANOTHER. PRESERVE YOUR VICTUALS. BEWARE OF FIRE,
AND KEEP GOOD COMPANY.'
John Sparke, the chronicler of this second voyage, was full of
curiosity over every strange sight he met with. He was also blessed
with the pen of a ready writer. So we get a story that is more
vivacious than Hakluyt's retelling of the first voyage or Hawkins's own
account of the third. Sparke saw for the first time in his life
negroes, Caribs, Indians, alligators, flying-fish, flamingoes,
pelicans, and many other strange sights. Having been told that Florida
was full of unicorns he at once concluded that it must also be full of
lions; for how could the one kind exist without the other kind to
balance it? Sparke was a soldier who never found his sea legs. But his
diary, besides its other merits, is particularly interesting as being
the first account of America ever written by an English eyewitness.
Hawkins made for Teneriffe in the Canaries, off the west of Africa.
There, to everybody's great 'amaze,' the Spaniards 'appeared levelling
of bases [small portable cannon] and arquebuses, with divers others, to
the number of fourscore, with halberds, pikes, swords, and targets.'
But when it was found that Hawkins had been taken for a privateer, and
when it is remembered that four hundred privateering vessels—English
and Huguenot—had captured seven hundred Spanish prizes during the
previous summer of 1563, there was and is less cause for 'amaze.' Once
explanations had been made, 'Peter de Ponte gave Master Hawkins as
gentle entertainment as if he had been his own brother.' Peter was a
trader with a great eye for the main chance.
Sparke was lost in wonder over the famous Arbol Santo tree of Ferro,
'by the dropping whereof the inhabitants and cattle are satisfied with
water, for other water they have none on the island.' This is not quite
the traveller's tale it appears to be. There are three springs on the
island of Teneriffe. But water is scarce, and the Arbol Santo, a sort
of gigantic laurel standing alone on a rocky ledge, did actually supply
two cisterns, one for men and the other for cattle. The morning mist
condensing on the innumerable smooth leaves ran off and was caught in
suitable conduits.
In Africa Hawkins took many 'Sapies which do inhabit about Rio Grande
[now the Jeba River] which do jag their flesh, both legs, arms, and
bodies as workmanlike as a jerkin-maker with us pinketh a jerkin.' It
is a nice question whether these Sapies gained or lost by becoming
slaves to white men; for they were already slaves to black conquerors
who used them as meat with the vegetables they forced them to raise.
The Sapies were sleek pacifists who found too late that the warlike
Samboses, who inhabited the neighboring desert, were not to be denied.
'In the island of Sambula we found almadies or canoas, which are made
of one piece of wood, digged out like a trough, but of a good
proportion, being about eight yards long and one in breadth, having a
beak-head and a stern very proportionably made, and on the outside
artificially carved, and painted red and blue.' Neither _almadie_ nor
canoa is, of course, an African word. One is Arabic for a cradle
(_el-mahd_); the other, from which we get _canoe_, is what the natives
told Columbus they called their dugouts; and dugout canoes are very
like primitive cradles. Thus Sparke was the first man to record in
English, from actual experience, the aboriginal craft whose name, both
East and West, was suggested to primeval man by the idea of his being
literally 'rocked in the cradle of the deep.'
Hawkins did not have it all his own way with the negroes, by whom he
once lost seven of his own men killed and twenty-seven wounded. 'But
the captain in a singular wise manner carried himself with countenance
very cheerful outwardly, although inwardly his heart was broken in
pieces for it; done to this end, that the Portugais, being with him,
should not presume to resist against him.' After losing five more men,
who were eaten by sharks, Hawkins shaped his course westward with a
good cargo of negroes and 'other merchandises.' 'Contrary winds and
some tornados happened to us very ill. But the Almighty God, who never
suffereth His elect to perish, sent us the ordinary Breeze, which never
left us till we came to an island of the Cannibals' (Caribs of
Dominica), who, by the by, had just eaten a shipload of Spaniards.
Hawkins found the Spanish officials determined to make a show of
resisting unauthorized trade. But when 'he prepared 100 men well armed
with bows, arrows, arquebuses, and pikes, with which he marched
townwards,' the officials let the sale of blacks go on. Hawkins was
particularly anxious to get rid of his 'lean negroes,' who might die in
his hands and become a dead loss; so he used the 'gunboat argument' to
good effect. Sparke kept his eyes open for side-shows and was delighted
with the alligators, which he called crocodiles, perhaps for the sake
of the crocodile tears. 'His nature is to cry and sob like a Christian
to provoke his prey to come to him; and thereupon came this proverb,
that is applied unto women when they weep, _lachrymoe crocodili_.'
From the West Indies Hawkins made for Florida, which was then an object
of exceptional desire among adventurous Englishmen. De Soto, one of
Pizarro's lieutenants, had annexed it to Spain and, in 1539, had
started off inland to discover the supposed Peru of North America.
Three years later he had died while descending the valley of the
Mississippi. Six years later again, the first Spanish missionary in
Florida 'taking upon him to persuade the people to subjection, was by
them taken, and his skin cruelly pulled over his ears, and his flesh
eaten.' Hawkins's men had fair warning on the way; for 'they, being
ashore, found a dead man, dried in a manner whole, with other heads and
bodies of men,' apparently smoked like hams. 'But to return to our
purpose,' adds the indefatigable Sparke, 'the captain in the ship's
pinnace sailed along the shore and went into every creek, speaking with
divers of the _Floridians_, because he would understand where the
Frenchmen inhabited.' Finally he found them 'in the river of _May_ [now
St. John's River] and standing in 30 degrees and better.' There was
'great store of maize and mill, and grapes of great bigness. Also deer
great plenty, which came upon the sands before them.'
So here were the three rivals overlapping again—the annexing Spaniards,
the would-be colonizing French, and the persistently trading English.
There were, however, no Spaniards about at that time. This was the
second Huguenot colony in Florida. René de Laudonnière had founded it
in 1564. The first one, founded two years earlier by Jean Ribaut, had
failed and Ribaut's men had deserted the place. They had started for
home in 1563, had suffered terrible hardships, had been picked up by an
English vessel, and taken, some to France and some to England, where
the court was all agog about the wealth of Florida. People said there
were mines so bright with jewels that they had to be approached at
night lest the flashing light should strike men blind. Florida became
proverbial; and Elizabethan wits made endless fun of it. _Stolida_, or
the land of fools, and _Sordida_, or the land of muck-worms, were some
of their _jeux d'esprit_. Everyone was 'bound for Florida,' whether he
meant to go there or not, despite Spanish spheres of influence, the
native cannibals, and pirates by the way.
Hawkins, on the contrary, did not profess to be bound for Florida.
Nevertheless he arrived there, and probably had intended to do so from
the first, for he took with him a Frenchman who had been in Ribaut's
colony two years before, and Sparke significantly says that 'the land
is more than any [one] king Christian is able to inhabit.' However this
may be, Hawkins found the second French colony as well as 'a French
ship of fourscore ton, and two pinnaces of fifteen ton apiece by her
... and a fort, in which their captain Monsieur Laudonnière was, with
certain soldiers therein.' The colony had not been a success. Nor is
this to be wondered at when we remember that most of the 'certain
soldiers' were ex-pirates, who wanted gold, and 'who would not take the
pains so much as to fish in the river before their doors, but would
have all things put in their mouths.' Eighty of the original two
hundred 'went a-roving' to the West Indies, 'where they spoiled the
Spaniards ... and were of such haughty stomachs that they thought their
force to be such that no man durst meddle with them.... But God ... did
indurate their hearts in such sort that they lingered so long that a
[Spanish] ship and galliasse being made out of St. Domingo ... took
twenty of them, whereof the most part were hanged ... and twenty-five
escaped ... to Florida, where ... they were put into prison [by
Laudonnière, against whom they had mutinied] and ... four of the
chiefest being condemned, at the request of the soldiers did pass the
arquebusers, and then were hanged upon a gibbet.' Sparke got the
delightful expression 'at the request of the soldiers did pass the
arquebusers' from a 'very polite' Frenchman. Could any one tell you
more politely, in mistranslated language, how to stand up and be shot?
Sparke was greatly taken with the unknown art of smoking. 'The
Floridians ... have an herb dried, who, with a cane and an earthen cup
in the end, with fire and the dried herbs put together, do suck through
the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and
therewith they live four or five days without meat or drink. And this
all the Frenchmen used for this purpose; yet do they hold opinion
withal that it causeth water and steam to void from their stomachs.'
The other 'commodities of the land' were 'more than are yet known to
any man.' But Hawkins was bent on trade, not colonizing. He sold the
_Tiger_, a barque of fifty tons, to Laudonnière for seven hundred
crowns and sailed north on the first voyage ever made along the coast
of the United States by an all-English crew. Turning east off
Newfoundland 'with a good large wind, the 20 September 1565 we came to
Padstow, in Cornwall, God be thanked! in safety, with the loss of
twenty persons in all the voyage, and with great profit to the
venturers, as also to the whole realm, in bringing home both gold,
silver, pearls, and other jewels great store. His name, therefore, be
praised for evermore. Amen.'
Hawkins was now a rich man, a favorite at court, and quite the rage in
London. The Queen was very gracious and granted him the well-known coat
of arms with the crest of 'a demi-Moor, bound and captive' in honor of
the great new English slave trade. The Spanish ambassador met him at
court and asked him to dinner, where, over the wine, Hawkins assured
him that he was going out again next year. Meanwhile, however, the
famous Captain-General of the Indian trade, Don Pedro Menendez de
Aviles, the best naval officer that Spain perhaps has ever had, swooped
down on the French in Florida, killed them all, and built the fort of
St. Augustine to guard the 'Mountains of Bright Stones' somewhere in
the hinterland. News of this slaughter soon arrived at Madrid, whence
orders presently went out to have an eye on Hawkins, whom Spanish
officials thenceforth regarded as the leading interloper in New Spain.
Nevertheless Hawkins set out on his third and very 'troublesome' voyage
in 1567, backed by all his old and many new supporters, and with a
flotilla of six vessels, the _Jesus_, the _Minion_ (which then meant
darling), the _William and John_, the _Judith_, the _Angel_, and the
_Swallow_. This was the voyage that began those twenty years of sea-dog
fighting which rose to their zenith in the battle against the Armada;
and with this voyage Drake himself steps on to the stage as captain of
the _Judith_.
There had been a hitch in 1566, for the Spanish ambassador had reported
Hawkins's after-dinner speech to his king. Philip had protested to
Elizabeth, and Elizabeth had consulted with Cecil, afterwards 'the
great Lord Burleigh,' ancestor of the Marquis of Salisbury, British
Prime Minister during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The result was
that orders went down to Plymouth stopping Hawkins and binding him
over, in a bond of five hundred pounds, to keep the peace with Her
Majesty's right good friend King Philip of Spain. But in 1567 times had
changed again, and Hawkins sailed with colors flying, for Elizabeth was
now as ready to hurt Philip as he was to hurt her, provided always that
open war was carefully avoided.
But this time things went wrong from the first. A tremendous autumnal
storm scattered the ships. Then the first negroes that Hawkins tried to
'snare' proved to be like that other kind of prey of which the
sarcastic Frenchman wrote: 'This animal is very wicked; when you attack
it, it defends itself.' The 'envenomed arrows' of the negroes worked
the mischief. 'There hardly escaped any that had blood drawn of them,
but died in strange sort, with their mouths shut some ten days before
they died.' Hawkins himself was wounded, but, 'thanks be to God,'
escaped the lockjaw. After this the English took sides in a native war
and captured '250 persons, men, women, and children,' while their
friend the King captured '600 prisoners, whereof we hoped to have had
our choice. But the negro, in which nation is seldom or never found
truth, that night removed his camp and prisoners, so that we were fain
to content ourselves with those few we had gotten ourselves.'
However, with 'between 400 and 500 negroes,' Hawkins crossed over from
Africa to the West Indies and 'coasted from place to place, making our
traffic with the Spaniards as we might, somewhat hardly, because the
King had straitly commanded all his governors by no means to suffer any
trade to be made with us. Notwithstanding, we had reasonable trade, and
courteous entertainment' for a good part of the way. In Rio de la Hacha
the Spaniards received the English with a volley that killed a couple
of men, whereupon the English smashed in the gates, while the Spaniards
retired. But, after this little bit of punctilio, trade went on under
cover of night so briskly that two hundred negroes were sold at good
prices. From there to Cartagena 'the inhabitants were glad of us and
traded willingly,' supply being short and demand extra high.
Then came a real rebuff from the governor of Cartagena, followed by a
terrific storm 'which so beat the _Jesus_ that we cut down all her
higher buildings' (deck superstructures). Then the course was shaped
for Florida. But a new storm drove the battered flotilla back to 'the
port which serveth the city of Mexico, called St. John de Ulua,' the
modern Vera Cruz. The historic Vera Cruz was fifteen miles north of
this harbor. Here 'thinking us to be the fleet of Spain, the chief
officers of the country came aboard us. Which, being deceived of their
expectation, were greatly dismayed; but ... when they saw our demand
was nothing but victuals, were recomforted. I [for it is Hawkins's own
story] found in the same port 12 ships which had in them by report
£200,000 in gold and silver, all which, being in my possession [i.e.,
at my mercy] with the King's Island ... I set at liberty.'
What was to be done? Hawkins had a hundred negroes still to sell. But
it was four hundred miles to Mexico City and back again; and a new
Spanish viceroy was aboard the big Spanish fleet that was daily
expected to arrive in this very port. If a permit to sell came back
from the capital in time, well and good. If no more than time to
replenish stores was allowed, good enough, despite the loss of sales.
But what if the Spanish fleet arrived? The 'King's Island' was a low
little reef right in the mouth of the harbor, which it all but barred.
Moreover, no vessel could live through a northerly gale inside the
harbor—the only one on that coast—unless securely moored to the island
itself. Consequently whoever held the island commanded the situation
altogether.
There was not much time for consultation; for the very next morning 'we
saw open of the haven 13 great ships, the fleet of Spain.' It was a
terrible predicament. '_Now_, said I, _I am in two dangers, and forced
to receive the one of them_.... Either I must have kept out the fleet,
which, with God's help, I was very well able to do, or else suffer them
to enter with their accustomed treason.... If I had kept them out, then
there had been present shipwreck of all that fleet, which amounted in
value to six millions, which was in value of our money £1,800,000,
which I considered I was not able to answer, fearing the Queen's
Majesty's indignation.... Thus with myself revolving the doubts, I
thought better to abide the jut of the uncertainty than of the
certainty.' So, after conditions had been agreed upon and hostages
exchanged, the thirteen Spanish ships sailed in. The little island
remained in English hands; and the Spaniards were profuse in promises.
But, having secretly made their preparations, the Spaniards, who were
in overwhelming numbers, suddenly set upon the English by land and sea.
Every Englishman ashore was killed, except a few who got off in a boat
to the _Jesus_. The _Jesus_ and the _Minion_ cut their headfasts,
hauled clear by their sternfasts, drove back the boarding parties, and
engaged the Spanish fleet at about a hundred yards. Within an hour the
Spanish flagship and another were sunk, a third vessel was burning
furiously, fore and aft, while every English deck was clear of enemies.
But the Spaniards had swarmed on to the island from all sides and were
firing into the English hulls at only a few feet from the cannon's
mouth. Hawkins was cool as ever. Calling for a tankard of beer he drank
to the health of the gunners, who accounted for most of the five
hundred and forty men killed on the Spanish side. 'Stand by your
ordnance lustily,' he cried, as he put the tankard down and a round
shot sent it flying. 'God hath delivered me,' he added, 'and so will He
deliver you from these traitors and villains.'
The masts of the _Jesus_ went by the board and her old, strained
timbers splintered, loosened up, and were stove in under the storm of
cannon balls. Hawkins then gave the order to abandon ship after taking
out what stores they could and changing her berth so that she would
shield the little _Minion_. But while this desperate manoeuvre was
being executed down came two fire-ships. Some of the _Minion's_ crew
then lost their heads and made sail so quickly that Hawkins himself was
nearly left behind.
The only two English vessels that escaped were the _Minion_ and the
_Judith_. When nothing else was left to do, Hawkins shouted to Drake to
lay the _Judith_ aboard the _Minion_, take in all the men and stores he
could, and put to sea. Drake, then only twenty-three, did this with
consummate skill. Hawkins followed some time after and anchored just
out of range. But Drake had already gained an offing that caused the
two little vessels to part company in the night, during which a whole
gale from the north sprang up, threatening to put the _Judith_ on a lee
shore. Drake therefore fought his way to windward; and, seeing no one
when the gale abated, and having barely enough stores to make a
friendly land, sailed straight home. Hawkins reported the _Judith_,
without mentioning Drake's name, as 'forsaking' the _Minion_. But no
other witness thought Drake to blame.
Hawkins himself rode out the gale under the lee of a little island,
then beat about for two weeks of increasing misery, when 'hides were
thought very good meat, and rats, cats, mice, and dogs, parrots and
monkeys that were got at great price, none escaped.' The _Minion_ was
of three hundred tons; and so was insufferably overcrowded with three
hundred men, two hundred English and one hundred negroes. Drake's
little _Judith_, of only fifty tons, could have given no relief, as she
was herself overfull. Hawkins asked all the men who preferred to take
their chance on land to get round the foremast and all those who wanted
to remain afloat to get round the mizzen. About a hundred chose one
course and a hundred the other. The landing took place about a hundred
and fifty miles south of the Rio Grande. The shore party nearly all
died. But three lived to write of their adventures. David Ingram,
following Indian trails all round the Gulf of Mexico and up the
Atlantic seaboard, came out where St. John, New Brunswick, stands now,
was picked up by a passing Frenchman, and so got safely home. Job
Hortop and Miles Philips were caught by the Spaniards and sent back to
Mexico. Philips escaped to England fourteen years later. But Hortop was
sent to Spain, where he served twelve years as a galley-slave and ten
as a servant before he contrived to get aboard an English vessel.
The ten Spanish hostages were found safe and sound aboard the _Jesus_;
though, by all the rules of war, Hawkins would have been amply
justified in killing them. The English hostages were kept fast
prisoners. 'If all the miseries of this sorrowful voyage,' says
Hawkins's report, 'should be perfectly written, there should need a
painful man with his pen, and as great a time as he had that wrote the
lives and deaths of martyrs.'
Thus, in complete disaster, ended that third voyage to New Spain on
which so many hopes were set. And with this disastrous end began those
twenty years of sea-dog rage which found their satisfaction against the
Great Armada.