and in all other expensive sports, " were the great occasion of
his selling land " ; and he is said to have " consumed more
than any one of his ancestors ".* The large expenditure
which his station required his own ample means could amply
have supported ; but no means are adequate to the demands
of prodigality.
When James came to take possession of his new kingdom,
this nobleman "attended him with such an equipage of
followers, for number and habit, that he seemed rather a
king than Earl of Cumberland. Here happened a contest
between the earl and the lord president of the north, about
carrying the sword before the king in York : the office, upon
due inquiry, was adjudged to him ; and whilst Clifford's
Tower," says Fuller, " is standing in York, that family will
never be therein forgotten." He died in the forty-eighth year
of his age, and was buried at Skipton. His armour may still
be seen in Appleby Castle. His two sons died in infancy ;
and the only daughter whom he left experienced little
of his love, for bequeathing to her 15,000/. he cut off the
entail of his estates and settled them upon his brother.
She contested the settlement without success ; but on the
death of that brother without issue the estates reverted to her.
This daughter, by her second marriage Countess of Pembroke,
was one of the most high-minded and remarkable women of
her age ; and seems to have been the last person in England
by whom the old baronial dignity of feudal times was supported.
All the good connected with it was manifested in this instance
without any of the evil. Daniel was her tutor, and she had
the honour of erecting Spenser's monument.
* Hist, of Westmoreland, 290.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE
SIR JOHN HAWKINS, the second son of Master William
Hawkins and Joan Trelawny his wife, was born at
Plymouth. His father is said to have been much
esteemed by Henry VIII. as a principal sea-captain, and is
the first Englishman who is known to have traded to Brazil,
having made two voyages thither in his own ship, the Paul
of Plymouth, in the years 1530 and 1532.* Plymouth was
already a port so famous that the biographer of Devonshire
extols it as presenting "a kind of invitation from the com-
modiousness thereof to maritime noble actions " ; f and the
youth was brought up to his father's calling, and gained
much experience by making early in life several voyages
to Spain, Portugal, and the Canaries, " which were, in those
days, extraordinary adventures ". Being " grown in love and
favour" with the Canarians by his good and upright dealing,
and inquiring from them concerning the state of the West
Indies, he was assured that, "negroes were very good
merchandise in Hispaniola ; and that store of them might
easily be had upon the coast of Guinea". He resolved
upon trying his fortune in this trade ; and having communi-
cated that desire with his worshipful friends in London, Sir
Lionel Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, his father-in-law, Master
Gunson, Sir William Winter, and some others, they liked so
well of his intention that they became liberal contributors
and adventurers in the action.
Three good ships were accordingly provided, the Solomon
* Hakluyt, iii., 700. f Prince's Worthies.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 171
of 120 tons, the Swallow of 100, and the Jonas of 40, "in
which small fleet Hawkins took with him not above a hundred
men,* for fear of sickness and other inconveniences, whereunto
men in long voyages are commonly subject". He sailed in
October, 1562, touched at Teneriffe, where he received friendly
entertainment, and proceeded to Sierra Leone ; which place is
said to have been called Taggarin by the natives. There he
stayed some 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 merchandise which that
country yieldeth ". With this prey (so it is properly denomi-
nated) he sailed for Hispaniola, and arrived first at the port of
Isabella, " where he had reasonable utterance of his English
commodities, and of some part of his negroes, trusting the
Spaniards no further than that by his own strength he was
able to master them ". At Puerto de Plata he made " like
sales, standing always upon his guard " ; and at Monte Christo,
on the north side of the island, " made vent " of the remainder
of his negroes, receiving for them, at these places, by way of
exchange, some quantity of pearls, and hides, ginger, sugar,
and "other like commodities," enough not only to load his
own vessels, but for freighting two other hulks ; f and so
"with prosperous success, and much gain to himself and the
aforesaid adventurers, he came home, and arrived in September,
1563".
It is now no honour to have been the first Englishman who
engaged in the slave trade. J But it is not generally known
* "Such," says Campbell, "were the beginnings of Britain's naval
power ! " With how little reflection must that inapt observation have
been written !
t Hakluyt, iii., 500.
J This is ascribed to Hawkins ; but a sentence in Camden's history
(honourable to the historian) seems to throw some doubt upon it. " Black-
moor slaves," he says (108), "were now commonly bought in Africa by
the Spaniards, and, from their example, by the English, and sold again
in America ; how honestly I know not."
172 ENGLISH SEAMEN
how so iniquitous a trade grew up without being regarded as
in the slightest degree repugnant either to natural justice, or
to the principles of Christianity. At a time when European
warfare had been mitigated by the courtesies of chivalry, and
by the frequent changes of political relations, more than by
any growing sense of humanity, the wars between Mahomme-
dan and Christian were carried on with as much ferocity as
in the days of Coeur de Lion : only where the contending
parties, as in Spain, were continually opposed to each other,
such unrelenting butchery was disused by mutual though tacit
consent, because it would have reduced the land to a desert ;
and there those who fell into the hands of their enemies
were made slaves. The Portuguese, having cleared their own
territory, invaded the Moors in Barbary ; the same system
was there pursued with the same people. Their first dis-
coveries were made as much in the spirit of conquest as
of adventure ; and the same treatment which usage had
allotted to the captured Moors was extended, as of course, to
the negroes who were taken along the same line of coast.
To so great an extent did this prevail, that negro slavery was
almost as common in Portugal in the early part of the six-
teenth century as it afterwards became in the sugar islands.
And so entirely were all persons possessed with the opinion
that slavery was the condition to which this unhappy race
was destined, that Las Casas, when he proposed the substitu-
tion of negro for Indian slavery, as a measure of humanity,
never suspected himself of acting inconsistently, nor dreamed
that the injustice and cruelty were as great to the one race
as to the other.
Hawkins, then, is not individually to be condemned if he
looked upon dealing in negroes to be as lawful as any other
trade, and thought that force or artifice might be employed
for taking them with as little compunction as in hunting,
fishing, or fowling : this was the common opinion of his age,
and not a solitary voice had been raised against it. In the
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 173
ensuing year he sailed upon a second trading voyage, with
the Jesus of Lubeck, which was a queen's ship of 700 tons,
the Solomon of 140, and two barques, the one of 50, and the
other of 30, well stored, and manned with 170 men. They
fell in and joined company with another queen's ship, the
Minion, Captain David Carlet, and the St. John Baptist, of
London, bound for Guinea. Their consort, the Minion, was
blown up by the carelessness of a gunner ; but most of the
people were saved. Hawkins' instructions were thought
worthy of being recorded as " good orders for a fleet on a long
voyage ". They were in these words : " The small ships to
be always a-head and a-weather of the Jesus, and to speak
twice a day with the Jesus at least. If in the day the ensign
be over the poop of the Jesus, or in the night two lights,
then shall all the ships speak with her. If there be three
lights aboard the Jesus, then doth she cast about. If the
weather be extreme, that the small ships cannot keep company
with the Jesus, then all to keep company with the Solomon,
and forthwith repair to Teneriffe, to the northward of the
road of Sirroes. If any happen to any misfortune, then to
show two lights, and to shoot off a piece of ordnance. If any
loose company, and come in sight again, to make three yawes,
and strike the mizen three times. Serve God daily ; love one
another ; preserve your victuals ; beware of fire, and keep
good company." *
They touched at the Canaries,! "the fruitfulness of which
island," says the historian of this voyage,]: "doth surely exceed
far all other that I have heard of. For they make wine
better than any in Spain : they have grapes of such bigness
* Hakluyt, iii., 501.
t " Here we took fishes with heads like conies, and teeth nothing
varying ; of a jolly thickness, but not past a foot long ; and is not to be
eaten without flaying, or cutting off his head " (Hakluyt, 503).
J John Sparke,
174 ENGLISH SEAMEN
that they may be compared to damsons, and in taste inferior
to none : for sugar, suckets, raisins of the sun, and many other
fruits, abundance ; for rosine and raw silk there is great store :
they want neither corn, pullets, cattle, nor yet wild fowl.
They have many camels, also, which, being young, are eaten
of the people for victuals, and being old they are used for
carriage. About this island are certain flitting islands, which
have been oftentimes seen, and when men approached near
them they vanished ; as the like hath been of these islands
now known, by the report of the inhabitants, which were not
found of long time one after the other ; and therefore it should
seem he is not yet born to whom God hath appointed the
finding of them." From thence they made Cape de Verd,
where the natives are described as "more civil than any
other, because of their daily traffic with the Frenchmen," and
as being "of nature very gentle and loving". This they
had shown by their treatment of some shipwrecked French-
men a little before. Yet, though Hawkins knew the dis-
position of these people, and had taken on board one of the
men who had been so kindly used, that he was not, without
difficulty, persuaded to leave them, he endeavoured to kidnap
some for slaves, and laid snares for them accordingly.
But the crew of the ship which had been blown up revealed
the intended treachery, and thereby frustrated it : perhaps,
having lost their ship, they were not entitled to share with
the rest ; for it is not to be supposed that they had any
better sense of right and wrong than their comrades.*
Hawkins could not enter the Rio Grande, as he wished,
for want of a pilot ; he proceeded, therefore, to " one of the
islands called Sambula," and staying there certain days, went
"every day on shore to take the inhabitants, with burning
and spoiling their towns ". It is no extenuation of this
conduct that it appeared to the natives as legitimate a con-
* Hakluyt, 502, 503.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 175
sequence of the law of the strongest as it did to themselves :
nevertheless, when we contemplate the course of history, it
is a consolatory consideration, that the evil produced by
invasions and conquest is not all additional evil ; but that,
as in this case, barbarous tribes or nations have endured from
strangers such miseries as they would otherwise have inflicted
upon each other. A people whom the relater of this voyage
calls Samboses, and whose own country was beyond Sierra
Leone, had conquered these islands three years before from
the Sapies, a tribe who inhabited about Rio Grande. " These
Sapies," he says, " be more cruel than the Samboses ; for
whereas the Samboses live most by the spoil of their enemies,
both in taking their victuals, and eating them also, the Sapies
do not eat man's flesh, unless in the war they be driven by
necessity thereunto ; which they have not used but by the
example of the Samboses, but live only upon fruits and cattle,
of which they have great store. This plenty is the occasion
that the Sapies desire not war, except they be thereunto
provoked : whereas the Samboses, for want of food, are en-
forced thereunto, and are not wont only to eat them that
they kill, but also keep those that they take until such time as
they want meat, and then they kill them." The desire of
gold was another motive ; for the Sapies buried the dead
with their golden ornaments, and the fiercer tribe plundered
the graves, the use of gold, as a medium of exchange, being
almost the sole practice of civilised society " in which the
Portuguese had instructed the natives of the coast ".*
The Sapies were in appearance the more barbarous people
of the two : they filed their teeth, " for a bravery to set out
themselves " (a fashion, however, which is likely to have
originated in manners as ferocious as those of their neighbours) ;
and " they do jagg their flesh," says the writer, " both legs,
arms, and bodies, as workmanlike as a jerkin-maker with us
* Hakluyt, 504.
17G ENGLISH SEAMEN
pinketh a jerkin ". These people were kept by their conquerors
to till the ground ; and by their labour it had been brought
into a more productive state than any other part of the
country. Poor wretches, the arrival of the English brought
with it nothing but evil to them, for upon them it was that
the whole evil fell : their habitations were burnt, their planta-
tions wasted ; and, while the Samboses escaped in their
canoes to the main, they fell into the invaders' hands, and
exchanged the easiest of all states of slavery for the worst.
" We took many in that place," is the statement of one of
these freebooters, " and as much of their fruits as we could
well carry away." This booty was obtained at the cost of a
single life : a man, at their departure, having tarried rashly
to gather pompions, was watched by the negroes, who came
behind him, overthrew him, and cut his throat ; thus taking
no undue vengeance upon the only white man that fell into
their hands.*
Flushed with this " prosperous success," Hawkins was easily
persuaded by some Portuguese whom he fell in with after
leaving the island, to attack a negro town called Bymeba,
where, they told him, there was great quantity of gold, and
not above forty men, and 100 women and children ; so that if
he would "give the adventure, he might get 100 slaves".
He was provoked by his ruling motive, the desire of gain ;
and also by a determination "that the Portuguese should
not think him to be of so base a courage, but that he durst
give them that, and greater attempts". Accordingly, forty
well-appointed men set forth upon this adventure, guided by
certain Portuguese, "who brought some of them to their
deaths". A marginal note in the original narrative says, here,
" Portugals not to be trusted " ; but the narrative itself shows,
that misconduct, and not treachery, brought upon this party
what they well deserved. They dispersed, contrary to the
* Hakluyt, 505.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 177
captain's orders, every one thinking to secure what gold he
could for himself : the negroes took advantage of this, at-
tacked the stragglers, and drove the whole party to their
boats, pursuing them to the water. Seven of the kidnappers
were killed, including Master Field, captain of the Solomon,
and twenty-seven wounded. The people were somewhat dis-
comforted at this ; but Hawkins, " in a singular wise manner,
carried himself with countenance very cheerful outwardly, as
though he did little weigh the death of his men, nor yet the
great hurt of the rest ; although his heart inwardly was
broken to pieces for it". "But he assumed this cheer to the
end, that the Portugals, being with him, should not presume
to resist against him, nor take occasion to put him to further
displeasure." *
After this the two ships anchored at Taggarin, while the
smaller crafts went up " a river called the Casserroes," about
their traffic. There they learnt from the Portuguese that a
great battle was about to be fought ; the people of Sierra
Leone having prepared 300 canoes to invade them of Taggarin.
A day was appointed for the battle, "which we would have
seen," says the narrator, "to the intent we might have taken
some of them, had it not been for the death and sickness of
our men, which came by the contagiousness of the place".
The canoes carried threescore men apiece, and the towns up
the river were large, so that they had looked for a good
booty in prisoners ; but the fatal climate compelled them to
make haste away ; and they were informed by a Portuguese
that they had narrowly escaped from the King of Sierra Leone,
"who had made all the power he could" to take some of
them, partly for the desire he had to see what kind of people
they were. An attempt to surprise them failed, for they
took alarm at him, though not thinking there had been such
a mischief pretended towards them as there was indeed. "If
Hakluyt, 506.
12
178 ENGLISH SEAMEN
these men," says the writer, "had come down in the evening,
they had done us great displeasure, for that we 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 praised for it." *
These adventurers resembled the Spaniards as much in
their sense of religion as in their want of any sense of justice
or humanity. Making for the West Indies, they were be-
calmed for the space of eighteen days, "having now and
then," says the writer, " contrary winds and some tornados,
amongst the same calm ; which happened to us very ill, being
but reasonably watered for so great a company of negroes and
ourselves. This pinched us all ; and, that which was worst,
put us in such fear that many never thought to have reached
the Indies without great death of negroes and of themselves ;
but the Almighty God, which never suffereth His elect to
perish, sent us the ordinary breeze." The first land which
they made was Dominica, happening fortunately upon the
most desolate part of the island ; whereby they escaped all
danger from the cannibals, whom the Spaniards represented
as the most desperate warriors in the Indies, and "very devils
in respect of men ". Proceeding to Margarita, the alcayde
entertained them hospitably, and gave them both beeves and
sheep for refreshing their men ; but the governor would
neither speak with Hawkins, nor permit him to traffic, nor
allow him to engage a pilot. He despatched notice of their
arrival to the viceroy at St. Domingo ; and the viceroy sent
orders, in consequence, to Cape de la Vela, and to other
places along the coast, that no man should trade with these
interlopers, but that they were to be resisted with all the
force that could be brought together, f
Obtaining no trade here, and finding no opportunity to
take in water, Hawkins departed and came to Cumana.
* Hakluyt, 506. t Ibid., 507.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 179
The Spaniards whom he found there, said "they were but
soldiers newly arrived, and were not able to buy his negroes,"
and they directed him to a commodious watering-place two
leagues off called Santa Fe. Next day the Indians came
down, " presenting meal and cakes of bread, made of a kind
of com called maize, in bigness of pease, the ear whereof is
much like to a teazel, but a span in length, having thereon a
number of grains. Also they brought down hens, potatoes,
and pines, which we bought," the relater proceeds, "for
beads, pewter whistles, glasses, knives, and other trifles.
These potatoes be the most delicate roots that may be eaten,
and do far exceed our parsnips or carrots. Their pines be of the
bigness of two fists, the outside whereof is of the making of
a pine apple ; but it is soft like the rind of a cucumber, and
the inside eateth like an apple, but it is more delicious than
any sweet apple sugared." The opinion formed of the
Indians here was, that they " surely were gentle and tractable,
and such as desire to live peaceably, or else it had been im-
possible for the Spaniards to have conquered them as they
did, and the more to live now peaceably, they being so many
in number and the Spaniards so few ".*
Having passed between Tortuga and the main, Hawkins
sailed along in his pinnace to discern the coast. The Caribs,
of whom he saw many on shore, and some in their canoes,
showed him gold, invited him by friendly tokens to trade,
and were very importunate with him to land ; which, " if it
had not been for want of wares to traffic with, he would not
have denied them, because the Indians which he had seen
before were very gentle people, and such as do no man
hurt ; but, as God would have it, he wanted that thing,
which, if he had had, would have been his confusion : for
these were no such kind of people as he took them to be,
but more devilish a thousand parts, and are eaters and
* Hakluyt, 508.
180 ENGLISH SEAMEN
devourers of any man they can catch, bloodsuckers both of
Spaniards, Indians, and all that light in their laps ; not
sparing their own countrymen, if they can conveniently come
by them". This Hawkins learnt at Borburata, where he
anchored and went ashore to speak with the Spaniards, de-
claring himself to be an Englishman, who came thither " to
trade with them by the way of merchandise," and requiring
licence so to do. They made answer that they were forbidden
to traffic with any foreigner, on penalty of forfeiting their
goods ; " wherefore they desired him not to molest them
farther, but to depart as he came, for other comfort he might
not look for at their hands, because they were subjects, and
might not go beyond the law". To this he replied, that
being in a queen's armada, with many soldiers on board, he
was in need both of refreshment for them, and food and
money also, without which he could not depart. Their
princes were in amity one with another : the English had
free traffic in Spain and Flanders ; and he knew no reason
why they should not have the like in all the King of Spain's
dominions. Upon this the Spaniards said they would send
to their governor, who was threescore leagues off; ten days
must elapse before his determination could arrive : mean-
time he might bring his ships into the harbour, and they
would supply him with any victuals he might require.*
The ships accordingly went in, and received all things
according to promise. Hawkins then "advised himself,
that to remain there ten days idle, spending victuals and
men's wages, and, perhaps, in the end, receive no good answer
from the governor, it were mere folly ". So he requested licence
for the sale of certain lean and sick negroes, who were like
to die upon his hands if he kept them ten days, having little
or no refreshment for them ; whereas, if they were disposed
of, they would be recovered well enough : and this request,
* Hakluyt, 509.
HAWKINS AND DRAKE 181
he said, he was forced to make, because he had not other-
wise wherewith to pay for the necessities which he wanted.
This request being put in writing was deemed reasonable,
and they granted him a licence to sell thirty slaves. But
though some eagerness to purchase had previously been
shown, no one came now to buy. Hawkins knew not whether
they sought to protract the time till the governor's answer
should arrive, that they " might keep themselves blameless,"
or if some other policy were in view : upon demanding the
cause, he was told that the licence had been granted only to
the poorer people to buy negroes of small price ; their money
was not ready like rich men's ; and, moreover, as soon as
they saw the ship, they had sent away their money and their
wives to the mountains for fear, and it would take two days
to bring them back. Some, however, came to cheapen, but
showed such a disposition to bring down the price, that
Hawkins sent for the principal of the town, and made show
as if he would depart, saying he was sorry that he had troubled
them, as also that he had sent for the governor. For it was
not only a licence to sell that he sought, but profit also,
which he saw was not to be had there ; and, therefore, he
would seek farther. And he showed them his papers, that
they might see what he had paid for his negroes ; and de-
clared, also, " the great charge he was at in his shipping