w 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
expect