ghbors, 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