"Well, lads, what is it now?"
"An' it please yer honour, we of the forecastle may not go no furder in this ship, save she be lightened of her cargo," said the spokesman.
"Lightened! why, she be all right; there would ha' been no danger but for your negligence! Why weren't the lower ports shut and calked?"
"Howbeit, master, we be all afraid to go in her as she be!"
"Very well; an' ye be afeard, I will heave out some tons into a hoy, lads." Then to his officers he said, "Look ye! mariners be like a stiff-necked horse who taketh the bridle between his teeth."
Thus, to content them, he engaged a hoy, into which he loaded eight tons; but untoward weather pursued them all the way to Plymouth.
It took him a month to prepare for his voyage and gather his company together; and when the crews were all hired, his friends were employed two days, with the help of the justices of the town, in searching all lodgings, taverns, and ale-houses before his people could be got aboard; for some would ever be taking their leave and never depart; some drank themselves so drunk, that, except they were carried aboard, they could not walk one step; others feigned themselves to be grievously sick; others to be indebted to their host, and could not leave until they were ransomed; and others, to benefit themselves by the earnest-money paid them in advance, absented themselves from a wicked desire to make an unfair living by deceiving one master after another. There were some, too, who had pawned a chest, or a sword, or two shirts, or a card and instruments for sea. Thus Sir Richard in his "Observations" rehearses the grievances of a sea captain, and he adds: "In what sort they dealt with me is notorious, and was such that if I had not been provident to have had a third part more of men than I had need of, I had been forced to go to sea unmanned, or to give over my voyage. And many of my company at sea vaunted how they had cosened and cheated the Earl of Cumberland, Master Cavendish, and others, some of five pounds, some of ten or more; and truly I think my voyage prospered the worse for their lewd company."
Hawkins was against the custom of making imprests to the sailors, as the money paid in advance was called. "All who go to sea nowadays are provided of food and house-room and all things necessary, and in long voyages of apparel also; that nothing is to be spent during the voyage."
Imprests to married men, made in the form of a monthly allowance to their wives, he thought useful.
When he had drawn his three ships out into the Sound a storm broke from the west, in which the Dainty was hardly saved by cutting away her mainmast, and the pinnace was sunk. A kind friend pushed off from the shore to warn him against proceeding further after such a mischance.