ATTEMPT ON SIR JOHN HAWKINS' LIFE
As the Spanish and English fleets were anchored at Vera Cruz apparent amity and goodwill existed between the two, but as Hawkins was sitting at dinner one day a Spaniard sitting at table with him was discovered with a dagger up his sleeve, but fortunately was disarmed before he could use it.
Hawkins cheered his soldiers and gunners, called his page to serve him a cup of beer, whereat he stood up and drank to their good luck. He had no sooner set down the silver cup than a demi-culverin shot struck it away. "Fear nothing," shouted Hawkins, "for God, who hath preserved me from this shot, will also deliver us from these traitors and villains."
Francis Drake was bidden to come in with the Judith, a barque of 50 tons, and take in men from the sinking ships: at night the English in the Minion and Judith sailed out and anchored under the island. The English taken by the Spaniards received no mercy. "They took our men and hung them up by the arms upon high posts until the blood burst out of their fingers' ends."
The Judith under Drake sailed for England and reached Plymouth in January 1569; the Minion, with 200 men, suffered hunger and had to eat rats and mice and dogs. One hundred men elected to be landed and left behind to the mercies of Indians and Spaniards. "When we were landed," said a survivor, "Master Hawkins came unto us, where friendly embracing every one of us, he was greatly grieved that he was forced to leave us behind him. He counselled us to serve God and to love one another; and thus courteously he gave us a sorrowful farewell and promised, if God sent him safe home, he would do what he could that so many of us as lived should by some means be brought into England—and so he did." Thus writes Job Hartop. So we see that John Hawkins, the slave-dealer, sincerely tried after his fashion to serve God as well as his Queen. His men loved him and spoke well of him when he failed; a good test of a man's worth when men will speak well of you though all your plans be broken and your credit gone. But alas! for the poor hundred men left ashore on the Mexican coast! They wandered for fourteen days through marshes and brambles, some poisoned by bad water, others shot by Indians or plagued by mosquitoes, until they came to the Spanish town of Panluco, where the Governor thrust them into a little hog-stye and fed them on pigs' food. After three days of this they were manacled two and two and driven over ninety leagues of road to the city of Mexico. One of their officers used them very spitefully and would strike his javelin into neck or shoulders, if from faintness any lagged behind, crying, "March on, English dogs, Lutherans, enemies to God." After four months in gaol they were sent out as servants to the Spanish colonists. For six years they fared passing well, but in 1575 the Inquisition was introduced into Mexico, and then their "sorrows began afresh." On the eve of Good Friday all were dressed for an auto-da-fé and paraded through the streets. Some were then burnt, others sent to the galleys, the more favoured ones got three hundred lashes apiece. One who had escaped had spent twenty-three years in various galleys, prisons, and farms.
Meanwhile Hawkins was taking his other hundred men back to England, meeting violent storms, but "God again had mercy on them." Then food became scarce and many died of starvation: the rest were so weak they could hardly manage the sails. At last they sighted the coast of Spain and put in at Vigo for supplies; here more died from eating excess of fresh meat after their famine. At length, with the help of twelve English sailors they reached Mount's Bay in Cornwall, in January 1569.
Here was a miserable ending of an ambitious expedition: no profits, no gold, no silver for the rich merchants and courtiers who had subscribed for the fitting out of the ships; no jewels for the lady who graced the throne. Sadly John Hawkins wrote to Sir William Cecil: "All our business hath had infelicity, misfortune, and an unhappy end: if I should write of all our calamities, I am sure a volume as great as the Bible will scarcely suffice."