Next year, in August 1595, Drake and Hawkins left Plymouth with twenty-seven ships and 2500 men, Drake sailing in the Defiance as Admiral, Hawkins in the Garland as Vice-Admiral; Sir Thomas Baskerville was the Commander by land. The plan was to sail to Nombre de Dios and march across the isthmus to Panama, there to seize what treasure they could. But just before they sailed letters came from the Queen informing them that they were too late to intercept the West Indian fleet; it had already arrived in Spain; but one treasure-ship had lost a mast and put back to Puerto Rico; they were to seek for this and take it. So they sailed on the 28th of August, and in four weeks reached the Grand Canary. Drake and Baskerville wished to land, victual the fleet, and take the island; Hawkins, still smarting under Elizabeth's lash, was for strictly obeying the Queen's instructions. However, Baskerville promised he would take the place in four days, and Hawkins consented to wait. But finding that a strong mole had been built, and that the landing-place was defended by guns, and as a nasty sea was rising, they just landed to get water on the western side of the island and made for Dominica.

After making some traffic in tobacco they went on to Guadaloupe, where they cleaned their ships and let the men land. The next day, seeing some Spanish ships passing towards Puerto Rico, Drake concluded that the treasure-ship was still there, and that this force had been sent to convoy it. Captain Wignol in the Francis, having straggled behind out of Hawkins' fleet, fell in with these Spanish ships under Don Pedro Tello, and was captured. Tello put his men to torture, and drew from them the object and proposed course of the English ships. When Hawkins heard of this from a small vessel that had escaped the Spaniards, he suddenly fell sick: age, the troubles of the voyage, this last disappointment—all were too much for him; he struggled bravely against his malady, but every day he grew weaker. They started in three days from Guadaloupe and reached the Virgin Islands, where they took plenty of fish. Drake and Hawkins had some dispute here, some difference of opinion, and this was the last straw to weigh down the balance of death. For on the morning of the 12th of November the fleet passed through the Strait; and at night, when it was off the eastern end of Puerto Rico, Hawkins breathed his last.

Drake sailed in imprudently under the forts; one shot wounded his mizzen-mast, another entered the steerage, where he was at supper, and struck the stool from under him, killing two of his officers, but not hurting him. The treasure had been removed from the galleon, and the empty galleon had been sunk in the mouth of the channel. After a fierce fight Drake had to give up the attempt to get the treasure and sail away.

He only survived his old friend by eleven weeks. Thus England lost two of her grandest seamen in this expedition. Hawkins was seventy-five years old—too old to be exposed to the burning sun and all the anxieties of warfare. Then came bitter disappointment, and the feeling that he had done nothing to rescue his son, and little to avenge his wrongs. For six weeks Sir John Hawkins strove to make head against this "sea of troubles," but his work had been done, his body was worn out, and he could endure no more. In his adventurous life he had done many questionable things; but we ought not to judge him by the moral standard of another age; in his day, the rights of the slave had not yet been thought of. Hawkins had tried to do his duty to God and man, as he conceived that duty, and to his unflagging labours and zeal as Treasurer of the Navy, the success of England against the Armada was largely due.

CHAPTER III
GEORGE CLIFFORD, EARL OF CUMBERLAND, THE
CHAMPION OF THE TILT-YARD

When a nobleman neglects his private duties to his home estates and spends his fortune in fitting out ships to seek gold and jewels, and to damage the trade of a country he hates, different estimates will be formed of the honesty and nobility of the motives by which he is prompted.

We shall see in the sketch of George Clifford's life how various motives, good and indifferent, urged him to play the sea-king.

He was born in his father's castle at Brougham, Westmorland, in August 1558, being fourteenth baron Clifford of Westmorland. His family history had been distinguished, for the Fair Rosamond of Henry II. was a Clifford, and in the wars of York and Lancaster the Cliffords took a prominent part on the Lancastrian side. When George was still a boy his father brought about his betrothment to the Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of the second Earl of Bedford. He was being educated at Battle Abbey when his father died, and later he went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to complete his studies under Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, who was then Master of Trinity. He also proceeded to Oxford for a time, as was not unusual in those days.

Before he was nineteen he was married to his betrothed in St. Mary Overy's Church, Southwark: the young lady was scarce seventeen years old. Clifford was a young man of expensive tastes. Amongst his other qualifications for Court life he excelled all the nobles of his time in tilting, and soon won the recognition of the Queen by his prowess in the Westminster tilt-yard. So he was made a Knight of the Garter, and in the twenty-eighth year of his age was appointed one of the forty Peers by whom Mary Queen of Scots was tried at Fotheringay Castle, in Nottinghamshire.