THE EARL OF CUMBERLAND AND THE “MADRE DE DIOS.”
The earl’s third expedition was a failure, but the fourth resulted in the capture of the Madre de Dios, one of the largest carracks belonging to the Portuguese crown. In this, however, some of Raleigh’s and Hawkins’ ships had a share. Captain Thomson, who came up with her first, “again and again delivered his peals as fast as he could fire and fall astern to load again, thus hindering her way, though somewhat to his own cost, till the others could come up.” Several others worried the carrack, until the earl’s ships came up about eleven at night. Captain Norton had no intention of boarding the enemy till daylight, if there had not been a cry from one of the ships royal, then in danger, “An you be men, save the queen’s ship!” Upon this the carrack was boarded on both sides. A desperate struggle ensued, and it took an hour and a half before the attacking parties succeeded in getting possession of the high forecastle, “so brave a booty making the men fight like dragons.” The ship won, the boarders turned to pillage, and while searching about with candles, managed to set fire to a cabin containing some hundreds of cartridges, very nearly blowing up the ship. The hotness of the action was evidenced by the number of dead and dying who strewed the carrack’s decks, “especially,” says the chronicler, “about the helm; for the greatness of the steerage requiring the labour of twelve or fourteen men at once, and some of our ships beating her in at the stern with their ordnance, oftentimes with one shot slew four or five labouring on either side of the helm; whose room being still furnished with fresh supplies, and our artillery still playing upon them with continual volleys, it could not be but that much blood should be shed in that place.” For the times, the prisoners were treated with great humanity, and surgeons were sent on board to dress their wounds. The captain, Don Fernando de Mendoza, was [pg 294]“a gentleman of noble birth, well stricken in years, well spoken, of comely personage, of good stature, but of hard fortune. Twice he had been taken prisoner by the Moors and ransomed by the king; and he had been wrecked on the coast of Sofala, in a carrack which he commanded, and having escaped the sea danger, fell into the hands of infidels ashore, who kept him under long and grievous servitude.” The prisoners were allowed to carry off their own valuables, put on board one of Cumberland’s ships, and sent to their own country. Unfortunately for them, they again fell in with other English cruisers, who robbed them without mercy, taking from them 900 diamonds and other valuable things. About 800 negroes on board were landed on the island of Corvo. Her cargo consisted of jewels, spices, drugs, silks, calicoes, carpets, canopies, ivory, porcelain, and innumerable curiosities; it was estimated to amount to £150,000 in value, and there was considerable haggling over its division, and no little embezzlement; the queen had a large share of it, and Cumberland netted £36,000. The carrack created great astonishment at Dartmouth by her dimensions, which for those days were enormous. She was of about 1,600 tons burden, and 165 feet long; she was of “seven several stories, one main orlop, three close decks, one forecastle (of great height) and a spar deck of two floors apiece.” Her mainmast was 125 feet in height, and her main-yard 105 feet long. “Being so huge and unwieldly a ship,” says Purchas, “she was never removed from Dartmouth, but there laid up her bones.”
In 1594 the earl set forth on his eighth voyage, with three ships, a caravel, and a pinnace, furnished at his own expense, with the help of some adventurers. Early in the voyage they descried a great Indian ship, whose burden they estimated at 2,000 tons. Her name was the Cinco Chagas (the Five Wounds), and her fate was as tragical as her name. She had on board a number of persons who had been shipwrecked in three vessels, which, like herself, had been returning from the Indies. When she left Mozambique for Europe, she had on board 1,400 persons, an enormous number for those days; on the voyage she had encountered terrible gales, and after putting in at Loanda for water and supplies, and shipping many slaves, a fatal pestilence known by the name of the “mal de Loanda,” carried off about half the crew. The captain wished to avoid the Azores, but a mutiny had arisen among the soldiers on board, and he was forced to stand by them, and by this means came into contact with the Earl of Cumberland’s squadron off Fayal. The Portuguese had pledged themselves to the ship at all hazards, and to perish with her in the sea, or in the flames, rather than yield so rich a prize to the heretics. Cumberland’s ships, after harassing the carrack on all sides, ranged up against her; twice was she boarded, and twice were the assailants driven out. A third time the privateers boarded her, one of them bearing a white flag; he was the first of the party killed, and when a second hoisted another flag at the poop it was immediately thrown overboard. The English suffered considerably, more especially among the officers. Cumberland’s vice-admiral, Antony, was killed; Downton, the rear-admiral, crippled for life; and Cave, who commanded the earl’s ship, mortally wounded. The privateers seem, in the heat of action, almost to have forgotten the valuable cargo on board, and to have aimed only at destroying her. “After many bickerings,” says the chronicler, “fireworks flew about interchangeably; at last the vice-admiral, with a culverin shot at hand, fired the carrack in her stern, and the rear-admiral [pg 295]her forecastle, * * * * then flying and maintaining their fires so well with their small shot that many which came to quench them were slain.” The fire made rapid headway, and P. Frey Antonio, a Franciscan, was seen with a crucifix in his hand, encouraging the poor sailors to commit themselves to the waves and to God’s mercy, rather than perish in the flames. A large number threw themselves overboard, clinging to such things as were cast into the sea. It is said that the English boats, with one honourable exception, made no efforts to save any of them; it is even stated that they butchered many in the water. According to the English account there were more than 1,100 on board the carrack, when she left Loanda, of whom only fifteen were saved! Two ladies of high rank, mother and daughter—the latter of whom was going home to Spain to take possession of some entailed property—when they saw there was no help to be expected from the privateers, fastened themselves together with a cord, and committed themselves to the waves; their bodies were afterwards cast ashore on Fayal, still united, though in the bonds of death.
The earl afterwards built the Scourge of Malice, a ship of 800 tons, and the largest yet constructed by an English subject, and in 1597 obtained letters patent authorising him to levy sea and land forces. Without royal assistance, he gathered eighteen sail. This expedition, although it worried and impoverished the Spaniards, was not particularly profitable to the earl. He took Puerto Rico, and then abandoned it, and did not, as he expected, intercept either the outward-bound East Indiamen, who, indeed, were too frightened to venture out of the Tagus that year, or the homeward-bound Mexican fleet. This was Cumberland’s last expedition, and no other subject ever undertook so many at his own cost.
The Elizabethan age was otherwise so glorious that it is painful to have to record the establishment of the slave-trade—a serious blot on the reign—one which no Englishman of to-day would defend, but which was then looked upon as perfectly legitimate. John Hawkins (afterwards Sir John) was born at Plymouth, and his father had long been a well-esteemed sea-captain, the first Englishman, it is believed, who ever traded to the Brazils. The young man had gained much renown by trips to Spain, Portugal, and the Canaries, and having “grown in love and favour” with the Canarians, by good and upright dealing, began to think of more extended enterprises. Learning that “negroes were very good merchandise in Hispaniola, and that store of them might easily be had upon the coast of Guinea,” he communicated with several London ship-owners, who liked his schemes, and provided him in large part with the necessary outfit. Three small vessels were provided—the Solomon, of 120 tons, the Swallow, of 100, and the Jonas, of forty. Hawkins left England in October, 1562, and proceeding to Sierra Leone, “got into his possession, partly by the sword and partly by other means, to the number of 300 negroes at the least, besides other merchandise which that country yieldeth.” At the port of Isabella, Puerto de Plata, and Monte Christo, he made sale of the slaves to the Spaniards, trusting them “no farther than by his own strength he was able to master them.” He received in exchange, pearls, ginger, sugar, and hides enough, not merely to freight his own vessels, but two other hulks, and thus “with prosperous success, and much gain to himself and the aforesaid adventurers, he came home, and arrived in September, 1563.”
SIR JOHN HAWKINS.
The second expedition was on a larger scale, and included a queen’s ship of 700 tons. Hawkins arriving off the Rio Grande, could not enter it for want of a pilot, but he proceeded to Sambula, one of the islands near its mouth, where he “went every day on shore to take the inhabitants, with burning and spoiling their towns,” and got a number of slaves. Flushed with easy success, Hawkins was persuaded by some Portuguese to attack a negro town called Bymeba, where he was informed there was much gold. Forty of his men were landed, and they dispersing, to secure what booty they could for themselves, became an easy prey to the negroes, who killed seven, including one of the captains, and wounded twenty-seven. After a visit to Sierra Leone, which he left quickly on account of the illness and death of some of his men, he proceeded to the West Indies, where he carried matters with a high hand at the small Spanish settlements, at which very generally the poor inhabitants had been forbidden to trade with him by the viceroy, then stationed at St. Domingo. To this he replied at Borburata, that he was in need of refreshment and money also, “without which he could not depart. Their princes were in amity one with another; the English had free traffic in Spain and Flanders; and he knew no reason why they should not have the like in the King of Spain’s dominions. Upon this the Spaniards said they would send to their governor, who was three-score leagues off; ten days must elapse before his determination could arrive; meantime he might bring his ships into the harbour, and they would supply him with any victuals he might require.” The ships sailed in and were supplied, but Hawkins, “advising himself that to remain there ten days idle, spending victuals and men’s wages, and perhaps, in the end, receive no good answer from the governor, it were mere folly,” requested licence to sell certain lean and sick negroes, for whom he had little or no food, but who would recover with proper treatment ashore. This request, he said, he was forced to make, as he had not otherwise wherewith to pay for necessaries supplied to him. He received a licence to sell thirty slaves, but now few showed a disposition to buy, and where they did, came to haggle and cheapen. Hawkins made a feint to go, when the Spaniards bought some of his poorer negroes, “but when the purchasers paid the duty and required the customary receipt, the officer refused to give it, and instead of carrying the money to the king’s account, distributed it to the poor ‘for the love of God.’ ” The purchasers feared that they might have to pay the duty a second time, and the trade was suspended till the governor arrived, on the fourteenth day. To him Hawkins told a long-winded story, concluding by saying that, “it would be taken well at the governor’s hand if he granted a licence in this case, seeing that there was a great amity between their princes, and that the thing pertained to our queen’s highness.” The petition was taken under consideration in council, and at last granted. The licence of thirty ducats demanded for each slave sold did not, however, meet Hawkins’ views, and he therefore landed 100 men well armed, and marched toward the town. The poor townspeople sent out messengers to know his demands, and he requested that the duty should be 7½ per cent., and mildly threatened that if they would not accede to this “he would displease them.” Everything was conceded, and Hawkins obtained the prices he wanted. Fancy a modern merchant standing with an armed guard, pistol in hand, over his customers, insisting that he would sell what he liked and at his own price!
But all this is nothing to what happened at Rio de la Hacha. There he spoke of his quiet traffic (!) at Borburata, and requested permission to trade there in the same manner. He was told that the viceroy had forbidden it, whereupon he threatened them that he must either have the licence or they “stand to their own defence.” The licence was granted, but they offered half the prices which he had obtained at Borburata, whereupon he told them, insultingly, that “seeing they had sent him this to his supper, he would in the morning bring them as good a breakfast.”[135] Accordingly, early next day he fired off a culverin, and prepared to land with 100 men, “having light ordnance in his great boat, and in the other boats double bases in their noses.” The townsmen marched out in battle array, but when the guns were fired fell flat on their faces, and soon dispersed. Still, about thirty horsemen made a show of resistance, their white leather targets in one hand and their javelins in the other, but as soon as Hawkins marched towards them they sent a flag of truce, and the treasurer, “in a cautious interview with this ugly merchant,” granted all he asked, and the trade proceeded. They parted with a show of friendship, and saluted each other with their guns, the townspeople “glad to be sped of such traders.”