For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

'Well, but I had a good reason,' answered Harry. 'I met Captain Drake in London, whither he had come on business, as he will tell you. As he was coming hither to see his father at Upchurch we journeyed together, and he told me—tell him, Frank, what you told me, and then he will know why we sent for him.'

'Well, lad,' said Captain Drake, setting himself down for a long tale, as sailors will, 'you remember how I wrote to you of the voyage which I made to Cape de la Vela in the Indies with Captain Lovell, the year after our brush with the caravel, and how it all ended in the wrong I suffered from the Spaniards at Rio de la Hacha for no cause but their accursed treachery?'

'Yes, that I do,' said I; for he had written to me about it at Cambridge, and Mr. Drake, too, had told me fully of that most wicked dealing with his son.

'Well, that was well enough,' Drake went on; 'a plague on the false papist hearts; but what came after was worse.'

'And at one time we feared it was worse again,' said I; 'for we thought we had lost you as well as our venture. But how came it about? We looked for nothing but success under Mr. Hawkins.'

'And nothing but that should you have had,' said Drake. 'Merrily should we have singed the King of Spain's beard, and filled some most noble pockets beside our own, but that Jack Hawkins was over scrupulous with the traitors. Things went well enough at first, in spite of bad weather, especially for me; for off Cape de Verde we fell in with a Frenchman from Rochelle, who had taken a Portugal caravel. This Jack Hawkins chased and took, and made me master and captain of her. We called her the Grace of God, and a good name too, seeing how God graced our venture. For we drubbed the Portugals wherever we met them, and before we left the Guinea coast we had gathered as fine a cargo of black flesh as a merchant need wish to see.

'Being well filled up with what we sought, we sailed for the Indies. My luck stood by me still; for when Captain Dudley of the Judith died, Cousin Jack gave me his place, and made me full captain. We found traffic on the Main a bit hard, because the King of Spain had most uncourteously charged that no man should trade so much as a peso-worth with us. Yet negroes are dear to a Don's heart, and there are ways, lad, there are ways that none know better than old Jack. So we had reasonable trade at mighty good prices, both in black flesh and our other merchandise, till we came to Rio de la Hacha. We were but two ships when we anchored before the town—the Angel and my lady Judith. The rest had been sent to Curaçoa to make provision for the fleet. So they thought to try their scurvy tricks there again, and refused us water, thinking thereby to starve us into selling our negroes for half nothing. The Treasurer, who was in charge, had fortified the town and got some hundred or so of harquebusiers behind his bulwarks; so we could not land, but took a caravel in spite of all their shot, right under their noses, and rode there till our general came round in the Jesus. They soon found that an English cock could crow as loud and louder than a Spaniard. For old Jack set ashore two hundred small shot and pikemen, and took the town. It was no less than their discourtesy deserved, and they suffered no harm; for every man of them ran clean out of the place at the first bark of our snappers. I think it was only a little comedy to please the King of Spain; for Master Treasurer and all of them came in at night to trade, and before we left we had two hundred less black mouths to fill and a pretty store of gold and pearls in our hold.

'We had done such a brisk trade and no bones made all along the coast, after our persuasions at Rio de la Hacha, that when we came to Carthagena, our traffic being nearly done, we tried nothing against it, save that the Minion saluted the castle with a few shot from her great pieces, while we landed and took certain botijos of wine from an island, just to drink their health, leaving woollen and linen cloth there in payment. So we bore up for Florida; but being taken in a furicano, which I believe the Lord sent to guide us, we were driven into San Juan de Ulloa, the port of the city of Mexico, as you know. Now listen, lad; listen what God sent us. There in the port at our mercy—entirely in our power—were twelve galleons, laden with two hundred thousand pounds' worth of gold and silver. Two hundred thousand pounds! Think of it, if you can, without going mad, for I can't. Yet, in spite of God's plain guidance, as I told him again and again, Jack Hawkins set them all at liberty without touching a peso, fearing, as he said, the Queen's displeasure, the simple fool, if he touched the goods of her most loving brother-in-law! Ah! had we known how the brave Queen was going to deal with her loving brother-in-law's money in her own fair ports of Southampton and the West, Jack would have listened to me when I told how best to please her Grace!

'Well, it was no good. Not a peso would he touch, but only asked leave to refit and victual; and now, lad, comes the worst of all. Next morning we saw open of the haven thirteen great ships, being the Plate fleet and its wafters—a sight to make an honest Protestant man's mouth water. Lord, Lord, Jasper! I cannot think of it with loving-kindness to Jack. Just see now, lad! We had complete command of the haven. Not a fly-boat, not a pinnace could enter or leave without our yea. To keep the Spaniards outside in the north wind was only the other way of saying present wreck to every rag and stick of them; and that meant wellnigh two millions loss to the Spaniards, and Heaven knows what gain to us in wreckage, and flotsam, and trifles we should have had for our trouble in saving crews.

'Did God ever show a greater mercy to His faithful people than that? I ask you, sir. You know better than I, because you are a scholar. Yet Jack Hawkins let his scruples stand before the plain will of God, and would make conditions with them. Would I could have told him what our lion-hearted Queen was doing in the narrow seas with her dear brother-in-law's belongings; but we did not know. Then he would have heard the voice of the Lord aright. But, as it was, he was stubborn, and let them all in on conditions of peace, and safe fitting and victualling for ourselves; to the which was passed the word of Don Martin Henriquez, Viceroy of Mexico, himself, who was with the fleet; a pox on him till this hand has squeezed him dry, and then the knave may go hang!