For some years Hawkins did not return to the sea, though he continued to be interested in privateering voyages as a capitalist. In the course of 1572 he recovered part of his loss by pretending to betray the queen for a bribe to Spain. He acted with the knowledge of Lord Burleigh. In 1573 he became treasurer of the navy in succession to his father-in-law Benjamin Gonson. The office of comptroller was conferred on him soon after, and for the rest of his life he remained the principal administrative officer of the navy. Burleigh noted that he was suspected of fraud in his office, but the queen’s ships were kept by him in good condition. In 1588 he served as rear-admiral against the Spanish Armada and was knighted. In 1590 he was sent to the coast of Portugal to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet, but did not meet it. In giving an account of his failure to the queen he quoted the text “Paul doth plant, Apollo doth water, but God giveth the increase,” which exhibition of piety is said to have provoked the queen into exclaiming, “God’s death! This fool went out a soldier, and has come home a divine.” In 1595 he accompanied Drake on another treasure-hunting voyage to the West Indies, which was even less successful, and he died at sea off Porto Rico on the 12th of November 1595.
Hawkins was twice married, first to Katharine Gonson and then to Margaret Vaughan. He was counted a puritan when puritanism meant little beyond hatred of Spain and popery, and when these principles were an ever-ready excuse for voyages in search of slaves and plunder. In the course of one of his voyages, when he was becalmed and his negroes were dying, he consoled himself by the reflection that God would not suffer His elect to perish. Contemporary evidence can be produced to show that he was greedy, unscrupulous and rude. But if he had been a more delicate man he would not have risked the gallows by making piratical attacks on the Portuguese and by appearing in the West Indies as an armed smuggler; and in that case he would not have played an important part in history by setting the example of breaking down the pretension of the Spaniards to exclude all comers from the New World. His morality was that of the average stirring man of his time, whether in England or elsewhere.
See R. A. J. Walling, A Sea-dog of Devon (1907); and Southey in his British Admirals, vol. iii. The original accounts of his voyages compiled by Hakluyt have been reprinted by the Hakluyt Society, with a preface by Sir C. R. Markham.
HAWKINS, SIR JOHN (1719-1789), English writer on music, was born on the 30th of March 1719, in London, the son of an architect who destined him for his own profession. Ultimately, however, Hawkins took to the law, devoting his leisure hours to his favourite study of music. A wealthy marriage in 1753 enabled him to indulge his passion for acquiring rare works of music, and he bought, for example, the collection formed by Dr Pepusch, and subsequently presented by Hawkins to the British Museum. It was on such materials that Hawkins founded his celebrated work on the General History of the Science and Practice of Music, in 5 vols. (republished in 2 vols., 1876). It was brought out in 1776, the same year which witnessed the appearance of the first volume of Burney’s work on the same subject. The relative merits of the two works were eagerly discussed by contemporary critics. Burney no doubt is infinitely superior as a literary man, and his work accordingly comes much nearer the idea of a systematic treatise on the subject than Hawkins’s, which is essentially a collection of rare and valuable pieces of music with a more or less continuous commentary. But by rescuing these from oblivion Hawkins has given a permanent value to his work. Of Hawkins’s literary efforts apart from music it will be sufficient to mention his occasional contributions to the Gentleman’s Magazine, his edition (1760) of the Complete Angler (1787) and his biography of Dr Johnson, with whom he was intimately acquainted. He was one of the original members of the Ivy Lane Club, and ultimately became one of Dr Johnson’s executors. If there were any doubt as to his intimacy with Johnson, it would be settled by the slighting way in which Boswell refers to him. Speaking of the Ivy Lane Club, he mentions amongst the members “Mr John Hawkins, an attorney,” and adds the following footnote, which at the same time may serve as a summary of the remaining facts of Hawkins’s life: “He was for several years chairman of the Middlesex justices, and upon presenting an address to the king accepted the usual offer of knighthood (1772). He is the author of a History of Music in five volumes in quarto. By assiduous attendance upon Johnson in his last illness he obtained the office of one of his executors—in consequence of which the booksellers of London employed him to publish an edition of Dr Johnson’s works and to write his life.” Sir John Hawkins died on the 21st of May 1789, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
HAWKINS, or Hawkyns, SIR RICHARD (c. 1562-1622), British seaman, was the only son of Admiral Sir John Hawkins (q.v.) by his first marriage. He was from his earliest days familiar with ships and the sea, and in 1582 he accompanied his uncle, William Hawkins, to the West Indies. In 1585 he was captain of a galliot in Drake’s expedition to the Spanish main, in 1588 he commanded a queen’s ship against the Armada, and in 1590 served with his father’s expedition to the coast of Portugal. In 1593 he purchased the “Dainty,” a ship originally built for his father and used by him in his expeditions, and sailed for the West Indies, the Spanish main and the South Seas. It seems clear that his project was to prey on the oversea possessions of the king of Spain. Hawkins, however, in an account of the voyage written thirty years afterwards, maintained, and by that time perhaps had really persuaded himself, that his expedition was undertaken purely for the purpose of geographical discovery. After visiting the coast of Brazil, the “Dainty” passed through the Straits of Magellan, and in due course reached Valparaiso. Having plundered the town, Hawkins pushed north, and in June 1594, a year after leaving Plymouth, arrived in the bay of San Mateo. Here the “Dainty” was attacked by two Spanish ships. Hawkins was hopelessly outmatched, but defended himself with great courage. At last, when he himself had been severely wounded, many of his men killed, and the “Dainty” was nearly sinking, he surrendered on the promise of a safe-conduct out of the country for himself and his crew. Through no fault of the Spanish commander this promise was not kept. In 1597 Hawkins was sent to Spain, and imprisoned first at Seville and subsequently at Madrid. He was released in 1602, and, returning to England, was knighted in 1603. In 1604 he became member of parliament for Plymouth and vice-admiral of Devon, a post which, as the coast was swarming with pirates, was no sinecure. In 1620-1621 he was vice-admiral, under Sir Robert Mansell, of the fleet sent into the Mediterranean to reduce the Algerian corsairs. He died in London on the 17th of April 1622.
See his Observations in his Voiage into the South Sea (1622), republished by the Hakluyt Society.
HAWKS, FRANCIS LISTER (1798-1866), American clergyman, was born at Newbern, North Carolina, on the 10th of June 1798, and graduated at the university of his native state in 1815. After practising law with some distinction he entered the Episcopalian ministry in 1827 and proved a brilliant and impressive preacher, holding livings in New Haven, Philadelphia, New York and New Orleans, and declining several bishoprics. On his appointment as historiographer of his church in 1835, he went to England, and collected the abundant materials afterwards utilized in his Contributions to the Ecclesiastical History of U.S.A. (New York, 1836-1839). These two volumes dealt with Maryland and Virginia, while two later ones (1863-1864) were devoted to Connecticut. He was the first president of the university of Louisiana (now merged in Tulane). He died in New York on the 26th of September 1866.