John 



Hawkins. 



THE VOYAGERS 



were wafted lazily to and from the Indies, unprotected 

 save by a few inferior guns. It was the enterprise of the 

 French pirates which first awakened them to a sense of 

 danger, and caused them to take precautions. The gal- 

 leons of the Indian Guard, a squadron of twelve for the 

 protection of trade, were sent out to the Indies for the 

 first time in 1568, the very year that Hawkins first 

 brought the Spaniards acquainted with English gunnery 

 in the affair of San Juan de Ulloa. 



Sir John Hawkins, who more than any other single 

 man, was responsible for the rise of the war-spirit, came 

 of a line of seamen. His grandfather had served in King 

 Henry VIIFs Navy. His father, William Hawkins, had 

 been the first, in 1530, to carry on trade with Brazil. 

 The voyage to Brazil was subsequently frequented, about 

 1540, by several wealthy merchants of Southampton. 

 English traders were active enough during the early part 

 of the century; it was John Hawkins who first taught 

 them how arms might signally help the expansion of 



trade. He served his apprenticeship in the usual voyages Hts trading 



TTT A r • J • ^ 1 1 J Foyages to the 



to the West African coast, and m 1562 launched on a West Indies. 



bolder scheme. By this time negroes were in great 



demand at Hispaniola, and Hawkins was determined to 



supply them. With the help of some city merchants, he 



equipped three vessels, and sailed to Sierra Leone, where, 



by force and purchase, he obtained three hundred negroes ; 



then, with the help of a Spanish pilot, he crossed the 



Atlantic, and obtained ' reasonable utterance of his living 



commodities ' in the ports of Hispaniola. He gained in 



exchange an enormous quantity of valuable merchandise ; 



some of it he took home with him, some he sent to be 



disposed of at Cadiz, where it was seized and confiscated. 



47 



