296 THE SEA. 



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.' ' j 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 1\ 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 ! 



