Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/440

356 "For three generations in succession they were the master-spirits of Plymouth in its most illustrious days; its leading merchants, its bravest sailors, serving oft and well in the civic chair and the Commons House of Parliament. For three generations they were in the van of English seamanship, founders of England's commerce in South, West, and East, stout in fight, of quenchless spirit in adventure—a family of merchant statesmen and heroes to whom our country affords no parallel."

The early voyages of Sir John Hawkins were to the Canary Isles. In 1562 he made his first expedition in search of negroes to sell in Hispaniola, so that he was not squeamish in the matter of the trade in human flesh. But in 1567 he made an expedition ever memorable, for his were the first English keels to furrow that hitherto unknown sea, the Bay of Mexico. He had with him a fleet of six ships, two of which were royal vessels, the rest were his own, and one of these, the Judith, was commanded by his kinsman, Francis Drake. Whilst in the port of S. Juan cle Ulloa Hawkins was treacherously assailed, and lost all the vessels, with the exception of two, of which one was the Judith. When his brother William heard of the disaster he begged Elizabeth to allow him to make reprisals on his own account; and on the return of John "it may fairly be said that Plymouth declared war against Spain. Hawkins and Drake thereafter never missed a chance of making good their losses. The treachery of San Juan de Ulloa was the moving cause of the series of harassments