Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/660

640 was made. Hawkins selected ten of his chief officers and sent them elegantly attired to the Spanish flag-ship. The viceroy dressed up as gentlemen an equal number of men of the lowest class and despatched them to Hawkins' quarters. After the stipulations had been concluded and proclaimed, the Spaniards entered the port, and the two fleets, as Hawkins tells us, saluted one another, according to naval custom.

This was the 24th of September. All right now, thought Hawkins: the word of a Spanish nobleman is as good as his bond, if either is worth anything. Agustin de Villanueva Cervantes, however, he of whom I have often spoken in connection with the late troubles of Mexico, and who was now a prisoner in the hands of the English, well knowing the quality of Spanish honor and good faith when pledged to a pirate, on seeing the kind of hostages given by his countrymen, trembled for his own safety, it being evident that the Spaniards were determined on treachery. Yet when Hawkins for some purpose sent to the Spanish commander Robert Barret, master of one of his vessels, a gentleman of fine appearance, and one who understood Castilian, and he did not return because the viceroy detained him, Hawkins' suspicions were not even then aroused, for he thought that Barret perhaps had been kept to dinner. Presently, however, he was enlightened, as there slowly dropped down upon him a Spanish store-ship, passing the line agreed upon beyond which no vessel of the viceroy's fleet was to cross, and opened a lively fire on his camp. Turning to the Spanish hostages, who expected to be immediately cut in pieces, he asked with an air of injured innocence, "Is this the way Spaniards keep their word?" Then to Villanueva, "I tell you this act of your commander will cost your people more