Sir Richard Hawkins, Seaman and Geographer. page 2

"In which time," he says, "I lived in a great perplexity, for that I knew our own weakness and what they might do unto us if they knew the facts. Any man that putteth himself into an enemy's port hath need of the eyes of Argus, and the wind in a bag, especially when the enemy is strong and the tides of force; for with either ebb or flow those who are on the shore may thrust upon him inconveniences, inventions of fire, or with swimming and other devices may cut his cables - a common practice in all hot countries. The like may be effected with rafts, canoes, boats or pinnaces, to annoy and assault him; and if this had been practised against us, our ships must of force have yielded, for they had none in them but sick men; but many times opinion and fear preserveth the ships, and not the people in them."

At length a breeze sprang up and Hawkins was able to sail out of port and join his ships, sounding as he went, and was received with great joy.

So they all set sail, and shortly after were nearly cast ashore; for after a night's watch on deck in a fresh gale of wind, when the next night drew on, Hawkins and the master of the Dainty, feeling need of a good night's rest, set the watch and went to their hammocks, the care of the steerage being entrusted to the mate. But he, too, was drowsy, and dozed off, letting the ship fall away towards the shore. In an hour or little more the master, being sound asleep, suddenly awoke in a hot fright and sat up trembling - he knew not why. So he awoke the boy who slept in the cabin with him.

"Boy, how goeth the watch?"

"Why, master, 'tis but an hour or so since you laid yourself down to rest."

"Humph! my heart be so unquiet, I cannot by any means get to sleep."

Anon the master rose with a grunt, put on his night-gown (as a dressing-gown was then called), and went up upon the deck.

He had not been there many minutes when, shading his eyes with his hands, for the starlight puzzled him, he shouted, "Land on the port bow!"

"I see no land, master," said the look-out, yawning sleepily.

"Then, what is yon - sandy and low! And hark! thou canst hear the surf abreaking! Helm! hard a-starboard!" the master shouted, "and quick! the sounding-line!"

The ship tacked and edged off just in time, for the seaman found scant three fathoms water; and Hawkins ends his relation by these words: "Hereby we saw evidently the miraculous mercy of our God, that if He had not watched over us, as He doth continually over His, doubtless we had perished without remedy: to whom be all glory and praise everlastingly, world without end."

No doubt this deliverance heartened the ailing crew, for they knew their commander to be a God-fearing man, and now they had tasted, they believed, of the good results of sailing with one of God's favoured children.

The next evil which met them was the want of water; for the sick of the scurvy were attacked by an unquenchable thirst. Then Sir Richard's scientific knowledge served him in good stead. For he tells us: "With an invention I had in my ship I easily drew out of the water of the sea sufficient quantity of fresh water to sustain my people with little expense of fuel; for with four billets I stilled a hogshead of water, and therewith dressed the meat for the sick and whole; the water so distilled is found to be wholesome and nourishing."

Thus a so-called modern discovery turns out to be more than three hundred years old, and in those days the means of distilling were hard to come by. On arrival at St. Anne's Islets they set up tents for the sick, and here found many young gannets in their nests and plenty of stuff for salads, so that many quickly recovered. But by this time Hawkins had lost half his people by sickness, and therefore he burnt one of his ships.

A month later he sailed away with a good bill of health, saving for six who were not yet well. A few days later they gave chase to a Portuguese ship and overhauled her. An old gentleman was on board who was going out to be Governor of Angola, with his wife and daughter and fifty soldiers.

The poor old Don moved Hawkins' compassion by his sad story, for all his fortune lay in that vessel; so, after taking out of their prize some meal and chests of sugar, they disarmed them and let them go.

Hawkins' men were delighted with the unlooked-for supply, the Portuguese Governor and his people were astonished at the generosity of the English captain, and they were all happy and praising God for His bounty and grace.

But when the Dainty and her consort were off La Plata, a storm came on from the south which lasted forty-eight hours. By sundown Hawkins saw with amazement that Tharlton, the master of the pinnace, was bearing off before the wind, without making any sign of distress. The Dainty followed, and as darkness fell carried a light, but no answering light was put up by the pinnace.

Thus Tharlton kept his course for England, and shamelessly deserted his commander.

"I was worthy to be deceived," wrote Hawkins, "in that I trusted my ship in the hands of a hypocrite, and a man which had left his general before on the like occasion, and in the self-same place." For Tharlton had deserted Cavendish in the night-time and sailed home; and Hawkins laments that such offenders were seldom brought to trial, because their superiors were often not able to wade through with the burden of the suit, which in Spain is prosecuted by the King's attorney. They had noticed during the gale certain great fowls as big as swans, and throwing out a fishing-line baited with pilchard caught enough to feed the crew for that day. These must have been the albatross, for Hawkins relates how when they had hooked one of these creatures and pulled him to the stern of the ship, two mariners went down by the ladders of the poop and seized on his neck and wings; but such were the blows he gave them with his pinions, that both left their hold of him, being beaten black and blue.

The Dainty was now all alone, and on the 19th of February 1594 entered the Straits of Magellan. At the Penguin Islands they stored the ship with these birds, salted like beef in casks. The hunting of them proved a great source of amusement to the crew; as each, armed with a cudgel, advanced and drove the silly things into a ring. Whenever one chanced to break out, divers of the men would run and try to head it round; but the ground was so undermined with their burrows that ofttimes it failed unawares, and as they ran you could see first one man and then another fall and sink up to his armpits in the earth; while another, leaping to avoid one hole, would disappear into another amidst the uproarious laughter of the rest. Indeed, so funny an appearance did they make, that many could run no more, but stopped to hold their sides for laughter. And Sir Richard concludes thus: "After the first slaughter, on seeing us on the shore, the penguins shunned us and tried to recover the sea; yea, many times, seeing themselves persecuted, they would tumble down from such high rocks as it seemed impossible to escape with life. Yet as soon as they came to the beach, presently we should see them run into the sea, as though they had no hurt; but in getting them once within the ring close together few escaped - and ordinarily there was no drove which yielded us not a thousand or more."

In another part of the island was a colony of ducks, which had made their nests of earth and water fetched in their beaks. These were so closely set that "the greatest mathematician could not devise to place one more than there was, leaving only one pathway for a fowl to pass betwixt... and all the nests and passages were so smooth and clean, as if they had been newly swept and washed."

Before Hawkins left the western end of the Straits, finding the boards beginning to open from the great heat of the line, he calked the ship within board and without above the decks, from post to stern: the manner of sheathing the hull which his father, Sir John, had invented, preserved the keel from the attack of worms. One accident caused some anxiety, when the Dainty struck on a rock amidships and hung there, having deep water both ahead and astern. Not till the flood came could they warp her off, somewhat strained and damaged.

Of five anchors brought from England, Hawkins had now lost two, and two others were disabled, and as bitter weather came on, with sleet and snow, the men craved to return to Brazil and winter there; but Hawkins, having Fenton's fortune in mind and that of Cavendish, resolved to go on and rather lose his life than listen to their counsel.

But he amused his men ashore with sports and games, one day with the west country sport of hurling, in which the bachelors played against the married; another day with wrestling or shooting, or stalking ursine seals as they lay sleeping on the shore in the sun; for their skins were useful as clothes, their moustaches as toothpicks, and their fat as oil. But these seals, like the baboons of South Africa, had the habit of posting sentinels, who wakened the herd with cries of alarm; and when the sailors ran to get between the seals and the sea, thinking to head them off, the plucky creatures made straight for them, and not a man that withstood them escaped being overthrown. Then, after the seals had gained the water, "they did, as it were, scorn us, defy us, and dance before us."

On the 28th of March the Daintyentered the South Pacific, though the men murmured and grumbled and prophesied dire consequences.

On Easter Eve they anchored under the island of Mocha, where Drake had suffered from the treachery of the Indians; so, great precautions were taken while exchanging goods with them. The Indians, however, had to be chastised for stealing, and would not sell any hens or llamas of their own breeding.

Hawkins wished not to discover himself upon the coast till he should have passed Lima; but his men, greedy of spoil, urged him to enter the port of Valparaiso, where they took four vessels in which were only stores of no value, which the owners were allowed to ransom for a small price. Afterwards a fifth ship came in and was taken. In this they found some gold, which put the crew in a good humour. New anchors also were procured, and "a shift of cotton sails, far better in that sea where they have little rain and few storms, than any of our double sails; yet with the wet they grow so stiff that they cannot be handled."

Hawkins generously restored all apparel and goods belonging to the captain who had negotiated the ransom, and his generosity was rewarded later on.

He remained eight days in port, during which time he and the master of the Dainty, Hugh Cornish, took little rest, for they had only seventy-five men to guard five ships, and the Governor of Chili was lying in ambush near the shore with three hundred horse and foot. But, worse than the enemy, Hawkins feared the wine for his sailors, which overthrew many of his men - "a foul fault too common among seamen, and deserving rigorous punishment"; and he declares that if he had thousands of men, he would not carry with him a man known to put his felicity in that vice.

As they neared the coast of Peru his men demanded their third of the gold that had been taken. To this Hawkins replied -

"It will not be easy, men, to divide the bars fairly, and if divided they may easily be stolen. Many of you, besides, will play away your portions and return home as beggarly as ye came out."

The men consented to have the gold and silver deposited in chests with three keys to each, of which the general was to have one, the master another, and the third was to be given to a man nominated by themselves.

The suspicions of the men were founded on their experience with bad commanders who often defrauded the men, kept back their pay upon pretended cavils, or forced them to sell their shares at low prices - "usage which is accursed by the just God who forbiddeth wages to be withheld."

The commander's humanity in sparing enemy's ships, instead of burning them, as Drake had done, led to his overthrow; for the news of his coming was sent by sea and land to the Viceroy of Peru, who at once rose from his sickbed and gave orders to man three ships in order to chase "the English pirate." In eight days three galleons were ready for sea, mounted with twenty brass guns; but as Hawkins was reported off Arica with three ships, two of them being prizes, the guards on shore were strengthened and the squadron of pursuit was reinforced by three more vessels.

When, in the middle of May, they found Hawkins, he had only a pinnace with the Dainty, having burnt the other prize. As the sun rose, the wind freshened from the west and caused a chopping sea, by which the admiral of the Spaniards snapt his mainmast asunder, while the vice-admiral split his mainsail, and the rear-admiral cracked his mainyard asunder, being ahead of the Dainty. These accidents were lucky for Hawkins, as the Spanish ships had been gaining before and getting to windward. Thus he managed to sail right between the admiral and the vice-admiral, and in a few hours was clear of all his enemies, who shortly put back to Callao.

They arrived in port after the storm in a sorry state, but the people of Callao and Lima, whose expectation of seeing the English brought back prisoners was high, burst out into a frenzy of scornful anger at their unfortunate countrymen; the women especially reviled them for cowards when they landed, and some of the lower class stuck daggers and pistols in their bosoms and strutted about, taunting the "poltroons," and demanding to be allowed to embark themselves against the English pirate.

This treatment so hurt the sailors and soldiers that they vowed they would follow Hawkins even to England rather than return again dishonoured.

So hasty preparations were made, and many boats were staved in on the stony beach in their hurry to pass to and fro and refit the galleons; for the Viceroy himself went into the water to set an example to his men.