Presently, however, Elizabethan England began to part company with Spain, to become more anti-Papal, to sympathize with Huguenots and other heretics, and, like Francis I, to wonder why an immense new world should be nothing but New Spain.  Besides, Englishmen knew what the rest of Europe knew, that the discovery of Potosi had put out of business nearly all the Old-World silver mines, and that the Burgundian Ass (as Spanish treasure-mules were called, from Charles’s love of Burgundy) had enabled Spain to make conquests, impose her will on her neighbors, and keep paid spies in every foreign court, the English court included.  Londoners had seen Spanish gold and silver paraded through the streets when Philip married Mary—­’27 chests of bullion, 99 horseloads + 2 cartloads of gold and silver coin, and 97 boxes full of silver bars!’ Moreover, the Holy Inquisition was making Spanish seaports pretty hot for heretics.  In 1562, twenty-six English subjects were burnt alive in Spain itself.  Ten times as many were in prison.  No wonder sea-dogs were straining at the leash.

Neither Philip nor Elizabeth wanted war just then, though each enjoyed a thrust at the other by any kind of fighting short of that, and though each winked at all kinds of armed trade, such as privateering and even downright piracy.  The English and Spanish merchants had commercial connections going back for centuries; and business men on both sides were always ready to do a good stroke for themselves.

This was the state of affairs in 1562 when young John Hawkins, son of ‘Olde Master William,’ went into the slave trade with New Spain.  Except for the fact that both Portugal and Spain allowed no trade with their oversea possessions in any ships but their own, the circumstances appeared to favor his enterprise.  The American Indians were withering away before the atrocious cruelties of the Portuguese and Spaniards, being either killed in battle, used up in merciless slavery, or driven off to alien wilds.  Already the Portuguese had commenced to import negroes from their West African possessions, both for themselves and for trade with the Spaniards, who had none.  Brazil prospered beyond expectation and absorbed all the blacks that Portuguese shipping could supply.  The Spaniards had no spare tonnage at the time.

John Hawkins, aged thirty, had made several trips to the Canaries.  He now formed a joint-stock company to trade with the Spaniards farther off.  Two Lord Mayors of London and the Treasurer of the Royal Navy were among the subscribers.  Three small vessels, with only two hundred and sixty tons between them, formed the flotilla.  The crews numbered just a hundred men.  ’At Teneriffe he received friendly treatment.  From thence he passed to Sierra Leona, where he stayed a good time, and got into his possession, partly by the sword and partly by other means, to the number of 300 Negroes at the least, besides other merchandises....  With this prey he sailed over the ocean sea unto the island of