Drake voyaged to the Guianas on the Spanish Main. He was followed by
Hawkins, Raleigh, and a host of others, including the Dutch navigators.

These hardy seamen, it must be said, had in the first instance proceeded
to the Continent with the idea of engaging in legitimate trade. In
justice to the many desperate acts which the majority subsequently
committed, it must be remembered that in the case of the early
collisions, they only let loose their guns when they found themselves
attacked by the Spanish authorities in the distant ports, or intercepted
on the high seas by the guardian fleets of Spain.

An experience or two of the kind sufficed to rouse the hot blood of the
seamen. Knowing now that they were braving the anger of the King of
Spain, they determined to continue in this undaunted, even, if
necessary, "to synge his bearde," as, indeed, was accomplished on one
notable occasion. So they continued their voyages to these ostensibly
closed coasts of South America and the general run of the territories
known at the time as the West Indies. Frequently they found riches in
the venture, sometimes disaster and death. The former proved an
incentive to these breathless voyages, with which no dread of the latter
fate could interfere.

It would be as well to refer briefly to the careers in South America of
a certain number of the most notable of these early adventurers. One of
the first was Sir John Hawkins, who set out in 1562 with three ships:
the _Salomon_, the _Swallow_, and the _Jonas_. Having touched at
Teneriffe, he then landed at Sierra Leone, "where by the sworde and
other means" he obtained some 300 negroes. He shaped his course to the
west, and sailed with his cargo to the Spanish Indies.

Notwithstanding the stern official prohibitions, Hawkins succeeded in
trading with the residents at Port Isabella, in Hispaniola, and the tall
sides of his vessels, empty now of their dark human freight, soon held
an important cargo of hides, ginger, sugar, and pearls. So successful
was he, indeed, that he added two more ships to his flotilla and sent
them to Spain. This daring procedure was intended as something in the
light of a challenge and of a proof of his good faith in his right to
barter in Spanish South America--a right, he claimed, which was ratified
by an old treaty between Henry VII. and the Archduke Philip of Spain.

The Spanish officials, doubtless open-mouthed at this somewhat subtle
and startling confidence o