ostages.

Next day the Spanish fleet, consisting of thirteen sail, arrived, and on
board one of them was the new Viceroy of Mexico. From this high
authority Hawkins got permission to repair his ships, victual, and
refit, provided the English kept themselves to a small island in the
harbour, for the due performance of which they gave twelve hostages.

But the Spaniards were not prepared to let their enemies off so easily,
and made preparations for a surprise. Hawkins, becoming suspicious, sent
to inquire about certain shady transactions, and was at once attacked by
something like a thousand men. The Spaniards sunk three of his vessels,
seriously damaged the fourth, and left him with only one leaky ship in
which to find his way home. A great number of his men were killed and
others captured, the prisoners to be taken to Mexico and there cruelly
used. Two of them--Miles Philips and Job Hortop--managed to escape and
return to England, where they gave long accounts of their sufferings,
the latter comparing himself to his namesake the patriarch. As for
Hawkins, in speaking of his return voyage, he said, that "if all the
miserable and troublesome affairs of this sorrowful voyage should be
perfectly and thoroughly written, there should need a painful man with
his pen, and as great a time as he had that wrote the lives and deaths
of the martyrs."

This disaster put an end to Hawkins' slave-trading, but made no
impression on the other adventurers to the Indies. Francis Drake now
took up the quarrel, and in the year 1572 "singed the Spaniard's beard"
to some purpose. Knowing already something of the state of affairs near
the isthmus, he resolved to gain his spurs in that direction. He cared
not for a forced trade in negroes, but virtually went in for piracy, for
although the relations of the mother countries were at that time
somewhat strained, war had not yet been declared.

Drake sailed straight for Nombre de Dios, the treasure port, arrived
suddenly before the inhabitants had any warning, and landed a hundred
and fifty men in the night. Suddenly the town was roused to the fact
that the enemy were in possession, and as the people ran off to the
forest, they asked each other what was the matter. Unfortunately for
Drake, however, through a misunderstanding, the English were alarmed and
took to their vessels, so that all the advantage of the surprise was
lost. Undaunted by this failure, he determined to attempt something even
m