r the advancement of his own fortunes and the glory of England. With
capital supplied by City merchants, three vessels were equipped; and in
1562 Hawkins sailed for Sierra Leone, where he procured by force or
purchase three hundred negroes, who were exchanged with no great
difficulty at Hispaniola for a rich cargo of merchandise. An enterprise
which netted sixty per cent profit was not to be abandoned, and in 1564
a second voyage was made, with greater profit still. But the third
voyage, in 1567, came to grief at San Juan de Ulloa, where Hawkins fell
in with the Spanish plate fleet. The fleet might have been plundered,
but the naive Hawkins, relying in vain upon the pledged word of the
Spaniards, was treacherously attacked and his ships mostly destroyed,
while he himself barely escaped with his life.

Accompanying Hawkins on this voyage, and escaping with him from San Juan
de Ulloa, was "a certain Englishman, called Francis Drake." Reared in a
Protestant family which had felt the effects of the reaction under Queen
Mary, he had an instinctive hatred of the Roman Church, and his
experience at San Juan de Ulloa inspired him at the age of twenty with a
lifelong animosity toward all Spaniards. Renouncing the semi-peaceful
methods of Hawkins, Drake devoted his life to open privateering, never
doubting that in plundering Spanish ships he was discharging a private
debt and a public obligation. And of all the gentlemen adventurers who
made plunder respectable and raised piracy to the level of a fine art,
he was the greatest. He carried himself in the "pirate's profession with
a courtesy, magnanimity, and unfailing humanity, that gave to his story
the glamour of romance." No other name struck such fear into Spanish
hearts, or so raised in English ones the spirit of adventure and of
contempt for the queen's enemies. He is known in Spanish annals as "the
Dragon," and before he died the maritime power of Spain had passed its
zenith.

Three years after the disaster at San Juan de Ulloa the trend of events
favored the bolder course. In 1570 the Pope's Bull deposing Elizabeth
from the English throne was nailed to Lambeth Palace; and in 1572, not
without the tacit approval of the Government, and backed by the rising
national hostility to Spain, Drake set out for the Indies, where he
operated for two years, planning attacks on Cartagena and Nombre de
Dios, or rifling the treasure trains as they came overland from Panama.
Henceforth the