in the chart, Cannaveral, which is in twenty-eight degrees."

In another place he says:

"The Indians are wont to leave their houses and to retire themselves into the woods, the space of three months, to wit, January, February and March: during which time. by no means a man can see one Indian. For when they go on hunting, they make little cottages in the woods, whereunto they retire themselves, living upon that which they take in hunting. This was the cause that during this time, we could get no victuals by their means: and had it not been that I had made good provision thereof, while my men had store, until the end of April (which was the time when at the uttermost, we hoped to have succor out of France) I should have been greatly annoyed. This hope was the cause that the soldiers took no great care to look well unto their victuals, although I divided equally among them that which I could get abroad in the country, without reserving unto myself any more than the least soldier of all the company. The month of May approaching, and no manner of succor come out of France, we fell into extreme want of victuals, constrained to eat the roots of the earth and certain sorrel which we found in the fields. For although the savages were returned by this time unto their villages, yet they succored us with nothing but certain fish, without which assuredly we had perished with famine. Besides they had given us before, the greatest part of their maize and of their beans for our merchandise. This famine held us from the beginning of May until the middle of June. During which time the poor soldiers and handicraftsmen become as feeble as might be, and being not able to work did nothing but go one after another in centinel unto the clift of an hill, situate very near unto the fort, to see if they might discover any French ship."

It was now resolved to trim up a bark and build a larger ship wherein to return to France; the calculation was that the ships would be ready by the Ɛth of August. In the mean time food was wanted to sustain the company; and the plan was suggested of seizing on an Indian king, those in favour of it saying that if they had the king, his subjects would not let them suffer for want of food. Laudonnière did not at first agree to this, but in the end consented, to avoid the sedition which he foresaw would ensue if he refused. Departing with fifty of his best soldiers, in two barks, he arrived in the dominions of Utina, distant from the fort about forty or fifty leagues. Then going on shore he drew towards Utina's village, situated six great leagues from the river, and took him prisoner. Yet very small supplies were obtained either by this or any other measure until he sent to the river of Somme. There a great many of the lords of the country had assembled to make merry, and the men got good cheer and their boats laden with meal. In the mean time hostilities had ensued from taking Utina, in which two of the carpenters were slain. The master carpenter then declared himself unable, for want of men, to make the ship by the time he had promised, "which speech caused such a mutiny among the soldiers that very hardly he escaped killing." However, the captain appeased them, and instead of working longer on the ship, repairs were commenced on the brigantine. The men began to beat down the houses without the fort, so that they might have the timber; they beat down also the palisade which was toward the water's side.

CHAPTER XIX.

Of Sir John Hawkins; his voyages from London to Africa, to take negroes and sell them; his visit to Laudonnière in Florida, in 1565; and his going home by Newfoundland.

On the 3d of August, Laudonnière descried four sails; it was the fleet of John Hawkins of England, afterwards made a knight; he was on a voyage in which he had taken negroes in Africa, and had been selling them. For the better understanding of this matter, we must go some years back.

It was stated in the twenty-ninth chapter of the first book, page 266, that Diego Columbus departed from Hispaniola the 9th of April 1515. It was not until 1520 that he obtained a decision from the Emperor Charles the Fifth, as to his rights. He sailed in September, and found that, during his absence, considerable changes had taken place. The sugar cane was cultivated in place of working the mines; and slaves had been imported in great numbers from Africa, being found more serviceable in the culture of the cane than the feeble Indians.*

Hawkins having ascertained that negroes were very good merchandise in Hispaniola, and that store of negroes might easily be had upon the coast of Guinea, resolved with himself to make trial thereof, and communicated that device with his worshipful friends of London, namely, with

* Irving's Columbus, vol. 2, p. 220, 21, Appendix No. 2.

Sir Lionel Duchet, Sir Thomas Lodge, Mr. Gunson his father-in-law, Sir William Winter, Mr. Bromfield, and others; all which persons liked so well of his intention, that they became liberal contributors and adventurers in the action; for which purpose there were three good ships immediately provided: the one called the Solomon, of the burthen of one hundred and twenty tons, wherein M. Hawkins himself went as general; the second the Swallow, of one hundred tons, wherein went for captain M. Thomas Hampton; and the third, the Jonas, a barque of forty tons, wherein the master supplied the captain's room. In which small fleet, M. Hawkins took with him not above one hundred men, for fear of sickness and other inconveniences, whereunto men in long voyages are commonly subject.

"With this company he put off and departed from the coast of England in the month of December 1562, and in his course touched first at Teneriffe, where he received friendly entertainment. From thence he passed to Sierre Leone, upon the coast of Guinea, which place, by the people of the country is called Tagarin, where he stayed some good time, and got into his possession, partly by the sword and partly by other means, to the number of three hundred negroes at the least, besides other merchandises which that country yieldeth. With this prey, he sailed over the Ocean sea unto the island of Hispaniola, and arrived first at the port of Isabella: and there he had reasonable utterance of his English commodities, as also of some part of his negroes, trusting the Spaniards no further than that by his own strength he was able still to master them. From the port of Isabella he went to Puerto del Plata, where he made like sales, standing always upon his guard; from thence, also, he sailed to Monte Christi, another port on the north side of Hispaniola, and the last place of his touching, where he had peaceable traffic, and made vent of the whole number of his negroes: for which he received in those three

places, by way of exchange, such quantity of merchandise that he did not only lade his own three ships with hides, ginger, sugars, and some quantity of pearls, but he freighted also two other hulks with hides and other like commodities, which he sent into Spain. And thus, leaving the island, he returned and disembogued, passing out by the islands of the Caycos, without further entering into the bay of Mexico, in this his first voyage to the West Indias. And so, with prosperous success, and much gain to himself and the aforesaid adventurers, he came home, and arrived in the month of September 1563."

About a year after, Hawkins commenced a second voyage. He sailed from Plymouth on the 18th of October 1564, with four ships and one hundred and ninety men, furnished with ordnance and provisions. The business in which he had embarked, was not one which it would be creditable to an English knight to engage in now, but from the way in which his proceedings are related, it is apparent that they were not regarded, at that day, as at all disgraceful. There is no occasion to speak of them till the 12th of December, when he reached Sambula.

"In this island we stayed certain days, going every day on shore to take the inhabitants, with burning and spoiling their towns, who before were Sapies and were conquered by the Samboses, inhabitants beyond Sierra Leone. These Samboses had inhabited there three years before our coming thither, and in so short a space have so planted the ground that they had great plenty of millet, rice, roots, pumpkins, also poultry, goats, small fry dried, and every house full of the country fruit planted by God's providence, as palmetto

*Third vol. of Hakluyt, p. 500.