chants whose enterprise and wealth, used in these ways, promoted other enterprise and helped the accumulation of fresh stores of wealth. As

a young man, he had spent most of his time on shipboard and in the daring enterprises to which we have referred. But after his disastrous expedition of 1566, he left the active work to others, and settled down, with two memorable exceptions, to live in London. As partner of his elder brother William, and, at one time, as we are told, joint owner with him of thirty trading vessels, he must have lived a busy life, although its details are not recorded. He had some famous associates in

City life. Besides Sir Thomas Gresham, who was just now building the Royal Exchange, there was a crowd of other eminent merchants, men whose zeal and energy, shown in quiet ways, did not a little to make the reign of Queen Elizabeth illustrious. The names of Edward Osborne and Anthony Garrard, Richard Staper and Christopher Hodsdon, have already come before

us.

But more noteworthy than any of these, perhaps, was Sir Lionel Duckett, the son of a Nottingham gentleman, and, as the annals of commerce show, one of the busiest and most prosperous men of this time. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1573, and sharer in nearly every important venture of these times. Here we find him busy about furnaces set up for him in England, there he is employing agents to melt copper and silver for him at Augsburg. At one time we see him taking part in the manufacture of cloth; at another he is forming a company with the great Cecil and the Earls of Pembroke and Leicester as members, to construct waterworks for the draining of mines. Such was his wealth, we are told, that to each of his three daughters, he gave upwards of 5,000l. in Tudor money as dowry, and, when he was asked why he had not given more, he answered that that was as much as it was seemly for him to bestow, since Elizabeth, herself, on becoming queen, had found only 10,000l. in her exchequer.

But Hawkins was much more than a mere merchant. In 1573 he was appointed to the onerous office of treasurer or comptroller of the navy, filling it so well, we are told, that he made more important improvements in the management of the queen's shipping than any of his predecessors. In 1588 he served as rear-admiral in the fleet that helped to overthrow the great Spanish Armada, and for his gallantry in that business, he was knighted. Two years later the queen sent him with Martin Frobisher, at the head of her ships, to threaten the coast of Spain and intercept the Portuguese carracks coming from India. No prize was to be met with, however, and the fleet returned as it had gone out, after seven months' cruise. This was anything but pleasing to Elizabeth, just then in especial need of the money she had hoped to make by the expedition. Therefore Hawkins tendered an elaborate apology. 'Paul might plant,' he said, in its conclusion, and Apollos might water; but it was God only who gave the increase.' That scripture quotation, however, was too much for the queen. 'God's death!' she exclaimed; this fool went out a soldier, and is come home a divine!'

But Hawkins, especially where the honour of England was concerned, was anything but a fool. A few years before this, and before there was actual war between England and Spain, while he was out with a small squadron on a coasting expedition, he fell in with some Spanish ships, whose admiral attempted to pass without paying the usual salute. Thereat Sir John ordered the gunner of his own ship to fire at the rigging of the Spanish admiral, who taking no notice of it, the gunner fired next at the hull and shot through and through. The Spaniards upon this took in their flags and topsails, and running to an anchor, the Spanish admiral sent an officer of distinction in a boat to carry at once his compliments and complaints to Sir John Hawkins. He, standing upon deck, would not either admit the officer or hear his message; but bid him tell

his admiral that, having neglected the respect due to the Queen of England in her seas and port, and having so large a fleet under his command, he must not expect to lie there, but in twelve hours weigh his anchor and begone, otherwise he should regard him as an enemy declared, his conduct having already rendered him suspected. The Spanish admiral upon receiving this message came off in person, desiring to speak with him, which at first was refused, but at length granted. The Spaniard then expostulated the matter, insisted that there was peace between the two crowns, and that he knew not what to make of the treatment he had received. Sir John Hawkins told him that his own arrogance had brought it upon him, and that he could not but know what respect was due to the queen's ships; that he had despatched an express to her Majesty with advice of his behaviour, and that in the mean time he would do well to depart. The Spaniard still pleaded ignorance, and that he was ready to give satisfaction. Upon this Sir John Hawkins told him mildly that he could not be a stranger to what was practised by the French and Spaniards in their own seas and ports; adding, "Put the case, sir, that an English fleet came into any of the king your master's ports, his Majesty's ships being there, and those English ships should carry their flags in their tops, would you not shoot them down, and beat the ships out of your port?" The Spaniard owned he would, confessed he was in the wrong, submitted to the penalty Sir John imposed, was then very kindly entertained, and they parted very good friends.'

It was not possible, however, for any very real friendship to exist between Sir John Hawkins and a Spaniard. Blunt, bold, and resolute, his whole life was a sort of warfare against Spain; and his hatred, patriotic and personal, was strong enough to induce him, when he must have been seventy years old or more, to embark in another expedition against its West Indian possessions. He and Sir Francis

Drake left Plymouth-now doubled in fitness for all maritime enterprises, through the generous care taken care of it by Drake-on the 28th of August, with a fleet of twenty-six sail, containing about 2,500 men. The expedition fared well as far as Drake, and the cause for which it had been undertaken, were concerned. But a violent quarrel with his comrade threw Hawkins into a sudden illness, and he died on shipboard, off Porto Rico, on the 25th of November,

1595.

Sir Richard Hawkins, Sir John's only son, as far as we know, made for himself a fame almost equal to his father's. But his life had nothing, or next to nothing, to do with commerce, and therefore need not here be told. Nor, in future chapters, shall we have much to say about the great naval worthies of England. In the turmoil of the sixteenth century, when the old systems of commerce were dying out, and the new were as yet but half established, it was necessary for trade with distant parts to be carried on in ships of war, and for merchants to be soldiers as well as sailors. In the infancy of the English navy, moreover, it was the wise custom to take into the royal service all mariners of acknowledged skill and courage, so that merchant captains found it their interest, as well as their duty to sovereign and country also, to be admirals. But this medley of callings, if it did good service to commerce by encouraging a spirit of adventure, and increasing the courage and perseverance of the merchant-voyagers, made impossible the legitimate exercise of foreign and colonial trade. The merchants felt this themselves. Never loth to serve their nation with the wealth which it was their special province to multiply for the good of all, and willing, when the need arose, to use the sword in defence of liberty and the resistance of wrong-doing, they saw that their calling, to be properly exercised, must be one of peace. Therefore they made it so as far as they could. For many generations to come, most of all in the business of the East India