The foremost ship was a stately one,
of seven hundred tons, a great burden at that day. She was named the
"Jesus;" and with her were three smaller vessels, the "Solomon," the
"Tiger," and the "Swallow." Their commander was "a right worshipful and
valiant knight,"--for so the record styles him,--a pious man and a
prudent, to judge him by the orders he gave his crew when, ten months
before, he sailed out of Plymouth: "Serve God daily, love one another,
preserve your victuals, beware of fire, and keepe good companie." Nor
were the crew unworthy the graces of their chief; for the devout
chronicler of the voyage ascribes their deliverance from the perils of
the sea to "the Almightie God, who never suffereth his Elect to perish."
Who then were they, this chosen band, serenely conscious of a special
Providential care? They were the pioneers of that detested traffic
destined to inoculate with its infection nations yet unborn, the parent
of discord and death, filling half a continent with the tramp of armies
and the clash of fratricidal swords. Their chief was Sir John Hawkins,
father of the English slave-trade.
He had been to the coast of Guinea, where he bought and kidnapped a
cargo of slaves. These he had sold to the jealous Spaniards of
Hispaniola, forcing them, with sword, matchlock, and culverin, to grant
him free trade, and then to sign testimonials that he had borne himself
as became a peaceful merchant.
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