The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1883-01-03

HE hLAVE-IRADE AND ENGLISf
MARITIME GLORY-FOr about half
century after Cabot the English seamer
hardly crossed the Atlantic. When they
began again it was because they had
learned from Spain 10 engage in thg
slaye-trade In that base path the mari.
time glory of England found its revival
For fifty years Englishmen thought of
the New World only as a possession of
| Spain, with which England was in more
or less friendly alliance. 1t was France.
not England, which showed at that time
more symptoms of wish to dispute the
rich possessions with Spain; and after
the voyage of Verrazzano, in 1921, the
name New France covered much of
North America on certain maps and
globes. | was little more than name;
but the Breton and Gascon fishermen
began to make trips to the West
Indies, mingling more or less of SNUG
Cling and piracy with their allow
ed pursuits, and the English follow
ed them-learned the way of them.
IN fact. Under the sway of Queen
Elizabeth, England was again Protestant,
not Catholic; the bigotry of Philip III.
had aroused all the Protestant nations
against him, and the hereditary hos
tllity Of France made the French sailors
only too ready to act as pilots and sea-
men Tor the English. Between the two
the most powerful band of buccaneers
and adventures in the world was soon
let loose upon the Spanish settlements.
II Is melancholy fact that the yoy- |
age which first opened the West Indian |
seas to the English ships was slave
trading voyage. The discreditable |
promise made by Columbus that Ameri- |
ca should supply Europe with slaves
had not been fulfilled on the contrary,
the demand for slaves in the Spanish
mines and the Portuguese plantations
was greater than America could supply,
and 1t was necessary to look across
the Atlantic for it, John Hawkins.
an experienced seaman, whose father
had been a Guinea trader before
MN, took cargo of slaves from Guinea
IN I5o2, and sold them in the ports
OF Hispaniola. "Worshipful friends
in London" it appears, shared, his ven
ture-Slr Lionel bucket, Sir Thomas
Lodge, and the like. He took three
ships, the largest only 120 tons; he had
but hundred men in all. In Guinea.
frankly tells us in the brief
note which gives all that is known of
tins expedition, "he got into his posses
sion, partly by the sword and partly by
other meanes, to the number of 300I
negroes at the least, besides other mer-
chandlses which that country yieldeth."
With this miserable cargo he sailed for
and in three ports left MI
his goods behind him, loaded his own
snip with hides, ginger, sugar, and pearls,
ana mad enough to freight two other
ships besides. This is almost all we know
ot the first voyage; but the second lin
1864 was fully described by John Sparkle,
one OF his companions very racy
record 1T is. This was the first English
narrative OF American adventure; for
though Cabot left manuscripts behind
am, they were never printed.
When we consider that the slave-trade
5 now treated as piracy throughout the
civilized world, it is curious to find that
'hese courageous early navigators were
lot only slave-traders, but of most
oious description. When Hawkins tried
% capture and enslave whole town
lear Sierra Leone, and when he narrow
y escaped being captured himself, and
meeting the fate he richly deserved his
historian says: "God, who worketh All
hlngs tor the best would not have it so,
md by Him we escaped without danger;
lis name be praysed for it," When the
title fleet is becalmed, and suffers for
want of water, the author saws, "But
Almightie God, who never sufereth His
,lect to perish, sent VS. the sixteene of
tebruarie the ordinaire Brieze, which is
he northwest winde." With these re-
igious sentiments Hawkins carried his
legroes to the Spanish settlements in
Venezuela and elsewhere-T. w. Hig-
,inson in Harpers Magazine for Janu-
ny.