The squadron Hawkins took to La Vera Cruz on the 16th of September 1568 consisted of some ten or a dozen vessels, for he had been joined in the West Indies by French rovers. With this force it would have been easy for him to overpower any resistance the Spaniards could offer. There was at that time no fortress on the island of St. Juan de Ulloa, and the town of La Vera Cruz was not yet built. A few sheds, used only during the time that the yearly convoy of merchant ships from Spain was in the harbour, was all that stood upon the beach. When Hawkins made his appearance outside the harbour, he had no difficulty in frightening the local officials into letting him anchor. But in the course of negotiations with them he learned a piece of news which caused him well-grounded anxiety. On his first appearance off the harbour, the Spaniards had mistaken him for a convoy expected from Spain, bringing the new Viceroy, Don Martin Henriquez: of course, if this appeared, the position would be disagreeably complicated. But it was now too late for Hawkins to go back, so he took up his place in the harbour. In a few days the fleet from Spain made its appearance. It consisted almost wholly of merchant ships, but there was one heavy galleon of war which served as the flagship of the Spanish admiral, Francisco de Lujan. Hawkins could probably have kept the Spaniards out of the harbour easily enough, but in the autumn months the coast of Mexico is liable to furious gales of the nature of hurricanes, called Northers. If one of these had burst while the Spaniards were outside the island of St. Juan de Ulloa, the whole Spanish squadron must have perished. As it was estimated to be worth £1,850,000, and carried hundreds of his subjects, including so great an officer as the Viceroy of Mexico, this would have been an outrage King Philip could not possibly have endured. Hawkins must have been very well aware that if the queen did not happen to wish for a war with Spain at the moment when he returned to England after such an exploit, she would hang him without the slightest scruple for causing her the trouble. On the other hand, if he once allowed the Spaniards to get inside the harbour, there was every probability that they would cut his throat with the least possible delay. In the dreadful fix in which he now found himself, Hawkins hit upon a middle course. He allowed the Spaniards to come in, after exacting from them a promise that they would suffer him to trade in safety and depart in peace. It is hardly credible that the Englishman can have supposed that a promise extorted in such a fashion would have been observed. If he did, his confidence did not last long, for, in his own narrative of what our ancestors called "the treachery of the Spaniards," he confesses that he was extremely nervous. From the day after Don Francisco de Lujan had moored his ships beside the English on the island of St. Juan de Ulloa, he was in constant expectation