As to the English, they were in great peril, and parted by a storm. The Judith fared best, commanded by a man from before the mast, one Francis Drake, who brought the news to England that Hawkins had more than two hundred people crowded upon the _Minion_ without food or water. “With many sorrowful hearts,” says Hawkins, “we wandered in an unknown sea by the span of fourteen dayes, till hunger forced us to seeke the lande, for birdes were thought very goode meate, rattes, cattes, mise and dogges.” It was then that one hundred fourteen men volunteered to go ashore and the ship continued a very painful voyage. These men were landed on the coast of Mexico, unarmed, to be stripped naked presently by red Indians, and by the Spaniards marched as slaves to the city of Mexico, where after long imprisonment those left alive were sold. The Spanish gentlemen, the clergy and the monks were kind to these servants, who earned positions of trust on mines and ranches, some of them becoming in time very wealthy men though still rated as slaves. Then came the “Holy Hellish Inquisition” to inquire into the safety of their souls. All were imprisoned, nearly all were tortured on the rack, and flogged in public with five hundred lashes. Even the ten gentlemen landed by Hawkins as hostages for his good faith shared the fate of the shipwrecked mariners who, some in Mexico and some in Spain, were in the end condemned to the galleys. And those who kept the faith were burned alive. From that time onward, whatever treaties there might be in Europe, there was never a moment’s peace for the Spanish Indies. All honest Englishmen were at war with Spain until the Inquisition was stamped out, and the British liberators had helped to drive the Spaniards from the last acre of their American empire. When Hawkins returned to England, Mary, Queen of Scots, was there a prisoner. The sailor went to Elizabeth’s minister, Lord Burleigh, and proposed a plot. By this plot he entered into a treaty with the queen of Scots to set her on the throne. He was to join the Duke of Alva for the invasion and overthrow of England. So pleased was the Spanish king that he paid compensation to Hawkins for his losses at San Juan d’Ullua and restored to freedom such of the English prisoners as could be discovered. Then Hawkins turned loyal again, and Queen Elizabeth knighted him for fooling her enemies. XXXI A. D. 1573 FRANCIS DRAKE The _Judith_ had escaped from San Juan d’Ullua and her master, Francis Drake, of Devon, was now a bitter vengeful adversary, from that time onward living to be the scourge of Spain. Four years he raided, plundered, burned along the Spanish main, until the name Drake was changed to Dragon in the language of the dons.