With the proceeds of human beings, stolen from their homes, and sold under cover of his guns to the Spanish planters, Hawkins, having washed the pens in which he had cooped his unfortunate victims, sailed in high spirits for England. On his way home he made a cruise through the Carribean Sea, surveying, in the ostensible fulfilment of his mission, the islands, and mapping down the currents and the shoals. He then shaped his course round Cuba, steered through the Bahama Channel, and along the coast of Florida, to examine the capabilities of the country, as he explained, but more likely, from his marauding propensities, to see if he could pick up any of the treasure ships of Spain. He at length reached Padstow Harbour, and thence proceeded to London, where he rendered to his co-partners an account of his spoils, and for a time was the lion of the metropolis. Lord Pembroke and his colleagues in the Council realised a clear profit of sixty per cent. on their adventure, and it was generally supposed that Elizabeth was not uninterested in the spoils which the ship she had supplied had assisted in realising, unconscious, it may be hoped, that her favourite captain had done anything to offend her friend and ally the king of Spain. [Sidenote: Fresh expeditions.] Thus encouraged, the slave trade flourished. Nor was it surprising that the vast profits which Hawkins had secured should have induced others to fit out slaving expeditions. The merchants of London felt no hesitation in supplying the requisite funds.[131] They did not inquire very minutely into the mode in which their employés conducted their business. Ostensibly their capital was required to fit out vessels to carry on the trade of immigration from the coast of Africa, where labour was too abundant, to the shores of the newly discovered country, which had no bounds to its vast and rich territory, and where labour was in still greater demand. If these roving Englishmen ruined the colonies Spain had established and menaced the safety of her merchant fleets, that was a matter of no concern to England; and if they pillaged a few of them when a favourable opportunity occurred, the capitalists who supplied the means received a bonus on their investment beyond the ordinary dividend, and did not of course trouble themselves to inquire how it had been obtained. [Sidenote: 1566.]