It was, however, William Hawkins’s son John who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his success in the slave-trade, and in acknowledgment of the wealth which his voyages brought into England. Engaging several of his friends, some of whom were noblemen, in the adventure, John Hawkins sailed with a fleet of three ships and one hundred men for the coast of Guinea, in October, 1562. He took—partly by the sword, and partly by other means—three hundred or more negroes, whom he carried to San Domingo, then called Hispaniola, and sold profitably. In his own ships he brought home hides, ginger, sugar, and some pearls. He sent two other ships with hides and other commodities to Spain. These were seized by the Spanish Government, and it is curious that Hawkins should not have known that they would be. His ignorance seems to show that his adventure was substantially a novelty in that time. He himself arrived in England again in September, 1563. Notwithstanding the loss of half his profits in Spain, the voyage brought much gain to himself and the other adventurers. Thus encouraged, Hawkins sailed again, the next year, with four ships, of which the largest was the “Jesus,” of Lubec, of seven hundred tons; the smallest was the “Swallow,” of only thirty tons. He had a hundred and seventy men; and, as in all such voyages, the ships were armed. Passing down the coast of Guinea, they spent December and January in picking up their wretched freight, and lost by sickness and in fights with the negroes many of their men. On the 29th of January, 1565, they had taken in their living cargo, and then they crossed to the West Indies. On the voyage they were becalmed for twenty-one days. But they arrived at the Island of Dominica, then in possession of savages, on the 9th of March. From that period till the 31st of May, they were trading on the Spanish coasts, and then returned to England, touching at various points in the West Indies. They passed along the whole coast of Florida, and they are the first Englishmen who give us in detail any account of Florida.[136] It was Hawkins’s great good fortune to come to the relief of the struggling colony of Laudonnière, then in the second year of its wretched history. From his narrative we learn that the settlers had made twenty hogsheads of wine in a single summer from the native grapes, which is perhaps more than has been done there since in the same period of time.[137] The wretched colonists owed everything to the kindness of Hawkins. He left them a vessel in which to return to France; and they had made all their preparations so to do, when they were relieved—for their ultimate destruction, as it proved—by the arrival of a squadron under Ribault.[138] Hawkins returned to England after a voyage sufficiently prosperous, which had lasted eleven months. He had lost twenty persons in all; but he had brought home gold, silver, pearls, and other jewels in great store. [Illustration: John Hawkins