Stories of Elizabethan heroes : $b Stirring records of the intrepid bravery and boundless resource of the men of Queen Elizabeth's reignGilliat, Edward
History
Stories of Elizabethan heroes : $b Stirring records of the intrepid bravery and boundless resource of the men of Queen Elizabeth's reign
Gilliat, Edward
Great Britain -- Biography; Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603
Francis Drake was bidden to come in with the _Judith_, a barque of 50
tons, and take in men from the sinking ships: at night the English in
the _Minion_ and _Judith_ sailed out and anchored under the island.
The English taken by the Spaniards received no mercy. "They took our
men and hung them up by the arms upon high posts until the blood
burst out of their fingers' ends."
The _Judith_ under Drake sailed for England and reached Plymouth in
January 1569; the _Minion_, with 200 men, suffered hunger and had to
eat rats and mice and dogs. One hundred men elected to be landed and
left behind to the mercies of Indians and Spaniards. "When we were
landed," said a survivor, "Master Hawkins came unto us, where
friendly embracing every one of us, he was greatly grieved that he
was forced to leave us behind him. He counselled us to serve God and
to love one another; and thus courteously he gave us a sorrowful
farewell and promised, if God sent him safe home, he would do what he
could that so many of us as lived should by some means be brought
into England--and so he did." Thus writes Job Hartop. So we see
that John Hawkins, the slave-dealer, sincerely tried after his
fashion to serve God as well as his Queen. His men loved him and
spoke well of him when he failed; a good test of a man's worth when
men will speak well of you though all your plans be broken and your
credit gone. But alas! for the poor hundred men left ashore on the
Mexican coast! They wandered for fourteen days through marshes and
brambles, some poisoned by bad water, others shot by Indians or
plagued by mosquitoes, until they came to the Spanish town of
Panluco, where the Governor thrust them into a little hog-stye and
fed them on pigs' food. After three days of this they were manacled
two and two and driven over ninety leagues of road to the city of
Mexico. One of their officers used them very spitefully and would
strike his javelin into neck or shoulders, if from faintness any
lagged behind, crying, "March on, English dogs, Lutherans, enemies to
God." After four months in gaol they were sent out as servants to
the Spanish colonists. For six years they fared passing well, but in
1575 the Inquisition was introduced into Mexico, and then their
"sorrows began afresh." On the eve of Good Friday all were dressed
for an _auto-da-fé_ and paraded through the streets. Some were then
burnt, others sent to the galleys, the more favoured ones got three
hundred lashes apiece. One who had escaped had spent twenty-three
years in various galleys, prisons, and farms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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