On the ninth of March they had come to the island of Dominica. Here they landed in search of water. Only rain-water was found “and such as fell from the hills and remained as a puddle in the dale”; and with this they filled for the Negroes. Then they cruised among the neighbouring islands, and along the Spanish Main, but were denied traffic by the Spanish officials at all places. At Burburata, Venezuela, in April, after arguing the point Hawkins brought the governor to terms with a demonstration of his fighting spirit. Landing with a hundred men “well armed with bowes, arrowes, harquebuzes, and pikes,” he marched them in battle array toward the town. Thereupon the governor threw up his hands, as the modern phrase is, and trade was opened without more ado. Here a number of the Negroes were profitably disposed of. Next, in May, they came to Rio del Hacha, now of Colombia. A sharper demonstration was necessary at this place before the Spanish officials would remove the prohibition. When they would listen to no argument, and were even unmoved by Hawkins’s “diplomacy” in the audacious pretension that he was “in an armada of the Queens Majesties of England and sent about her other affaires,” and had been driven out of his intended course and into these parts by contrary winds, he sent them the word “to determine either to give him license to trade or else stand to their own harmes [arms].” With this ultimatum he landed again the one hundred men in armour, with two of his “faulcons.” At the first firing of these little guns the officials surrendered with the desired grant. Traffic then proceeded briskly, and within ten days the remainder of the Negroes were bartered off prosperously. This accomplished, the fleet sailed northward, now in search of a good place to take on a supply of fresh water. After beating about Jamaica they passed the west end of Cuba and came into the gulf of Florida: and so the mainland of Florida was reached.