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to the coast of Guinea and began that African slave trade in which England was engaged for nearly three centuries.
His son, John Hawkins, continued this lucrative business with eager persistency and grew rich. At the same time he was very pious and godfearing. When, invading a negro village near Sierra Leone, he almost fell into captivity himself and was exposed to the same fate, which he had inflicted, without compunction, upon thousands of others, he wrote in his logbook: "God, who worketh all things for the best, would not have it so, and by Him all escaped without danger; His name be praysed for it." At another time, when his vessels were becalmed for a long time in midocean and great suffering ensued "But Almighty God, who never suffereth His elect to perish, sent us the sixteene of Februarie the ordinarie Breeze, which is the northwest winde."
From which record it becomes evident that the English even in those days, whatever their questionable trades might have been, carried the name of God in their sacrilegeous mouths but cared damnably little for His commandments of brotherly love.
For the negroes, carried off in Africa, Hawkins found a ready market in Brazil, the West Indies and Mexico, though King Philip II. of Spain had strictly forbidden all dealings with Hawkins. To give the poorer settlers a chance to obtain laborers at low price, many officials tacitly permitted the bargain. In smaller towns, where authorities objected, Hawkins hushed the officials in having the boats, carrying the negroes, escorted by a force of some hundred men in armor, with cannon sufficient to awe the authorities, whereupon the slave-trade began. On account of complaints being sent to Spain concerning this unusual mode of carrying on business, the former inhibition was made more severe. But in spite of it the Englishman continued his lucrative voyages, well knowing that by so doing he was winning the applause of the English crown. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth, because of the riches Hawkins had brought to England, knighted him and granted him a coat of arms.
Translated from the jargon of heraldy, this patent of nobility meant, that he might bear on his black shield a golden lion rampant over blue waves. Above the lion were three golden dublons, representing the riches Hawkins had brought to England. To give due credit to the piety of this "nobleman" there was in the upper quartering of the shield a pilgrim's scallop-shell in gold, flanked by two pilgrim's staffs, indicating that Hawkin's slave-hunts were genuine crusades, undertaken in
