from the port of Pánuco upward of one hundred Englishmen, who had been captured in a hostile region by the people of the country. Singularly enough they were of those who had fled with Hawkins on his flag-ship. When after his narrow escape the Englishman had reached a point twenty-five leagues north of Pánuco River, he found his overloaded ship in danger of sinking. So he landed one hundred and fifty men, among whom were Miles Philips and Job Hortop, and twenty boys, besides a considerable portion of the cargo. It was the 8th of October. The men were furnished with arms, and directed to stay there until Hawkins could return for them with seaworthy vessels. Thence he went to England.[1]
After much suffering from hunger and diseases, and losses at the hands of natives, the men left by Hawkins concluded to change their quarters. Turning southward they marched seven days and nights till they reached Pánuco, in a deplorable condition. There a force came out against them, to which they offered no resistance. It is said that the captors treated them more cruelly,[2] and finally sent them to Mexico to join their former comrades.
- ↑ 'Este, dizen, fué el prinçipio del Draque, á quien ayudó con dineros para venir á vengar el agravio que los españoles le abian hecho.' Peralta, Not. Hist., 272. March y Labores, Hist. Marina, ii. 310, in this connection says that the ship which followed Hawkins went to pieces in the Pánuco River, and her crew of 70 men was taken to Mexico and humanely treated. Hawkins, after losing many of his shipmates, from wounds and hunger, escaped through the Bahama Channel between Florida and the Lucayas, and sorrowstricken, arrived in England, where Drake had preceded him. As a climax to his misfortunes he could not recover from Drake any portion of the gold intrusted to him. There was little honor among these thieves. Drake thought he could better employ it in fitting out the vessels wherewith he became afterward the terror of the Spanish American coasts in both the Atlantic and Pacific seas. If there be truth in the latter part of this statement, time must have obliterated in Hawkins all ill feeling toward Drake, for in 1595 they planned a joint expedition against the Spanish colonies in America, mentioned above by Peralta, and of which an account is given elsewhere. See, also. Panes, Vir., in Monum. Dom. Esp., MS., 85-9; Datos Biog., in Cartas de Indias, 754.
- ↑ 'Atándoles las manos y llevándolos al pueblo atropellando con los caballos . . . los metieron en cárçeles y prisiones, y dieron á uno ó a dos tormento.' Peralta, Not, Hist., 274-5. Hortop, one of the party, says nothing of cruel treatment at Pánuco. But he does state that the viceroy in Mexico wanted to hang them, and was dissuaded from it, Haklvyt's Voy., iii. 492.
