of the West India Islands or on the American colonies, in concert with the planters, whose profits were measured by the number of Africans whom they could obtain to cultivate the soil on which they had settled. "Your mariners," remonstrated the Spanish ambassador with Elizabeth, "rob my master's ships on the sea, and trade where they are forbidden to go; they plunder our people in the streets of your towns; they attack our vessels in your very harbours, and take our prisoners from them; your preachers insult my master from their pulpits, and when we apply for justice we are answered with threats."[1]
They extend their operations.
1568.
The third expedition of Sir John Hawkins.
These freebooting expeditions continuing for some
years practically unchecked, Elizabeth at last felt
uneasy for her relations with Spain. Her attempts
to suppress them, which were always languid, had
been laughed at and evaded. Though the Channel
was less infested with privateers than it had been
at the commencement of her reign, or during that of
her immediate predecessors, they had extended and
increased their ravages on the ocean and in distant
lands. With the Huguenots of Rochelle, under
Condé's flag and with Condé's commission, they had
made a prey of the property of Papists; and, like
the crusaders of former ages, had, on the plea of
propagating and extending the Protestant faith,
plundered Papists wherever they could be found.
But when Hawkins (now Sir John Hawkins) prepared
to fit out a third expedition, this time on a
much more extensive scale, the Spanish ambas-*
- ↑ Froude, Da Silva to Elizabeth, October 6, 1567, Spanish MSS., Rolls House.
