On this occasion he again visited Africa, collected a cargo of slaves, and endeavoured to trade with the Spaniards, more especially in Venezuela.  This time the expedition found the authorities, warned by threatening prohibitions from Europe, in a less enterprising mood.  Hawkins, persisting in the attempt, succeeded in bartering a certain number of slaves for hides, gold, silver, pearls, and other commodities.  After a while the Spanish officers attempted to interfere and to put a stop altogether to the traffic, on which Hawkins, ever a friend to free trade, gathered his men together and marched down to the market-place, incidentally firing off guns, which procedure destroyed the last scruples of the inhabitants, and an important exchange and barter now took place.  Thus the triumphant Hawkins returned with a second valuable cargo to England.

In 1567 Hawkins was accompanied on his next voyage by his young cousin, Francis Drake.  The incidents of this voyage strongly resemble those of the previous ones.  Negroes were collected in West Africa, and were disposed of in Spanish America, notwithstanding the protest, whether genuine or simulated, of the officials.  The ending of the voyage, however, was destined to introduce a tragic note.  On the way home the small English expedition fell in at the Port San Juan de Ulloa with a great Spanish fleet.  In the first instance the mutual overtures were friendly, and hostages were exchanged on both sides.  In the end, however, the English force was, without warning, attacked by the Spaniards as they lay at anchor.  The majority of the men who had gone on shore were slain, and those who remained on the ships were assailed by overwhelming numbers.  After a strenuous tussle with the Spaniards, Drake in the Judith, followed some time afterwards by Hawkins in the Minion, got away.  The condition of Hawkins’s crew, unprepared as was this ship for the voyage, was pitiful.  A lengthy spell of contrary winds served to accentuate the terrible dearth of provisions which prevailed.  The following is a contemporary account of some of the incidents.  The vessel had wandered about the ocean

“tyll hunger inforced us to seek the lands for birdes were thought very good meate, rattes, cattes, mise and dogges, none escaped that might be gotten, parrates and monkayes that we had in great prise were thought then very profitable if they served the tourne one dinner.”

The return home in this instance was truly a sorry one, for the survivors had left not only gold behind them, but the corpses of so many brave comrades.

On the whole, the exploits of Hawkins were considerably overshadowed by those of his young relative, Sir Francis Drake, who had begun to adventure on his own account in 1570, and who haunted the Spanish Indies, determined to avenge the treatment he and his comrades had received at San Juan de Ulloa.  He ransacked Nombre de Dios and Cartagena, explored the Gulf of Darien, made friends with the Indians who inhabited the place, and captured many Spanish merchantmen, repulsing the attacks of the Spanish men-of-war.