San Juan de Ulloa is a few miles only from Vera Cruz.  It was at that time the chief port of Mexico, through which all the traffic passed between the colony and the mother-country, and was thus a place of some consequence.  It stands on a small bay facing towards the north.  Across the mouth of this bay lies a narrow ridge of sand and shingle, half a mile long, which acts as a natural breakwater and forms the harbour.  This ridge, or island as it was called, was uninhabited, but it had been faced on the inner front by a wall.  The water was deep alongside, and vessels could thus lie in perfect security, secured by their cables to rings let into the masonry.

The prevailing wind was from the north, bringing in a heavy surf on the back of the island.  There was an opening at both ends, but only one available for vessels of large draught.  In this the channel was narrow, and a battery at the end of the breakwater would completely command it.  The town stood on the opposite side of the bay.

Into a Spanish port thus constructed Hawkins entered with his battered squadron on September 16, 1568.  He could not have felt entirely easy.  But he probably thought that he had no ill-will to fear from the inhabitants generally, and that the Spanish authorities would not be strong enough to meddle with him.  His ill star had brought him there at a time when Alvarez de Bacan, the same officer who had destroyed the English ships at Gibraltar, was daily expected from Spain—­sent by Philip, as it proved, specially to look for him.  Hawkins, when he appeared outside, had been mistaken for the Spanish admiral, and it was under this impression that he had been allowed to enter.  The error was quickly discovered on both sides.

Though still ignorant that he was himself De Bacan’s particular object, yet De Bacan was the last officer whom in his crippled condition he would have cared to encounter.  Several Spanish merchantmen were in the port richly loaded:  with these of course he did not meddle, though, if reinforced, they might perhaps meddle with him.  As his best resource he despatched a courier on the instant to Mexico to inform the Viceroy of his arrival, to say that he had an English squadron with him; that he had been driven in by stress of weather and need of repairs; that the Queen was an ally of the King of Spain; and that, as he understood a Spanish fleet was likely soon to arrive, he begged the Viceroy to make arrangements to prevent disputes.

As yet, as I said in the last lecture, there was no Inquisition in Mexico.  It was established there three years later, for the special benefit of the English.  But so far there was no ill-will towards the English—­rather the contrary.  Hawkins had hurt no one, and the negro trading had been eminently popular.  The Viceroy might perhaps have connived at Hawkins’s escape, but again by ill-fortune he was himself under orders of recall, and his successor was coming out in this particular fleet with De Bacan.