Had he been well disposed and free to act it would still have been too late, for the very next morning, September 17, De Bacan was off the harbour mouth with thirteen heavily-armed galleons and frigates.  The smallest of them carried probably 200 men, and the odds were now tremendous.  Hawkins’s vessels lay ranged along the inner bank or wall of the island.  He instantly occupied the island itself and mounted guns at the point covering the way in.  He then sent a boat off to De Bacan to say that he was an Englishman, that he was in possession of the port, and must forbid the entrance of the Spanish fleet till he was assured that there was to be no violence.  It was a strong measure to shut a Spanish admiral out of a Spanish port in a time of profound peace.  Still, the way in was difficult, and could not be easily forced if resolutely defended.  The northerly wind was rising; if it blew into a gale the Spaniards would be on a lee shore.  Under desperate circumstances, desperate things will be done.  Hawkins in his subsequent report thus explains his dilemma:—­

’I was in two difficulties.  Either I must keep them out of the port, which with God’s grace I could easily have done, in which case with a northerly wind rising they would have been wrecked, and I should have been answerable; or I must risk their playing false, which on the whole I preferred to do.’

The northerly gale it appears did not rise, or the English commander might have preferred the first alternative.  Three days passed in negotiation.  De Bacan and Don Enriquez, the new Viceroy, were naturally anxious to get into shelter out of a dangerous position, and were equally desirous not to promise any more than was absolutely necessary.  The final agreement was that De Bacan and the fleet should enter without opposition.  Hawkins might stay till he had repaired his damages, and buy and sell what he wanted; and further, as long as they remained the English were to keep possession of the island.  This article, Hawkins says, was long resisted, but was consented to at last.  It was absolutely necessary, for with the island in their hands, the Spaniards had only to cut the English cables, and they would have driven ashore across the harbour.

The treaty so drawn was formally signed.  Hostages were given on both sides, and De Bacan came in.  The two fleets were moored as far apart from each other as the size of the port would allow.  Courtesies were exchanged, and for two days all went well.  It is likely that the Viceroy and the admiral did not at first know that it was the very man whom they had been sent out to sink or capture who was lying so close to them.  When they did know it they may have looked on him as a pirate, with whom, as with heretics, there was no need to keep faith.  Anyway, the rat was in the trap, and De Bacan did not mean to let him out.  The Jesus lay furthest in; the Minion lay beyond her towards the entrance, moored apparently to a ring on the quay, but free to move; and the Judith, further out again, moored in the same way.  Nothing is said of the two small vessels remaining.