With what he could get--some four or five hundred negroes--Hawkins did a roaring trade in those parts of the Spanish Main where King Philip's subjects were not too closely watched by Governors and troops. But new troubles began when Hawkins, trying to leave the West Indies, was blown back by a hurricane into Vera Cruz, then known as San Juan de Ulua. Hawkins still had a hundred negroes left; so, hoping for leave from Mexico City to trade them off, he held the Kind's Island, which entirely commanded the entrance to the harbour, where he saw twelve Spanish treasure ships. But it was four hundred miles to the City of Mexico and back again; and meanwhile a great Spanish fleet was expected out from Spain. Hawkins had this fleet completely at his mercy; for it could no more get past the King's Island if he chose to stop it than the fleet inside could get out. Moreover, the stormy season was beginning; so the fleet from Spain might easily be wrecked if Hawkins kept it at bay.
The very next morning the fleet arrived. Hawkins was terribly tempted to keep it out, which would have made his own fleet safe and would have struck a heavy blow at Spain; for all the Spanish vessels together were worth many millions. But he feared the wrath of Queen Elizabeth, who did not want war with Spain; so he let the Spaniards "enter with their accustomed treason" after they had agreed not to attack him.
For a few days everything went well. Then suddenly the Spaniards set on the English, killed every Englishman they could catch ashore, and attacked the little English fleet by land and sea. Once the two Spanish fleets had joined they were in overwhelming force and could have smothered Hawkins to death by sheer weight of numbers. But he made a brave fight. Within an hour the Spanish flagship and another vessel had been sunk, a third was on fire, and every English deck was clear of Spanish boarding parties. But the King's Island, to which Hawkins had moored his vessels, now swarmed with Spaniards firing cannon only a few yards off. To hearten his men he drank their health and called out, "Stand by your ordnance lustily!" As he put the goblet down a round shot sent it flying. "Look," he said, "how God has delivered me from that shot; and so will He deliver you from these traitors." Then he ordered his own battered ship to be abandoned for the _Minion_, telling Drake to come alongside in the _Judith_. In these two little vessels all that remained of the English sailed safely out, in spite of the many Spanish guns roaring away at point-blank range and of two fire-ships which almost struck home.