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c. 1562-1622
Richard Hawkins, son of John Hawkins, continued the family tradition of profiteering at sea. After an early voyage to Brazil with his uncle, in 1585 he sailed with Drake to attack Spanish settlements in the Caribbean and on the Florida coast. This expedition also brought home the hungry and disillusioned Roanoke colonists sponsored by Sir Walter Ralegh.
Hawkins Jnr commanded the Swallow in the battles against the Armada in 1588. Two years later, he sailed with his father to the coast of Portugal as part of the first – and abortive – attempt to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet and seize it for England.
Richard Hawkins' great ambition was to sail round the world on a voyage that would combine piracy and pillage with scientific exploration. In 1593, he left England in a ship his mother had originally and rather wistfully named the Repentance, but which Queen Elizabeth renamed the Dainty. He crossed the Atlantic and sailed through the Strait of Magellan like Drake before him.
Having raided Valparaiso (in what is now Chile), the Dainty was attacked in the Bay of Atacames by six Spanish ships. Vastly outnumbered, Hawkins and his crew of 75 held out for three days in a fierce battle; finally, a badly wounded Hawkins surrendered on condition that his surviving men would be sent back to England. He was imprisoned in Peru for three years, then transferred to Spain. In 1602, he was finally freed for a £3,000 ransom – paid with some reluctance by his stepmother after his father's death.
Hawkins was knighted by James I in 1603 and made vice-admiral of Devon, responsible for defending its coast against pirates and foreign attack. He spent the next two years writing Observations on His Voyage into the South Seas, AD 1593, then turned to trading and civic duties, becoming mayor of Plymouth and an MP. In true Hawkins spirit, he combined officialdom with an eye to the main chance – during peace negotiations with Spain, he claimed (unsuccessfully) that the Spanish owed him £10,000 for the attack on his father and Drake at San Juan de Ulua.
In 1620, at the age of 58, he led an expedition to the Mediterranean against the Barbary (North African) pirates, but failed to make an impression. He died in 1622, just as his Observations were being published for the first time. They live on after him – a vivid account of life at sea and the discovery of new lands in the Elizabethan age.
The pirates
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