and that rewards should be offered for the discovery and conviction of the persons most engaged in these enterprises.1

2

These requests were certainly not excessive. It is remarkable that the last was distinctly refused on the plea that to assist justice with the offer of rewards was contrary to English usage. Additional salaries however were given to the admiralty judges to quicken their movements; Queen's ships were sent to sea to prosecute the search more vigorously; and on the 12th of August 'the council, taking into consideration a complaint of the Spanish ambassador of spoils done. upon Spanish subjects upon the seas,' directed inquiry to be made all along the English coast, with the immediate trial of all persons charged with piracy, and their punishment on conviction; 'her Majesty being resolved to show to the world that she intended to deal honestly in that matter.'

93

Nevertheless the energy of the council was still unequal to their professions, and there was still large deficiency either of power or of will. In October a vessel going from Flanders to Spain 'with tapestry, household stuff, clocks,' and other curiosities, for Philip himself, was intercepted and plundered;1 and this final audacity seems really to have created an alarm. Harbour commissioners at last were actually appointed; codes of

1 De Silva to Cecil, August 5: Spanish MSS. Rolls House.

2 Haud hoc nostræ reipublicæ convenit, sed salaria a Reginâ nova dantur judicibus in hunc usum.'-Cecil to de Silva: MSS. Ibid.

VOL. VIII.

3 Council Register, August 12, 1565.

4 Phayres to Cecil, October 12: Spanish MSS.

4

harbour rules were drawn out for the detection and detention of ambiguous vessels; and as an evidence that the Government were in earnest, they struck faintly at the root of the disease. The gentlemen on the coast 'were the chief maintainers of pirates;' and Sir William Godolphin, of Scilly, and the Killigrews, of Pendennis, were threatened with prosecution.1

Yet still no one was hanged. Pirates were taken and somehow or other were soon abroad again at their old trade. Godolphin and Killigrew suffered nothing worse than a short-lived alarm.

The commission met at Bruges after long delay in the beginning of the following year. England was represented by Haddon, Sir A. Montague, and Doctor Wotton. The Spanish Government had given a proof of their desire to settle all differences quietly by appointing to meet them, Count Montigny and Count Egmont-Montigny, murdered afterwards by Philip with such ingenious refinement at Simancas, and Egmont the best friend that Elizabeth had in the King of Spain's dominions.

Nevertheless, even with these two, the problem was almost beyond solution. The proceedings had scarcely opened when another and most audacious act of piracy was committed at the mouth of the Thames. The Flemish commissioners said they did not question the good will of the Queen of England, but her conduct was very strange. They challenged Wotton to name a

1 Council Register, November, 1565.

single pirate who had yet been executed; and Wotton, with all his eagerness to defend Elizabeth, confessed himself unable to mention one. They said frankly that if the Queen's Government did not see to the safety of their own seas, another way must be taken' which would lead to war.

For our part,' wrote Wotton in his report to Cecil, we must needs think our fortune very hard; our men in their offences are so far out of all order, and the cases so lamentable if the account be true, that we can scant tell how to open our mouths for any reasonable satisfaction therein.'1

Elizabeth could but answer that she had done her best, and either the story was exaggerated or else it was a matter impossible to be reformed.' She said however that she had sent special persons to every port in England with extraordinary powers, from whose exertions an effect might be looked for. Philip fortunately was in a most unwarlike humour, and her excuses were accepted for more than they were worth. But the conference was suspended till her good intentions had been carried into acts; and the commissioners separated on the 17th of June, still leaving all outstanding claims unsettled.

English Protestants, it was too evident, regarded the property of Papists as lawful prize wherever they could lay hands on it; and Protestantism, stimulated by these

1 Wotton to Cecil, May 13, 1566: Flanders MSS.

"Elizabeth to the Commissioners at Bruges, June 1, 1566. Cecil's hand: Flanders MSS.

inducements to conversion, was especially strong in the sea-port towns. Exasperated by the murder of their comrades in the prisons of the Inquisition, the sailors and merchants looked on the robbery of Spaniards as at once the most lucrative and devout of occupations; and Elizabeth's Government was unable to cope with a tendency so deeply rooted. The destinies, beneficent or evil, however, which watched over the fortunes of the nation, provided a more distant field of lawless enterprise, which gradually attracted the more daring spirits to itself; and while it removed the struggle with Spain into a larger sphere, postponed for a few years longer the inevitable collision, and left the Channel in peace.

It has been seen how in the early days of the Guinea trade the English had half in play coquetted with the capture of negroes; how they stretched out their hands towards the forbidden fruit, touched it, clutched at it, and let it go the feeble scruples were giving way before familiarity with the temptation.

The European voyagers when they first visited the coasts of Western Africa found there for the most part a quiet, peaceable, and contented people basking in the sunshine in harmless idleness, unprovoked to make war upon one another because they had nothing to desire, and receiving strangers with the unsuspecting trustfulness which is observed in the birds and animals of new countries when for the first time they come in contact with man. Remorse for the desolation created by the first conquerors of the New World among the Indians of Mexico and the isles, had tempted the nobler Span

iards into a belief that in this innocent and docile people, might be found servants who if kindly treated would labour without repugnance; and thus the remnants of those races whose civilization had astonished their destroyers might be saved from the cruelty of the colonists. The proud and melancholy Indian pined like an eagle in captivity, refused to accept his servitude, and died; the more tractable negro would domesticate like the horse or the ass, acquiesce in a life of useful bondage, and receive in return the reward of baptism and the promise of eternity.

Charles the Fifth had watched over the interests of the Indians, as soon as he became awake to their sufferings, with a father's anxiety. Indian slavery in the Spanish dominions was prohibited for ever; but that the colonists might not be left without labourers, and those splendid countries relapse into a wilderness, they were allowed to import negroes from Africa, whom as expensive servants it would be their interest to preserve. The Indians had cost them nothing; the Indians had been seized by force, chained in the mines or lashed into the fields; if millions perished there were millions more to recruit the gangs. The owner of a negro whom he had bought, and bought dear, would have the same interest in him as in his horse or his cow; he would exact no more work from his slave than the slave could perform without injury to himself, and he would be the means of saving a soul from everlasting perdition.

Nor was the bondage of the negro intended to be perpetual, nor would the great Emperor trust him with