English incursions in the Spanish-claimed Caribbean boomed during Queen Elizabeth's rule. These actions originally took the guise of well-organised, large-scale smuggling expeditions headed by piratical smugglers the likes of John Hawkins, John Oxenham, and Francis Drake; their primary objectives were smuggling African slaves into Spain's Caribbean possessions in exchange for tropical products. The first instances of English mercantile piracy took place in 1562–63, when Hawkins’ men raided a Portuguese vessel off the coast of Sierra Leone, captured the 300 slaves on board, and smuggled them into Santo Domingo in exchange for sugar, hides, and precious woods. Hawkins and his contemporaries mastered the devilish art of maximising the number of slaves that could fit into a ship. He and other slave traders methodically packed slaves by having them lay on their sides, spooned against one another. Such was the case of the slave-trading vessel bearing the sub-lime name Jesus of Lübeck, into whose pestilent bowels, in partnership with Elizabeth I, Hawkins jammed 400 African slaves. In 1567 and 1568, Hawkins commanded two piratical smuggling expeditions, the last of which ended disastrously; he lost almost all of his ships and three-fourths of his men were killed by Spanish soldiers at San Juan de Ulúa, off the coast of Veracruz, the point of departure of the fleet of New Spain. Hawkins and Drake barely escaped but Oxenham was captured, convicted of heresy by the Inquisition and burned alive.