He told me no, he could not see anything be brought on shore but the money; but, if I had brought anything on shore for my own use, he would not be so strict as to inquire into that, so I might do what I pleased myself.Upon that I went into the place, shut myself in, and having opened all the things, placed them to my mind. There was five little parcels, as follows:—1, 2. A piece of twenty yards fine English broad cloth, five yards black, five yards crimson, in one parcel; and the rest of fine mixtures in another parcel.3. A piece of thirty ells of fine Holland linen.4. A piece of eighteen yards of fine English brocaded silk.5. A piece of black Colchester bays.After I had placed these by themselves, I found means, with some seeming difficulties and much grimace, to bring him to know that this was intended for a present to himself. After all that part was over, and he had seemed to accept them, he signified, after walking a hundred turns and more in the room by them, by throwing his hat, which was under his arm, upon them, and making a very stiff bow; I say, after this he seemed to take his leave of me for a while, and I waited in an outer room. When I was called in again, I found that he had looked over all the particulars, and caused them to be removed out of the place.But when I came again I found him quite another man. He thanked me for my present; told me it was a present fit to be given to a viceroy of Mexico rather than to a mere governor of a fort; that he had done me no services suitable to such a return, but that he would see if he could not oblige me further before I left the place.After our compliments were over I obtained leave to have the corregidore sent for, who accordingly came, and in his presence the money stipulated for the ransom of the ship and of the men was paid.But here the corregidore showed that he would be as severely just on my side as on theirs, for he would not admit the money as a ransom for us as prisoners, but as a deposit for so much as we were to be ransomed for if the sentence of our being made prisoners should be confirmed.And then the governor and corregidore, joining together, sent a representation of the whole affair—at least we were told so—to the viceroy of Mexico; and it was privately hinted to me that I would do well to stay for the return of theaviso—that is, a boat which they send over the bay to Vera Cruz with an express to Mexico, whose return is generally performed in two months.I was not unwilling to stay, having secret hints given me that I should find some way to go with my sloop towards Vera Cruz myself, where I might have an occasion to trade privately for the cargo which I had on board. But it came about a nearer way; for, about two days after this money being deposited, as above, the governor’s son invited himself on board my sloop, where I told him I would be very glad to see him, and whither, at the same time, he brought with him three considerable merchants, Spaniards, two of them not inhabitants of the place.When they were on board they were very merry and pleasant, and I treated them so much to their satisfaction that, in short, they were not well able to go on shore for that night, but were content to take a nap on some carpets, which I caused to be spread for them; and that the governor’s son might think himself well used, I brought him a very good silk nightgown, with a crimson velvet cap, to lie down in, and in the morning desired him to accept of them for his use, which he took very kindly.During that merry evening one of the merchants, not so touched with drink as the young gentleman, nor so as not to mind what it was he came about, takes an occasion to withdraw out of the great cabin and enter into a parley with the master of the sloop in order to trade for what European goods we had on board. The master took the hint, and gave me notice of what had passed, and I gave him instructions what to say and what to do; according to which instructions they made but few words, bought the goods for about five thousand pieces of eight, and carried them away themselves, and at their own hazards.This was very agreeable to me, for now I began to see I should lick myself whole by the sale of this cargo, and should make myself full amends of Jack Spaniard for all the injuries he had done me in the first of these things. With this view I gave my master or captain of the sloop instructions for sale of all the rest of the goods, and left him to manage by himself, which he did so well that he sold the whole cargo the next day to the three Spaniards; with this additional circumstance, that they desired the sloop might carry the goods, as they were on board, to such part of theterra firmaas they should appoint between the Honduras and the coast of La Vera Cruz.It was difficult for me to make good this part of the bargain, but finding the price agreed for would very well answer the voyage, I consented. But then how to send the sloop away and remain among the Spaniards when I was now a clear man, this was a difficulty too, as it was also to go away, and not wait for a favourable answer from the viceroy of Mexico to the representation of the governor and the corregidore. However, at last I resolved to go in the sloop, fall out what would; so I went to the governor and represented to him that, being now to expect a favourable answer from Mexico, it would be a great loss to me to keep the sloop there all the while, and I desired his leave for me to go with the sloop to Antigua to sell and dispose of the cargo, which he well knew I was obliged not to bring on shore there at the Havannah, and which would be in danger of being spoiled by lying so long on board. This I obtained readily, with license to come again into the road, and, for myself only, to come on shore in order to hear the viceroy’s pleasure in my case, which was depending.Having thus obtained a license or passport for the sloop and myself, I put to sea with the three Spanish merchants on board with me. They told me they did not live at the Havannah, but it seems one of them did; and some rich merchants of the Havannah, or of the parts thereabouts in the same island, were concerned with them, for they brought on board, that night we put to sea, a great sum of money in pieces of eight; and, as I understood afterwards, that these merchants bought the cargo of me, and though they gave me a very great price for everything, yet that they sold them again to the merchants, who they procured on the coast of La Vera Cruz, at a prodigious advantage, so that they got above a hundred per cent, after I had gained very sufficiently before.We sailed from the Havannah directly for Vera Cruz. I scrupled venturing into the port at first, and was very uneasy lest I should have another Spanish trick put upon me; but as we sailed under Spanish colours, they showed us such authentic papers from the proper officers that there was no room to fear anything.However, when we came in sight of the Spanish coast, I found they had a secret clandestine trade to carry on, which, though it was secret, yet they knew the way of it so well that it was but a mere road to them. The case was this: we stood in close under the shore in the night, about six leagues to the north of the port, where two of the three merchants went on shore in the boat, and in three hours or there abouts they came on board again with five canoes and seven or eight merchants more with them, and as soon as they were on board we stood off to sea, so that by daylight we were quite out of sight of land.I ought to have mentioned before that as soon as we were put to sea from the Havannah, and during our voyage into the Gulf of Mexico, which was eight days, we rummaged the whole cargo, and opening every bale as far as the Spanish merchants desired, we trafficked with them for the whole cargo, except the barrels of flour and pease.This cargo was considerable in itself, for my wife’s account or invoice, drawn out by my tutor and manager, amounted to £2684, 10s., and I sold the whole, including what had been sold in the evening, when they were on board first, as I have said, for thirty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-three pieces of eight, and they allowed me twelve hundred pieces of eight for the freight of the sloop, and made my master and the seamen very handsome presents besides; and they were well able to do this too, as you shall hear presently.After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected.Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on theterra firma, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about £5000 or £6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had aningenio, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes.I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, “Seignior,” says he, “if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for anycargaison” (so they call it) “that you shall bring.”I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart’s content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah.I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver.When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred.This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also.However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half’s absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out.As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations.And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before.It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him.I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind.Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too.Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, “He is certainly going to Jamaica;” others said, “He is going to trade with the Spaniards;” others that “He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;” some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest.The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near £1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage.I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanishbarco longos, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear.We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them.We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah.As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired.The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel.We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d’Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to theingenio, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me.They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land.Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo—I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money.However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring.arrival announcedColonel Jacque’s arrival is announcedAccordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop’s boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship—ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her.To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me.In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures—as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast.I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes.This was the b—-est course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards’barco longosand small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind—I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina.From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days.Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months £25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up.Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution—I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above £10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before.With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them.We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of theterra firma, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe.They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for.We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers.Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant’s advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate.This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance.The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats.I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy—namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it.My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands.But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful.Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain.This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them.In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale—for so they called it—about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world.After above five weeks’ retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it.I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too.But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him.Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja—that is to say, in Old Castile.Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.They live, as I have said, in a kind of country retreat at their villas, or, as we would call them in Virginia, their plantations, and, as they do call them, theiringenios, where they make their indigo and their sugars. But they have also houses and warehouses at Vera Cruz, where they go twice a year, when the galleons arrive from Old Spain, and when those galleons relade for their return. And it was surprising to me, when I went to La Vera Cruz with them, to see what prodigious consignments they had from their correspondents in Old Spain, and with what despatch they managed them; for no sooner were the cases, packs, and bales of European goods brought into their warehouses but they were opened and repacked by porters and packers of their own—that is to say, negroes and Indian servants—and being made up into new bales and separate parcels, were all despatched again by horses for Mexico, and directed to their several merchants there, and the remainder carried home, as above, to theingeniowhere they lived, which was near thirty English miles from Vera Cruz, so that in about twenty days their warehouses were again entirely free. At La Vera Cruz, all their business was over there, and they and all their servants retired; for they stayed no longer there than needs must, because of the unhealthiness of the air.After the goods were thus despatched, it was equally surprising to see how soon, and with what exactness, the merchants of Mexico to whom those cargoes were separately consigned made the return, and how it came all in silver or in gold, so that their warehouses in a few months were piled up, even to the ceiling, with chests of pieces of eight and with bars of silver.It is impossible to describe in the narrow compass of this work with what exactness and order, and yet with how little hurry, and not the least confusion, everything was done, and how soon a weight of business of such importance and value was negotiated and finished, the goods repacked, invoices made, and everything despatched and gone; so that in about five weeks all the goods they had received from Europe by the galleons were disposed of and entered in their journals to the proper account of their merchant to whom they were respectively consigned; from thence they had book-keepers who drew out the invoices and wrote the letters, which the merchant himself only read over and signed, and then other hands copied all again into other books.I can give no estimate of the value of the several consignments they received by that flota; but I remember that, when the galleons went back, they shipped on board, at several times, one million three hundred thousand pieces of eight in specie, besides a hundred and eighty bales or bags of cochineal and about three hundred bales of indigo; but they were so modest that they said this was for themselves and their friends. That is to say, the several merchants of Mexico consigned large quantities of bullion to them, to ship on board and consign according to their order; but then I know also that, for all that, they were allowed commission, so that their gain was very considerable even that way also.I had been with them at La Vera Cruz, and came back again before we came to an account for the goods which I had brought on shore in the twenty-one bales, which, by the account we brought them to (leaving a piece of everything to be governed by our last market), amounted to eight thousand five hundred and seventy pieces of eight, all which money my friend—for so I must now call him—brought me in specie, and caused his negroes to pile them up in one corner of my apartment; so that I was indeed still very rich, all things considered.There was a bale which I had caused to be packed up on purpose in Virginia, and which indeed I had written for from England, being chiefly of fine English broadcloths, silk, silk druggets, and fine stuffs of several kinds, with some very fine hollands, which I set apart for presents, as I should find occasion; and as, whatever hurry I was in at carrying the twenty-one bales of goods on shore, I did not forget to let this bale be one of them, so, when we came to a sale for the rest, I told them that this was a pack with clothes and necessaries for my own wearing and use, and so desired it might not be opened with the rest, which was accordingly observed, and that bale or pack was brought into my apartment.This bale was, in general, made up of several smaller bales, which I had directed, so that I might have room to make presents, equally sorted as the circumstance might direct me. However, they were all considerable, and I reckoned the whole bale cost me near £200 sterling in England; and though my present circumstances required some limits to my bounty in making presents, yet the obligation I was under being so much the greater, especially to this one friendly, generous Spaniard, I thought I could not do better than, by opening two of the smaller bales, join them together, and make my gift some thing suitable to the benefactor, and to the respect he had shown me. Accordingly, I took two bales, and, laying the goods together, the contents were as follows:—Two pieces of fine English broadcloth, the finest that could be got in London, divided, as was that which I gave to the governor at the Havannah, into fine crimson in grain, fine light mixtures, and fine black.Four pieces of fine holland, of 7s. to 8s. per ell in London.Twelve pieces of fine silk drugget and duroys, for men’s wear.Six pieces of broad silks, two damasks, two brocaded silks, and two mantuas.With a box of ribands and a box of lace; the last cost about £40 sterling in England.This handsome parcel I laid open in my apartment, and brought him upstairs one morning, on pretence to drink chocolate with me, which he ordinarily did; when, as we drank chocolate and was merry, I said to him, though I had sold him almost all my cargo and taken his money, yet the truth was, that I ought not to have sold them to him, but to have laid them all at his feet, for that it was to his direction I owed the having anything saved at all.He smiled, and, with a great deal of friendship in his face, told me that not to have paid me for them would have been to have plundered a shipwreck, which had been worse than to have robbed an hospital.At last I told him I had two requests to make to him, which must not be denied. I told him I had a small present to make him, which I would give him a reason why he should not refuse to accept; and the second request I would make after the first was granted. He said he would have accepted my present from me if I had not been under a disaster, but as it was it would be cruel and ungenerous. But I told him he was obliged to hear my reason for his accepting it. Then I told him that this parcel was made up for him by name by my wife and I in Virginia, and his name set on the marks of the bale, and accordingly I showed him the marks, which was indeed on one of the bales, but I had doubled it now, as above, so that I told him these were his own proper goods; and, in short, I pressed him so to receive them that he made a bow; and I said no more, but ordered my negro, that is to say, his negro that waited on me, to carry them all, except the two boxes, into his apartments, but would not let him see the particulars till they were all carried away.After he was gone about a quarter of an hour, he came in raving and almost swearing, and in a great passion, but I could easily see he was exceedingly pleased; and told me, had he known the particulars, he would never have suffered them to have gone as he did, and at last used the very same compliment that the governor at the Havannah used, viz., that it was a present fit for a viceroy of Mexico rather than for him.When he had done, he then told me he remembered I had two requests to him, and that one was not to be told till after the first was granted, and he hoped now I had something to ask of him that was equal to the obligation I laid upon him.I told him I knew it was not the custom in Spain for a stranger to make presents to the ladies, and that I would not in the least doubt but that, whatever the ladies of his family required as proper for their use, he would appropriate to them as he thought fit; but that there were two little boxes in the parcel which my wife with her own hand had directed to the ladies; and I begged he would be pleased with his own hand to give them in my wife’s name, as directed; that I was only the messenger, but that I could not be honest if I did not discharge myself of the trust reposed in me.These were the two boxes of ribands and lace, which, knowing the nicety of the ladies in Spain, or rather of the Spaniards about their women, I had made my wife pack up, and directed with her own hand, as I have said.He smiled, and told me it was true the Spaniards did not ordinarily admit so much freedom among the women as other nations; but he hoped, he said, I would not think the Spaniards thought all their women whores, or that all Spaniards were jealous of their wives; that, as to my present, since he had agreed to accept of it, I should have the direction of what part I pleased to his wife and daughters; for he had three daughters.Here I strained courtesies again, and told him by no means; I would direct nothing of that kind. I only begged that he would with his own hand present to his donna, or lady, the present designed her by my wife, and that he would present it in her name, now living in Virginia. He was extremely pleased with the nicety I used; and I saw him present it to her accordingly, and could see, at the opening of it, that she was extremely pleased with the present itself, as indeed might very well be, for in that country it was worth a very considerable sum of money.Though I was used with an uncommon friendship before, and nothing could well be desired more, yet the grateful sense I showed of it in the magnificence of this present was not lost, and the whole family appeared sensible of it; so that I must allow that presents, where they can be made in such a manner, are not without their influence, where the persons were not at all mercenary either before or after.I had here now a most happy and comfortable retreat, though it was a kind of an exile. Here I enjoyed everything I could think of that was agreeable and pleasant, except only a liberty of going home, which, for that reason perhaps, was the only thing I desired in the world; for the grief of one absent comfort is oftentimes capable of embittering all the other enjoyments in the world.Here I enjoyed the moments which I had never before known how to employ—I mean that here I learned to look back upon a long ill-spent life, blessed with infinite advantage, which I had no heart given me till now to make use of, and here I found just reflections were the utmost felicity of human life.Here I wrote these memoirs, having to add to the pleasure of looking back with due reflections the benefit of a violent fit of the gout, which, as it is allowed by most people, clears the head, restores the memory, and qualifies us to make the most, and just, and useful remarks upon our own actions.Perhaps when I wrote these things down I did not foresee that the writings of our own stories would be so much the fashion in England, or so agreeable to others to read, as I find custom and the humour of the times has caused it to be. If any one that reads my story pleases to make the same just reflections which I acknowledge I ought to have made, he will reap the benefit of my misfortunes perhaps more than I have done myself. ’Tis evident by the long series of changes and turns which have appeared in the narrow compass of one private, mean person’s life, that the history of men’s lives may be many ways made useful and instructing to those who read them, if moral and religious improvement and reflections are made by those that write them.There remains many things in the course of this unhappy life of mine, though I have left so little a part of it to speak of, that is worth giving a large and distinct account of, and which gives room for just reflections of a kind which I have not made yet. Particularly, I think it just to add how, in collecting the various changes and turns in my affairs, I saw clearer than ever I had done before how an invincible overruling Power, a hand influenced from above, governs all our actions of every kind, limits all our designs, and orders the events of everything relating to us.And from this observation it necessarily occurred to me how just it was that we should pay the homage of all events to Him; that as He guided, and had even made the chain of cause and consequences, which nature in general strictly obeyed, so to Him should be given the honour of all events, the consequences of those causes, as the first Mover and Maker of all things.I, who had hitherto lived, as might be truly said, without God in the world, began now to see farther into all those things than I had ever yet been capable of before, and this brought me at last to look with shame and blushes upon such a course of wickedness as I had gone through in the world. I had been bred, indeed, to nothing of either religious or moral knowledge. What I gained of either was, first, by the little time of civil life which I lived in Scotland, where my abhorrence of the wickedness of my captain and comrade, and some sober, religious company I fell into, first gave me some knowledge of good and evil, and showed me the beauty of a sober, religious life, though, with my leaving that country, it soon left me too; or, secondly, the modest hints and just reflections of my steward, whom I called my tutor, who was a man of sincere religion, good principles, and a real, true penitent for his past miscarriages. Oh! had I with him sincerely repented of what was past, I had not for twenty-four years together lived a life of levity and profligate wickedness after it.But here I had, as I said, leisure to reflect and to repent, to call to mind things past, and, with a just detestation, learn, as Job says, to abhor myself in dust and ashes.It is with this temper that I have written my story. I would have all that design to read it prepare to do so with the temper of penitents, and remember with how much advantage they may make their penitent reflections at home, under the merciful dispositions of Providence, in peace, plenty, and ease, rather than abroad, under the discipline of a transported criminal, as my wife and my tutor, or under the miseries and distresses of a shipwrecked wanderer, as my skipper or captain of the sloop, who, as I hear, died a very great penitent, labouring in the deserts and mountains to find his way home to Virginia, by the way of Carolina, whither the rest of the crew reached after infinite dangers and hardships; or in exile, however favourably circumstanced, as mine, in absence from my family, and for some time in no probable view of ever seeing them any more.Such, I say, may repent with advantage; but how few are they that seriously look in till their way is hedged up and they have no other way to look!Here, I say, I had leisure to repent. How far it pleases God to give the grace of repentance where He gives the opportunity of it is not for me to say of myself. It is sufficient that I recommend it to all that read this story, that, when they find their lives come up in any degree to any similitude of cases, they will inquire by me, and ask themselves, Is not this the time to repent? Perhaps the answer may touch them.I have only to add to what was then written, that my kind friends the Spaniards, finding no other method presented for conveying me to my home—that is to say, to Virginia—got a license for me to come in the next galleons, as a Spanish merchant, to Cadiz, where I arrived safe with all my treasure; for he suffered me to be at no expenses in his house; and from Cadiz I soon got my passage on board an English merchantship for London, from whence I sent an account of my adventures to my wife, and where, in about five months more, she came over to me, leaving with full satisfaction the management of all our affairs in Virginia in the same faithful hands as before.END OF THE LIFE OF COLONEL JACQUE
He told me no, he could not see anything be brought on shore but the money; but, if I had brought anything on shore for my own use, he would not be so strict as to inquire into that, so I might do what I pleased myself.
Upon that I went into the place, shut myself in, and having opened all the things, placed them to my mind. There was five little parcels, as follows:—
1, 2. A piece of twenty yards fine English broad cloth, five yards black, five yards crimson, in one parcel; and the rest of fine mixtures in another parcel.
3. A piece of thirty ells of fine Holland linen.
4. A piece of eighteen yards of fine English brocaded silk.
5. A piece of black Colchester bays.
After I had placed these by themselves, I found means, with some seeming difficulties and much grimace, to bring him to know that this was intended for a present to himself. After all that part was over, and he had seemed to accept them, he signified, after walking a hundred turns and more in the room by them, by throwing his hat, which was under his arm, upon them, and making a very stiff bow; I say, after this he seemed to take his leave of me for a while, and I waited in an outer room. When I was called in again, I found that he had looked over all the particulars, and caused them to be removed out of the place.
But when I came again I found him quite another man. He thanked me for my present; told me it was a present fit to be given to a viceroy of Mexico rather than to a mere governor of a fort; that he had done me no services suitable to such a return, but that he would see if he could not oblige me further before I left the place.
After our compliments were over I obtained leave to have the corregidore sent for, who accordingly came, and in his presence the money stipulated for the ransom of the ship and of the men was paid.
But here the corregidore showed that he would be as severely just on my side as on theirs, for he would not admit the money as a ransom for us as prisoners, but as a deposit for so much as we were to be ransomed for if the sentence of our being made prisoners should be confirmed.
And then the governor and corregidore, joining together, sent a representation of the whole affair—at least we were told so—to the viceroy of Mexico; and it was privately hinted to me that I would do well to stay for the return of theaviso—that is, a boat which they send over the bay to Vera Cruz with an express to Mexico, whose return is generally performed in two months.
I was not unwilling to stay, having secret hints given me that I should find some way to go with my sloop towards Vera Cruz myself, where I might have an occasion to trade privately for the cargo which I had on board. But it came about a nearer way; for, about two days after this money being deposited, as above, the governor’s son invited himself on board my sloop, where I told him I would be very glad to see him, and whither, at the same time, he brought with him three considerable merchants, Spaniards, two of them not inhabitants of the place.
When they were on board they were very merry and pleasant, and I treated them so much to their satisfaction that, in short, they were not well able to go on shore for that night, but were content to take a nap on some carpets, which I caused to be spread for them; and that the governor’s son might think himself well used, I brought him a very good silk nightgown, with a crimson velvet cap, to lie down in, and in the morning desired him to accept of them for his use, which he took very kindly.
During that merry evening one of the merchants, not so touched with drink as the young gentleman, nor so as not to mind what it was he came about, takes an occasion to withdraw out of the great cabin and enter into a parley with the master of the sloop in order to trade for what European goods we had on board. The master took the hint, and gave me notice of what had passed, and I gave him instructions what to say and what to do; according to which instructions they made but few words, bought the goods for about five thousand pieces of eight, and carried them away themselves, and at their own hazards.
This was very agreeable to me, for now I began to see I should lick myself whole by the sale of this cargo, and should make myself full amends of Jack Spaniard for all the injuries he had done me in the first of these things. With this view I gave my master or captain of the sloop instructions for sale of all the rest of the goods, and left him to manage by himself, which he did so well that he sold the whole cargo the next day to the three Spaniards; with this additional circumstance, that they desired the sloop might carry the goods, as they were on board, to such part of theterra firmaas they should appoint between the Honduras and the coast of La Vera Cruz.
It was difficult for me to make good this part of the bargain, but finding the price agreed for would very well answer the voyage, I consented. But then how to send the sloop away and remain among the Spaniards when I was now a clear man, this was a difficulty too, as it was also to go away, and not wait for a favourable answer from the viceroy of Mexico to the representation of the governor and the corregidore. However, at last I resolved to go in the sloop, fall out what would; so I went to the governor and represented to him that, being now to expect a favourable answer from Mexico, it would be a great loss to me to keep the sloop there all the while, and I desired his leave for me to go with the sloop to Antigua to sell and dispose of the cargo, which he well knew I was obliged not to bring on shore there at the Havannah, and which would be in danger of being spoiled by lying so long on board. This I obtained readily, with license to come again into the road, and, for myself only, to come on shore in order to hear the viceroy’s pleasure in my case, which was depending.
Having thus obtained a license or passport for the sloop and myself, I put to sea with the three Spanish merchants on board with me. They told me they did not live at the Havannah, but it seems one of them did; and some rich merchants of the Havannah, or of the parts thereabouts in the same island, were concerned with them, for they brought on board, that night we put to sea, a great sum of money in pieces of eight; and, as I understood afterwards, that these merchants bought the cargo of me, and though they gave me a very great price for everything, yet that they sold them again to the merchants, who they procured on the coast of La Vera Cruz, at a prodigious advantage, so that they got above a hundred per cent, after I had gained very sufficiently before.
We sailed from the Havannah directly for Vera Cruz. I scrupled venturing into the port at first, and was very uneasy lest I should have another Spanish trick put upon me; but as we sailed under Spanish colours, they showed us such authentic papers from the proper officers that there was no room to fear anything.
However, when we came in sight of the Spanish coast, I found they had a secret clandestine trade to carry on, which, though it was secret, yet they knew the way of it so well that it was but a mere road to them. The case was this: we stood in close under the shore in the night, about six leagues to the north of the port, where two of the three merchants went on shore in the boat, and in three hours or there abouts they came on board again with five canoes and seven or eight merchants more with them, and as soon as they were on board we stood off to sea, so that by daylight we were quite out of sight of land.
I ought to have mentioned before that as soon as we were put to sea from the Havannah, and during our voyage into the Gulf of Mexico, which was eight days, we rummaged the whole cargo, and opening every bale as far as the Spanish merchants desired, we trafficked with them for the whole cargo, except the barrels of flour and pease.
This cargo was considerable in itself, for my wife’s account or invoice, drawn out by my tutor and manager, amounted to £2684, 10s., and I sold the whole, including what had been sold in the evening, when they were on board first, as I have said, for thirty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-three pieces of eight, and they allowed me twelve hundred pieces of eight for the freight of the sloop, and made my master and the seamen very handsome presents besides; and they were well able to do this too, as you shall hear presently.
After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected.
Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on theterra firma, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about £5000 or £6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had aningenio, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes.
I took occasion at this invitation to say that, if I knew how to find my way thither again, I could visit them once or twice a year, very much to their advantage and mine too. One of the Spaniards took the hint, and taking me into a room by myself, “Seignior,” says he, “if you have any thoughts of coming to this place again, I shall give you such directions as you shall be sure not to mistake; and, upon either coming on shore in the night and coming up to this place, or upon making the signals which we shall give you, we will not fail to come off to you, and bring money enough for anycargaison” (so they call it) “that you shall bring.”
I took all their directions, took their paroles of honour for my safety, and, without taking any notice to my first three merchants, laid up the rest in my most secret thoughts, resolving to visit them again in as short a time as I could; and thus having, in about five days, finished all our merchandising, we stood off to sea, and made for the island of Cuba, where I set my three Spaniards on shore with all their treasure, to their heart’s content, and made the best of my way to Antigua, where, with all the despatch I could, I sold my two hundred barrels of flour, which, however, had suffered a little by the length of the voyage; and having laden the sloop with rum, molasses, and sugar, I set sail again for the Havannah.
I was now uneasy indeed, for fear of the pirates, for I was a rich ship, having, besides goods, near forty thousand pieces of eight in silver.
When I came back to the Havannah, I went on shore to wait on the governor and the corregidore, and to hear what return was had from the viceroy, and had the good fortune to know that the viceroy had disallowed that part of the sentence which condemned us as prisoners and put a ransom on us, which he insisted could not be but in time of open war. But as to the confiscation, he deferred it to the Chamber or Council of Commerce at Seville, and the appeal to the king, if such be preferred.
This was, in some measure, a very good piece of justice in the viceroy; for, as we had not been on shore, we could not be legally imprisoned; and for the rest, I believe if I would have given myself the trouble to have gone to Old Spain, and have preferred my claim to both the ship and the cargo, I had recovered them also.
However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half’s absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out.
As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations.
And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before.
It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him.
I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind.
Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too.
Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, “He is certainly going to Jamaica;” others said, “He is going to trade with the Spaniards;” others that “He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;” some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest.
The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near £1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage.
I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanishbarco longos, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear.
We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them.
We passed the tropic, as near as we could guess, just where the famous Sir William Phipps fished up the silver from the Spanish plate wreck, and, standing in between the islands, kept our course W. by S., keeping under the isle of Cuba, and so running away, trade, as they call it, into the great Gulf of Mexico, leaving the island of Jamaica to the S. and S.E., by this means avoiding, as I thought, all the Spaniards of Cuba or the Havannah.
As we passed the west point of Cuba three Spanish boats came off to board us, as they had done before, on the other side of the island. But they found themselves mistaken; we were too many for them, for we run out our guns, which they did not perceive before, and firing three or four shots at them, they retired.
The next morning they appeared again, being five large boats and a barque, and gave us chase; but we then spread our Spanish colours, and brought to to fight them, at which they retired; so we escaped this danger by the addition of force which we had made to our vessel.
We now had a fair run for our port, and as I had taken very good directions, I stood away to the north of St. John d’Ulva, and then running in for the shore, found the place appointed exactly; and going on shore, I sent the master of my sloop directly to theingenio, where he found the Spanish merchant at his house, and where he dwelt like a sovereign prince, who welcomed him, and understanding that I was in a particular boat at the creek, as appointed, he came immediately with him, and bringing another Spaniard from a villa not far off, in about four hours they were with me.
They would have persuaded me to go up to their houses and have stayed there till the next night, ordering the sloop to stand off as usual, but I would not consent to let the sloop go to sea without me, so we went on board directly, and, as the night was almost run, stood off to sea; so by daybreak we were quite out of sight of land.
Here we began, as I said before, to open shop, and I found the Spaniards were extremely surprised at seeing such a cargo—I mean so large; for, in short, they had cared not if it had been four times as much. They soon ran through the contents of all the bales we opened that night, and, with very little dispute about the price, they approved and accepted all that I showed them; but as they said they had not money for any greater parcel, they agreed to go on shore the next evening for more money.
However, we spent the remainder of the night in looking over and making inventories or invoices of the rest of the cargo, that so they might see the goods, know the value, and know what more money they had to bring.
arrival announcedColonel Jacque’s arrival is announced
Accordingly, in the evening we stood in for the shore, and they carried part of the cargo with them, borrowing the sloop’s boat to assist them; and after they had lodged and landed the goods they came on board again, bringing three of the other merchants with them who were concerned before, and money enough to clear the whole ship—ay, and ship and all, if I had been willing to sell her.
To give them their due, they dealt with me like men of honour. They were indeed sensible that they bought everything much cheaper of me than they did before of the three merchants of the Havannah, these merchants having been, as it were, the hucksters, and bought them first of me, and then advanced, as I have said, above one hundred per cent, upon the price they gave me. But yet, at the same time, I advanced in the price much more now than I did before to the said Spaniards; nor was it without reason, because of the length and risk of the voyage, both out and home, which now lay wholly upon me.
In short, I sold the whole cargo to them, and for which I received near two hundred thousand pieces of eight in money; besides which, when they came on board the second time, they brought all their boats loaden with fresh provisions, hogs, sheep, fowls, sweetmeats, &c., enough for my whole voyage, all which they made a present of to me. And thus we finished our traffic to our mutual satisfaction, and parted with promises of further commerce, and with assurances on their part of all acts of friendship and assistance that I could desire if any disaster should befall me in any of these adventures—as indeed was not improbable, considering the strictness and severity of their customs in case any people were trading upon their coast.
I immediately called a council with my little crew which way we should go back. The mate was for beating it up to windward and getting up to Jamaica; but as we were too rich to run any risks, and were to take the best course to get safe home, I thought, and so did the master of the sloop, that our best way was to coast about the bay, and, keeping the shore of Florida on board, make the shortest course to the gulf, and so make for the coast of Carolina, and to put in there into the first port we could, and wait for any English men-of-war that might be on the coast to secure us to the capes.
This was the b—-est course we could take, and proved very safe to us, excepting that, about the cape of Florida, and on the coast in the gulf, till we came to the height of St. Augustine, we were several times visited with the Spaniards’barco longosand small barks, in hopes of making a prize of us; but carrying Spanish colours deceived most of them, and a good tier of guns kept the rest at a distance, so that we came safe, though once or twice in danger of being run on shore by a storm of wind—I say, we came safe into Charles River in Carolina.
From hence I found means to send a letter home, with an account to my wife of my good success; and having an account that the coast was clear of pirates, though there were no men-of-war in the place, I ventured forward, and, in short, got safe into the Bay of Chesapeake, that is to say, within the capes of Virginia, and in a few days more to my own house, having been absent three months and four days.
Never did any vessel on this side the world make a better voyage in so short a time that I made in this sloop; for by the most moderate computation I cleared in these three months £25,000 sterling in ready money, all the charges of the voyages to New England also being reckoned up.
Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution—I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above £10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before.
With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them.
We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of theterra firma, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe.
They had with them one Spanish man-of-war and three frigates. Two of the frigates gave us chase; but, it being just at the shutting in of the day, we soon lost sight of them, and standing to the north, across the Bay of Mexico, as if we were going to the mouth of Mississippi, they lost us quite, and in a few days more we made the bottom of the bay, being the port we were bound for.
We stood in as usual in the night, and gave notice to our friends; but instead of their former readiness to come on board, they gave us notice that we had been seen in the bay, and that notice of us was given at Vera Cruz and at other places, and that several frigates were in quest of us, and that three more would be cruising the next morning in search for us. We could not conceive how this could be; but we were afterwards told that those three frigates, having lost sight of us in the night, had made in for the shore, and had given the alarm of us as of privateers.
Be that as it would, we had nothing to do but to consider what course to take immediately. The Spanish merchant’s advice was very good if we had taken it, namely, to have unladen as many of our bales as we could that very night by the help of our boat and their canoes, and to make the best of our way in the morning to the north of the gulf, and take our fate.
This my skipper or master thought very well of, but when we began to put it into execution, we were so confused and in such a hurry, being not resolved what course to take, that we could not get out above sixteen bales of all sorts of goods before it began to be too light and it behoved us to sail. At last the master proposed a medium, which was, that I should go on shore in the next boat, in which were five bales of goods more, and that I should stay on shore if the Spanish merchants would undertake to conceal me, and let them go to sea and take their chance.
The Spanish merchants readily undertook to protect me, especially it being so easy to have me pass for a natural Spaniard, and so they took me on shore with twenty-one bales of my goods, and the sloop stood off to sea. If they met with any enemies they were to stand in for the shore the next night; and we failed not to look well out for them, but to no purpose, for the next day they were discovered and chased by two Spanish frigates. They stood from them, and the sloop, being an excellent sailer, gained so much that they would certainly have been clear of them when night came on, but a small picaroon of a sloop kept them company in spite of all they could do, and two or three times offered to engage them, thereby to give time to the rest to come up; but the sloop kept her way, and gave them a chase of three days and nights, having a fresh gale of wind at S.W., till she made the Rio Grand, or, as the French call it, the Mississippi, and there finding no remedy, they ran the vessel on shore not far from the fort which the Spaniards call Pensacola, garrisoned at that time with French. Our men would have entered the river as a port, but having no pilot, and the current of the river being strong against them, the sloop ran on shore, and the men shifted as well as they could in their boats.
I was now in a very odd condition indeed. My circumstances were in one sense, indeed, very happy—namely, that I was in the hands of my friends, for such really they were, and so faithful that no men could have been more careful of their own safety than were they of mine; and that which added to the comfort of my new condition was the produce of my goods, which were gotten on shore by their own advice and direction, which was a fund sufficient to maintain me with them as long as I could be supposed to stay there; and if not, the first merchant to whose house I went assured me that he would give me credit for twenty thousand pieces of eight if I had occasion for it.
My greatest affliction was, that I knew not how to convey news to my wife of my present condition, and how, among many misfortunes of the voyage, I was yet safe and in good hands.
But there was no remedy for this part but the great universal cure of all incurable sorrows, viz., patience; and, indeed, I had a great deal of reason, not for patience only, but thankfulness, if I had known the circumstances which I should have been reduced to if I had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; the best of which that I could reasonably have expected had been to have been sent to the mines, or, which was ten thousand times worse, the Inquisition; or, if I had escaped the Spaniards, as my men in the sloop did, the hardships they were exposed to, the dangers they were in, and the miseries they suffered were still worse in wandering among savages, and the more savage French, who plundered and stripped them, instead of relieving and supplying them in their long wilderness journey over the mountains till they reached the S.W. parts of South Carolina, a journey which, indeed, deserves to have an account to be given of it by itself. I say, all these things, had I known of them, would have let me see that I had a great deal of reason, not only to be patient under my present circumstances, but satisfied and thankful.
Here, as I said, my patron, the merchant, entertained me like a prince; he made my safety his peculiar care, and while we were in any expectation of the sloop being taken and brought into Vera Cruz, he kept me retired at a little house in a wood, where he kept a fine aviary of all sorts of American birds, and out of which he yearly sent some as presents to his friends in Old Spain.
This retreat was necessary lest, if the sloop should be taken and brought into Vera Cruz, and the men be brought in prisoners, they should be tempted to give an account of me as their supercargo or merchant, and where both I and the twenty-one bales of goods were set on shore. As for the goods, he made sure work with them, for they were all opened, taken out of the bales, and separated, and, being mixed with other European goods which came by the galleons, were made up in new package, and sent to Mexico in several parcels, some to one merchant, some to another, so that it was impossible to have found them out, even if they had had information of them.
In this posture, and in apprehension of some bad news of the sloop, I remained at the villa, or house in the vale—for so they called it—about five weeks. I had two negroes appointed to wait on me, one of which was my purveyor, or my cook, the other my valet; and my friend, the master of all, came constantly every evening to visit and sup with me, when we walked out together into the aviary, which was, of its kind, the most beautiful thing that ever I saw in the world.
After above five weeks’ retreat of this kind, he had good intelligence of the fate of the sloop, viz., that the two frigates and a sloop had chased her till she ran on ground near the fort of Pensacola; that they saw her stranded and broke in pieces by the force of the waves, the men making their escape in their boat. This news was brought, it seems, by the said frigates to La Vera Cruz, where my friend went on purpose to be fully informed, and received the account from one of the captains of the frigates, and discoursed with him at large about it.
I was better pleased with the loss of the sloop and all my cargo, the men being got on shore and escaping, than I should have been with the saving the whole cargo, if the men had fallen into the hands of the Spaniards; for now I was safe, whereas then, it being supposed they would have been forced to some discovery about me, I must have fled, and should have found it very difficult to have made my escape, even with all that my friends could have done for me too.
But now I was perfectly easy, and my friend, who thought confining me at the house in the vale no longer needful, brought me publicly home to his dwelling-house, as a merchant come from Old Spain by the last galleons, and who, having been at Mexico, was come to reside with him.
Here I was dressed like a Spaniard of the better sort, had three negroes to attend me, and was called Don Ferdinand de Villa Moresa, in Castilia Feja—that is to say, in Old Castile.
Here I had nothing to do but to walk about and ride out into the woods, and come home again to enjoy the pleasantest and most agreeable retirement in the world; for certainly no men in the world live in such splendour and wallow in such immense treasures as the merchants of this place.
They live, as I have said, in a kind of country retreat at their villas, or, as we would call them in Virginia, their plantations, and, as they do call them, theiringenios, where they make their indigo and their sugars. But they have also houses and warehouses at Vera Cruz, where they go twice a year, when the galleons arrive from Old Spain, and when those galleons relade for their return. And it was surprising to me, when I went to La Vera Cruz with them, to see what prodigious consignments they had from their correspondents in Old Spain, and with what despatch they managed them; for no sooner were the cases, packs, and bales of European goods brought into their warehouses but they were opened and repacked by porters and packers of their own—that is to say, negroes and Indian servants—and being made up into new bales and separate parcels, were all despatched again by horses for Mexico, and directed to their several merchants there, and the remainder carried home, as above, to theingeniowhere they lived, which was near thirty English miles from Vera Cruz, so that in about twenty days their warehouses were again entirely free. At La Vera Cruz, all their business was over there, and they and all their servants retired; for they stayed no longer there than needs must, because of the unhealthiness of the air.
After the goods were thus despatched, it was equally surprising to see how soon, and with what exactness, the merchants of Mexico to whom those cargoes were separately consigned made the return, and how it came all in silver or in gold, so that their warehouses in a few months were piled up, even to the ceiling, with chests of pieces of eight and with bars of silver.
It is impossible to describe in the narrow compass of this work with what exactness and order, and yet with how little hurry, and not the least confusion, everything was done, and how soon a weight of business of such importance and value was negotiated and finished, the goods repacked, invoices made, and everything despatched and gone; so that in about five weeks all the goods they had received from Europe by the galleons were disposed of and entered in their journals to the proper account of their merchant to whom they were respectively consigned; from thence they had book-keepers who drew out the invoices and wrote the letters, which the merchant himself only read over and signed, and then other hands copied all again into other books.
I can give no estimate of the value of the several consignments they received by that flota; but I remember that, when the galleons went back, they shipped on board, at several times, one million three hundred thousand pieces of eight in specie, besides a hundred and eighty bales or bags of cochineal and about three hundred bales of indigo; but they were so modest that they said this was for themselves and their friends. That is to say, the several merchants of Mexico consigned large quantities of bullion to them, to ship on board and consign according to their order; but then I know also that, for all that, they were allowed commission, so that their gain was very considerable even that way also.
I had been with them at La Vera Cruz, and came back again before we came to an account for the goods which I had brought on shore in the twenty-one bales, which, by the account we brought them to (leaving a piece of everything to be governed by our last market), amounted to eight thousand five hundred and seventy pieces of eight, all which money my friend—for so I must now call him—brought me in specie, and caused his negroes to pile them up in one corner of my apartment; so that I was indeed still very rich, all things considered.
There was a bale which I had caused to be packed up on purpose in Virginia, and which indeed I had written for from England, being chiefly of fine English broadcloths, silk, silk druggets, and fine stuffs of several kinds, with some very fine hollands, which I set apart for presents, as I should find occasion; and as, whatever hurry I was in at carrying the twenty-one bales of goods on shore, I did not forget to let this bale be one of them, so, when we came to a sale for the rest, I told them that this was a pack with clothes and necessaries for my own wearing and use, and so desired it might not be opened with the rest, which was accordingly observed, and that bale or pack was brought into my apartment.
This bale was, in general, made up of several smaller bales, which I had directed, so that I might have room to make presents, equally sorted as the circumstance might direct me. However, they were all considerable, and I reckoned the whole bale cost me near £200 sterling in England; and though my present circumstances required some limits to my bounty in making presents, yet the obligation I was under being so much the greater, especially to this one friendly, generous Spaniard, I thought I could not do better than, by opening two of the smaller bales, join them together, and make my gift some thing suitable to the benefactor, and to the respect he had shown me. Accordingly, I took two bales, and, laying the goods together, the contents were as follows:—
Two pieces of fine English broadcloth, the finest that could be got in London, divided, as was that which I gave to the governor at the Havannah, into fine crimson in grain, fine light mixtures, and fine black.
Four pieces of fine holland, of 7s. to 8s. per ell in London.
Twelve pieces of fine silk drugget and duroys, for men’s wear.
Six pieces of broad silks, two damasks, two brocaded silks, and two mantuas.
With a box of ribands and a box of lace; the last cost about £40 sterling in England.
This handsome parcel I laid open in my apartment, and brought him upstairs one morning, on pretence to drink chocolate with me, which he ordinarily did; when, as we drank chocolate and was merry, I said to him, though I had sold him almost all my cargo and taken his money, yet the truth was, that I ought not to have sold them to him, but to have laid them all at his feet, for that it was to his direction I owed the having anything saved at all.
He smiled, and, with a great deal of friendship in his face, told me that not to have paid me for them would have been to have plundered a shipwreck, which had been worse than to have robbed an hospital.
At last I told him I had two requests to make to him, which must not be denied. I told him I had a small present to make him, which I would give him a reason why he should not refuse to accept; and the second request I would make after the first was granted. He said he would have accepted my present from me if I had not been under a disaster, but as it was it would be cruel and ungenerous. But I told him he was obliged to hear my reason for his accepting it. Then I told him that this parcel was made up for him by name by my wife and I in Virginia, and his name set on the marks of the bale, and accordingly I showed him the marks, which was indeed on one of the bales, but I had doubled it now, as above, so that I told him these were his own proper goods; and, in short, I pressed him so to receive them that he made a bow; and I said no more, but ordered my negro, that is to say, his negro that waited on me, to carry them all, except the two boxes, into his apartments, but would not let him see the particulars till they were all carried away.
After he was gone about a quarter of an hour, he came in raving and almost swearing, and in a great passion, but I could easily see he was exceedingly pleased; and told me, had he known the particulars, he would never have suffered them to have gone as he did, and at last used the very same compliment that the governor at the Havannah used, viz., that it was a present fit for a viceroy of Mexico rather than for him.
When he had done, he then told me he remembered I had two requests to him, and that one was not to be told till after the first was granted, and he hoped now I had something to ask of him that was equal to the obligation I laid upon him.
I told him I knew it was not the custom in Spain for a stranger to make presents to the ladies, and that I would not in the least doubt but that, whatever the ladies of his family required as proper for their use, he would appropriate to them as he thought fit; but that there were two little boxes in the parcel which my wife with her own hand had directed to the ladies; and I begged he would be pleased with his own hand to give them in my wife’s name, as directed; that I was only the messenger, but that I could not be honest if I did not discharge myself of the trust reposed in me.
These were the two boxes of ribands and lace, which, knowing the nicety of the ladies in Spain, or rather of the Spaniards about their women, I had made my wife pack up, and directed with her own hand, as I have said.
He smiled, and told me it was true the Spaniards did not ordinarily admit so much freedom among the women as other nations; but he hoped, he said, I would not think the Spaniards thought all their women whores, or that all Spaniards were jealous of their wives; that, as to my present, since he had agreed to accept of it, I should have the direction of what part I pleased to his wife and daughters; for he had three daughters.
Here I strained courtesies again, and told him by no means; I would direct nothing of that kind. I only begged that he would with his own hand present to his donna, or lady, the present designed her by my wife, and that he would present it in her name, now living in Virginia. He was extremely pleased with the nicety I used; and I saw him present it to her accordingly, and could see, at the opening of it, that she was extremely pleased with the present itself, as indeed might very well be, for in that country it was worth a very considerable sum of money.
Though I was used with an uncommon friendship before, and nothing could well be desired more, yet the grateful sense I showed of it in the magnificence of this present was not lost, and the whole family appeared sensible of it; so that I must allow that presents, where they can be made in such a manner, are not without their influence, where the persons were not at all mercenary either before or after.
I had here now a most happy and comfortable retreat, though it was a kind of an exile. Here I enjoyed everything I could think of that was agreeable and pleasant, except only a liberty of going home, which, for that reason perhaps, was the only thing I desired in the world; for the grief of one absent comfort is oftentimes capable of embittering all the other enjoyments in the world.
Here I enjoyed the moments which I had never before known how to employ—I mean that here I learned to look back upon a long ill-spent life, blessed with infinite advantage, which I had no heart given me till now to make use of, and here I found just reflections were the utmost felicity of human life.
Here I wrote these memoirs, having to add to the pleasure of looking back with due reflections the benefit of a violent fit of the gout, which, as it is allowed by most people, clears the head, restores the memory, and qualifies us to make the most, and just, and useful remarks upon our own actions.
Perhaps when I wrote these things down I did not foresee that the writings of our own stories would be so much the fashion in England, or so agreeable to others to read, as I find custom and the humour of the times has caused it to be. If any one that reads my story pleases to make the same just reflections which I acknowledge I ought to have made, he will reap the benefit of my misfortunes perhaps more than I have done myself. ’Tis evident by the long series of changes and turns which have appeared in the narrow compass of one private, mean person’s life, that the history of men’s lives may be many ways made useful and instructing to those who read them, if moral and religious improvement and reflections are made by those that write them.
There remains many things in the course of this unhappy life of mine, though I have left so little a part of it to speak of, that is worth giving a large and distinct account of, and which gives room for just reflections of a kind which I have not made yet. Particularly, I think it just to add how, in collecting the various changes and turns in my affairs, I saw clearer than ever I had done before how an invincible overruling Power, a hand influenced from above, governs all our actions of every kind, limits all our designs, and orders the events of everything relating to us.
And from this observation it necessarily occurred to me how just it was that we should pay the homage of all events to Him; that as He guided, and had even made the chain of cause and consequences, which nature in general strictly obeyed, so to Him should be given the honour of all events, the consequences of those causes, as the first Mover and Maker of all things.
I, who had hitherto lived, as might be truly said, without God in the world, began now to see farther into all those things than I had ever yet been capable of before, and this brought me at last to look with shame and blushes upon such a course of wickedness as I had gone through in the world. I had been bred, indeed, to nothing of either religious or moral knowledge. What I gained of either was, first, by the little time of civil life which I lived in Scotland, where my abhorrence of the wickedness of my captain and comrade, and some sober, religious company I fell into, first gave me some knowledge of good and evil, and showed me the beauty of a sober, religious life, though, with my leaving that country, it soon left me too; or, secondly, the modest hints and just reflections of my steward, whom I called my tutor, who was a man of sincere religion, good principles, and a real, true penitent for his past miscarriages. Oh! had I with him sincerely repented of what was past, I had not for twenty-four years together lived a life of levity and profligate wickedness after it.
But here I had, as I said, leisure to reflect and to repent, to call to mind things past, and, with a just detestation, learn, as Job says, to abhor myself in dust and ashes.
It is with this temper that I have written my story. I would have all that design to read it prepare to do so with the temper of penitents, and remember with how much advantage they may make their penitent reflections at home, under the merciful dispositions of Providence, in peace, plenty, and ease, rather than abroad, under the discipline of a transported criminal, as my wife and my tutor, or under the miseries and distresses of a shipwrecked wanderer, as my skipper or captain of the sloop, who, as I hear, died a very great penitent, labouring in the deserts and mountains to find his way home to Virginia, by the way of Carolina, whither the rest of the crew reached after infinite dangers and hardships; or in exile, however favourably circumstanced, as mine, in absence from my family, and for some time in no probable view of ever seeing them any more.
Such, I say, may repent with advantage; but how few are they that seriously look in till their way is hedged up and they have no other way to look!
Here, I say, I had leisure to repent. How far it pleases God to give the grace of repentance where He gives the opportunity of it is not for me to say of myself. It is sufficient that I recommend it to all that read this story, that, when they find their lives come up in any degree to any similitude of cases, they will inquire by me, and ask themselves, Is not this the time to repent? Perhaps the answer may touch them.
I have only to add to what was then written, that my kind friends the Spaniards, finding no other method presented for conveying me to my home—that is to say, to Virginia—got a license for me to come in the next galleons, as a Spanish merchant, to Cadiz, where I arrived safe with all my treasure; for he suffered me to be at no expenses in his house; and from Cadiz I soon got my passage on board an English merchantship for London, from whence I sent an account of my adventures to my wife, and where, in about five months more, she came over to me, leaving with full satisfaction the management of all our affairs in Virginia in the same faithful hands as before.