In spite of the assurances of his crew a few days earlier, a mutiny now occurred on board his ship. He and his consort had chased and overhauled a vessel flying Swedish colours, believed to be carrying contraband goods. Nothing however was found to prove her a prize, and Rogers let her go “without the least embezzlement,” for which courtesy the master gave him “two hams, and some ruff-dryed beef,” and the compliment was returned with “a dozen bottles of red-streak Cyder.” This much incensed the crews of the _Duke_ and _Dutchess_ who had no idea of the perils of privateering without the sweets of plunder, and under the leadership of the boatswain of the _Duke_ several of them mutinied. The situation looked ugly, but Rogers, who was a born commander, quickly quelled it, putting ten of the mutineers in irons, while the boatswain, “the most dangerous fellow,” was shipped in the _Crown_ galley, then in company, to be carried to Madeira in irons. Five days later the prisoners were “discharged from their irons,” upon their humble submission and strict promises for their future good behaviour. Contrary to arrangements it was decided to pass by Madeira, there being “little wind,” and to “cruise a little among the Canary Islands for liquor.” On the 18th of September they chased and captured a small Spanish bark with forty-five passengers on board, who were relieved when they found that their captors were English and not Turks. Among them were four friars, one of whom, “a good honest fellow,” Rogers and his officers made “heartily merry, drinking King Charles III’s health”: the rest he tersely records “were of the wrong sort.” The prize was carried into Oratava, where after some delay, and a threatened bombardment of the town, the Spaniards eventually ransomed her. The transaction, however, seemed to have ended to Rogers’s satisfaction, and his ships sailed away “well stocked with liquor, the better able to endure the cold when we get the length of Cape Horn.” On the 25th of September the ships passed the “tropick,” when according to the ritual of the sea, the fresh-water sailors were ducked from the yard-arm, or forced to pay a fine of half a crown.