Now, though this made our traffick impracticable at Lima itself, yet it did by no means hinder the merchants trading with us under cover, &c., but especially when they came to understand that we were not loaden from Europe with baize, long ells, druggets, broadcloth, serges, stuffs, stockings, hats, and such like woollen manufactures of France, England, &c.; but that our cargo was the same with that of the Manilla ships at Acapulca, and that we were loaden with calicoes, muslins, fine-wrought China silks, damasks, Japan wares, China wares, spices, &c., there was then no withholding them: but they came on board us in the night with canoes, and, staying all day, went on shore again in the night, carrying their goods to different places, where they knew they could convey them on shore without difficulty. In this manner we traded publicly enough, not much unlike the manner of our trade at the Manillas; and here we effectually cleared ourselves of our whole cargo, as well English goods as Indian, to an immense sum. Here our men, officers as well as seamen, sold their fine pearl, particularly one large parcel, containing one hundred and seventy-three very fine pearls, but of different sizes, which a priest bought, as we are told, to dress up the image of the blessed Virgin Mary in one of their churches. In a word, we came to a balance here, for we sold everything that we had the least intention to part with; the chief things we kept in reserve, were some bales of English goods, also all the remainder of our beads and bugles, toys, ironwork, knives, scissors, hatchets, needles, pins, glass-ware, and such things as we knew the Spaniards did not regard, and which might be useful in our farther designs, of which my head was yet very full. Those, I say, we kept still. Here, likewise, we sold our brigantine, which, though an excellent sea-boat, as may well be supposed, considering the long voyage we had made in her, was yet so worm-eaten in her bottom, that, unless we would have new sheathed her, and perhaps shifted most of her planks too, which would have taken up a great deal of time, she was by no means fit to have gone any farther, at least not so long a run as we had now to make, viz., round the whole southern part of America, and where we should find no port to put in at, (I mean, where we should have been able to have got anything done for the repair of a ship), until we had come home to England.