Upon this, which indeed appeared very easy to be done, I agreed to let the doctor come on board, and accordingly the surgeon brought him the next day, where Captain Merlotte received him in the cabin, and treated him very handsomely, but nothing was spoken but French or Spanish; and the surgeon, who had pretended himself to be an Irishman, acted as interpreter between the doctor and us. Here we told him the case of our men that were sick; some of them, indeed, were French, and others that could speak French, were instructed to speak to him as if they could speak no other tongue, and those the surgeon interpreted; others, who were English, were called Irishmen, and two or three were allowed to be English seamen picked up in the East Indies, as we had seamen, we told him, of all nations. The matter, in short, was so carried that the good man, for such I really think he was, had no manner of suspicion; and, to do him justice, he was an admirable physician, and did our men a great deal of good; for all of them, excepting three, recovered under his hands, and those three had recovered if they had not, like madmen, drank large quantities of punch when they were almost well; and, by their intemperance, inflamed their blood, and thereby thrown themselves back again into their fever, and put themselves, as the Padre said of them, out of the reach of medicine. We treated this man of art with a great deal of respect, made him some very handsome presents, and particularly such as he could not come at in the country where he was; besides which, I ordered he should have the value of one hundred dollars in gold given him; but he, on the other hand, thanking Captain Merlotte for his bounty, would have no money, but he accepted a present of some linen, a few handkerchiefs, some nutmegs, and a piece of black baize: most of which, however, he afterwards said, he made presents of again in the city, among some of his acquaintance. But he had a farther design in his head, which, on a future day, he communicated in confidence to the surgeon I have mentioned, who conversed with him, and by him to me, and which was to him, indeed, of the highest importance. The case was this. He took our surgeon on shore with him one day from the Madagascar ship, where he had been with him to visit some of our sick men, and, drinking a glass of wine with him, he told him he had a favour to ask of him, and a thing to reveal to him in confidence, which was of the utmost consequence to himself though of no great value to him, (the surgeon), and, if he would promise the utmost secrecy to him, on his faith and honour, he would put his life into his hands. For, seignior, said he, it will be no other, nor would anything less than my life pay for it, if you should discover it to any of the people here, or anywhere else on this coast.