Having been fitted out in the river of Thames so lately as the year 1713, and on a design perhaps not very consistent with the measures taking at that time for the putting an end to the war, I must be allowed to own I was at first obliged to act not in my own name, but to put in a French commander into the ship, for the reasons which follow, and which those, who understand the manner of trade upon closing the late war, I mean the trade with Spain, will easily allow to be just and well grounded. During the late war between Great Britain and her confederates on one side, and the united crowns of France and Spain on the other, we all know the French had a free trade into the South Seas; a trade carried on with the greatest advantage, and to the greatest degree, that any particular commerce has been carried on in the world for many ages past; insomuch, that we found the return of silver that came back to France by those ships, was not only the enriching of the merchants of St. Malo, Rochelle, and other ports in France, some of whom we saw get immense estates in a few years, even to a million sterling a man; but it was evident, the King of France himself was enabled, by the circulation of so much bullion through his mints, to carry on that war with very great advantage. It was just at the close of this war, when some merchants of London, looking with envy on the success of that trade, and how the French, notwithstanding the peace, would apparently carry it on, for some years at least, to infinite advantage, began to consider whether it might not be possible to come in for a portion of it with France, as they were allied to Spain, and yet go abroad in the nature of a private cruiser. To bring this to pass, it was thought proper, in the first place, to get a share if possible, in a new design of an East India trade in Flanders, just then intended to be set up by some British merchants, by the assistance of an imperial charter, or at least under colour of it: and so we might go to sea in a threefold capacity, to be made use of as occasion might present, viz., when on the coast of New Spain we sought to trade, we were Frenchmen, had a French captain, and a sufficient number of French seamen, and Flemish or Walloon seamen, who spoke French, so to appear on all proper occasions. When at sea we met with any Spanish ship worth our while, we were English cruisers, had letters of mart from England, had no account of the peace, and were fitted for the attack. And when in the East Indies we had occasion to trade, either at the English or Dutch settlements, we should have imperial colours, and two Flemish merchants, at least in appearance, to transact everything as we found occasion. However, this last part of our project failed us, that affair not being fully ripe.