Having now gotten the three negroes in our possession, who were not ignorant of the transactions at Acapulco, we were soon satisfied about the most material points which had long kept us in suspence. On examining them we found that we were indeed disappointed in our expectation of intercepting the galeon before her arrival at Acapulco; but we learnt other circumstances which still revived our hopes, and which, we then conceived, would more than balance the opportunity we had already lost, for though our negroe prisoners informed us that the galeon arrived at Acapulco on our 9th of January, which was about twenty days before we fell in with this coast, yet they at the same time told us that the galeon had delivered her cargo, and was taking in water and provisions in order to return, and that the Viceroy of Mexico had by proclamation fixed her departure from Acapulco to the 14th of March, N.S. This last news was most joyfully received by us, since we had no doubt but she must certainly fall into our hands, and it was much more eligible to seize her on her return than it would have been to have taken her before her arrival, as the species for which she had sold her cargoe, and which she would now have on board, would be prodigiously more to be esteemed by us than the cargoe itself; great part of which would have perished on our hands, and none of it could have been disposed of by us at so advantageous a mart as Acapulco. Thus we were a second time engaged in an eager expectation of meeting with this Manila ship, which, by the fame of its wealth, we had been taught to consider as the most desirable capture that was to be made on any part of the ocean. But since all our future projects will be in some sort regulated with a view to the possession of this celebrated galeon, and since the commerce which is carried on by means of these vessels between the city of Manila and the port of Acapulco is perhaps the most valuable, in proportion to its quantity, {215} of any in the known world, I shall endeavour, in the ensuing chapter, to give as circumstantial an account as I can of all the particulars relating thereto, both as it is a matter in which I conceive the public to be in some degree interested, and as I flatter myself, that from the materials which have fallen into my hands, I am enabled to describe it with more distinctness than has hitherto been done, at least in our language. {216} CHAPTER X AN ACCOUNT OF THE COMMERCE CARRIED ON BETWEEN THE CITY OF MANILA ON THE ISLAND OF LUCONIA, AND THE PORT OF ACAPULCO ON THE COAST OF MEXICO