“Now this I write in the glorious year of our Lord, one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight, when the Lord hath, by the destruction of the Spanish oppressor, so signally shown His favour to His children who hope in Him. The news of which final deliverance hath come to us long months after by chance of our meeting Captain Bostock of Bristol, who saileth in the Guinea and West India Trade. Ten years have I and my comrades, Da Suhares and Captain Fowler, sought wearily for this people, and naught hath come to us in reward. Yet have we gotten to ourselves sufficient of this world’s goods, in that we have taken more than one of his Catholic Majesty’s treasure galleons, and three years agone five of his pearling fleet which we fell upon when they were storm-sundered from their fellows. Rich are we therefore in possessions, but not yet in knowledge, and the madness of the quest hath bitten into the souls of all of us. Not an island, not a bay, not a single river’s mouth, have we missed for nigh two thousand weary miles, but unavailingly. And now I draw into years, but I cannot rest from it. “Thus have I put down the matter plainly for my children to wot of, and if I come not back to them, a charge do I lay upon them. Ten years have I sought, and wrought, and toiled, sparing none of mine and least of all myself, and it may well be that from this last adventure I come not back. Ten years, therefore, do I lay upon you that come after me, ten years each of you unto the tenth generation, and the blessing of the Almighty be with you in your search. Do the matter diligently, but in secret, lest it come to the ears of the Spanish folk, and they triumph at the last. If ye find this people (and of a verity I know in my soul that they still walk God’s earth) be to them a safeguard from their enemies, using the might of England to bulwark them from their foes, and get to your race and family great honour. So do, and my blessing be upon you. Forego this quest, any one of you, and my curse rest with you unceasingly. To which charge I put my hand and seal this nineteenth day of December in the Annus Mirabilis, one thousand five hundred and eighty-eight. “JOHN DORINECOURTE, KNT.”