‘By the help of this,’ continued he, ‘I found out how the treasure-ship, Santa Fè, had been stranded upon an exceeding great shoal, and how a storm soon coming on, she had sunk in middling deep water, between two ledges of rock. The ship’s company having deserted her in boats, these were speedily swallowed up in the storm, save that one in which Vincente y Tormes sailed, and which survived the tempest, although it was driven far to leeward. The wind then taking off, a calm followed, during which all the seamen in the boat, with only the exception of Vincente y Tormes, perished miserably of hunger and thirst. He was himself nigh dead, when a caravel descried and picked him up; ultimately conveying him to Spain, where he settled, and went no more to sea. You may judge,’ continued Paul Bedloe, ‘whether I have not given a fair account of the missing page;’ and, handing the document to me, he continued as follows:— ‘On reading what I have now stated to you, it occurred to me that, in all the maps and charts which I had seen, no mention had ever been made of any such shoals as that upon which the “Santa Fè” was wrecked, and I concluded that no ship had ever fallen in with them, save those which, like the Porto Bello galleon, had never returned to tell the tale. Hence, I concluded, that it was very possible that some fragments of the wreck might yet remain undisturbed, containing boundless wealth. With much ado, and by spending nearly all which I possessed in bribes, I got access to the documents in the archives of the Minister of Marine of Spain, and there I found the loss of the “Santa Fè” fully confirmed. She had sailed from Porto Bello, and had never been heard of again. This entry, mark you, was before the date of Vincente’s publication, while he, not having appeared to contemplate the possibility of recovering the foundered wealth, took no steps, and communicated with no one on the subject. After this, I carefully examined Vincente’s narrative, and compared with it the records of many voyages from Porto Bello and Carthagena to Hispaniola and Porto Rico, so that, at length, I satisfied myself that the shoals in question must, if they existed at all, be within a circle of fifty miles in diameter. I next communicated with a brother of mine in Bristol, touching the matter, and informing him that I intended to proceed to the West Indies in search of the shoals, and the wreck of the “Santa Fè,” conjured him, in case he heard from me again, to have a ship ready fitted out, to sail for the longitude and latitude which I would send him. I embarked at Cadiz, and landed in Porto Rico, which island I suspected of being almost right to windward of the shoals. Here I made acquaintance with a Welsh seaman, to whom I partly communicated my projects; and with the help of a negro and two Indians, very faithful attached fellows, we constructed a great “Piragua,” victualled her very well, and put off to sea. We