On September 18th, in sight of Teneriffe, a small Spanish vessel was captured, belonging to Orotava, a port of Teneriffe. "Amongst the prisoners were four friars, and one of them the Padre Guardian for the island Forteventura, a good, honest old fellow. We made him heartily merry, drinking King Charles III.'s health; but the rest were of the wrong sort." The quarrels and intrigues of other nations brought a good deal of profit to privateersmen; the War of the Spanish Succession was then still in progress, the Grand Alliance striving to place the Archduke Charles of Austria on the Spanish throne, while others--"the wrong sort" from Rogers's point of view--upheld the cause of Philip, grandson of Louis XIV. of France; later on, as we shall see, the Austrian Succession was the occasion of some more profitable privateering. Rogers and his colleagues now found themselves involved, to their surprise, in a dispute with their own countrymen over their capture, the Vice-Consul and three merchants sending off a letter to say that it had been agreed between Queen Anne and the Kings of Spain and France, that vessels trading to the Canaries were to be exempt from interference, and that unless the prize were released, Mr. Vanbrugh, owners' agent on board the _Duke_, who had gone on shore, would be detained. Rogers was not to be so easily hoodwinked; he immediately detected the self-interest which prompted a disingenuous representation, and insisted that the prize should be ransomed; the cargo of wine and brandy he designed for his own ships; and he finished his letter as follows: "We are apprehensive you are obliged to give us this advice to gratify the Spaniards": which hit the nail very fairly on the head. Still pressed by the Spaniards, the Consul and his friends persisted; upon which Rogers told them that, had it not been for their agent being on shore, they would not have remained a moment to discuss the matter; but that now they would remain longer among the islands, in order to make reprisals, and that the Consul and his English and Spanish friends might expect a visit from their guns at eight o'clock the next morning. Accordingly, at that hour the two English privateers stood close in shore; but the guns were not needed, for a boat put off immediately with one of the merchants and Mr. Vanbrugh, bringing the ransom "in kind"--wine, grapes, hogs, and other accessories. And so they proceeded on their voyage; and a few days later they crossed the tropic of Cancer, which appears to have been made the occasion, in this instance, of some fun with those who had not come so far south before. Usually it is the crossing of the Equator which is selected as the occasion of these delights.