“A day or two later, Captain Sharp arrived, having taken a small Spanish bark while on his search for water, and shortly afterwards Captain Harris turned up, also with a prize. During Sharp’s absence, Sawkins had been elected commandant, and, having turned loose all but their most important prisoners, the buccaneers proceeded to Taboga Island to repair and refit the captured ships. “While there the buccaneers were visited by a number of Spanish merchants from Panama who brought various supplies and goods to sell to the buccaneers, for, incredible as it may seem, the corsairs had a most remarkable habit of dealing fairly with tradesmen, even though they were slaughtering and robbing others. To these Spanish merchants the buccaneers disposed of much of the material they had found on the ships, and Ringrose informs us that they paid excellent prices, offering two hundred pieces of eight for each slave the English could spare. You may wonder why unprincipled robbers and cut-throats like the buccaneers should dispose of their goods when they could have so easily possessed themselves of their visitors’ money without giving anything in return, but it was one of their codes of honor to deal fairly under such conditions and there is no record that they ever used violence or robbed a visitor or one who came to them on a friendly mission. “While at Taboga, several ships were captured by the buccaneers, one of which proved a rich prize, as it contained two thousand jars of wine, fifty kegs of gunpowder and fifty-one thousand pieces of eight. Also, from this ship, the English learned of a galleon due from Lima with over one hundred thousand pieces of eight, and, rubbing their hands with satisfaction, the buccaneers proceeded to make ready to receive her.