I ought to have mentioned before that as soon as we were put to sea from the Havannah, and during our voyage into the Gulf of Mexico, which was eight days, we rummaged the whole cargo, and opening every bale as far as the Spanish merchants desired, we trafficked with them for the whole cargo, except the barrels of flour and pease. This cargo was considerable in itself, for my wife’s account or invoice, drawn out by my tutor and manager, amounted to £2684, 10s., and I sold the whole, including what had been sold in the evening, when they were on board first, as I have said, for thirty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-three pieces of eight, and they allowed me twelve hundred pieces of eight for the freight of the sloop, and made my master and the seamen very handsome presents besides; and they were well able to do this too, as you shall hear presently. After we were gotten out of sight of land the Spaniards fell to their traffic, and our three merchants opened their shop, as they might say, for it was their shop. As to me, I had nothing to do with it or with their goods. They drove their bargain in a few hours, and at night we stood in again for the shore, when the five canoes carried a great part of the goods on shore, and brought the money back in specie, as well for that they carried as for all the rest, and at their second voyage carried all away clear, leaving me nothing on board but my barrels of flour and pease, which they bade me money for too, but not so much as I expected. Here I found that my Spanish merchants made above seventy thousand pieces of eight of the cargo I had sold them, upon which I had a great mind to be acquainted with those merchants on the _terra firma_, who were the last customers; for it presently occurred to me that I could easily go with a sloop from Virginia, and taking a cargo directed on purpose from England of about £5000 or £6000, I might easily make four of one. With this view I began to make a kind of an acquaintance with the Spaniards which came in the canoes, and we became so intimate that at last, with the consent of the three Spaniards of the Havannah, I accepted an invitation on shore to their house, which was a little villa, or rather plantation, where they had an _ingenio_, that is to say, a sugar-house, or sugar-work, and there they treated us like princes.