Now was my time to have sat still, contented with what I had got, if it was in the power of man to know when his good fortune was at the highest. And more, my prudent wife gave it as her opinion that I should sit down satisfied and push the affair no farther, and earnestly persuaded me to do so. But I, that had a door open, as I thought, to immense treasure, that had found the way to have a stream of the golden rivers of Mexico flow into my plantation of Virginia, and saw no hazards more than what were common to all such things in the prosecution—I say, to me these things looked with another face, and I dreamed of nothing but millions and hundreds of thousands; so, contrary to all moderate measures, I pushed on for another voyage, and laid up a stock of all sorts of goods that I could get together proper for the trade. I did not indeed go again to New England, for I had by this time a very good cargo come from England pursuant to a commission I had sent several months before; so that, in short, my cargo, according to the invoice now made out, amounted to above £10,000 sterling first cost, and was a cargo so sorted and so well bought that I expected to have advanced upon them much more in proportion than I had done in the cargo before. With these expectations we began our second voyage in April, being about five months after our return from the first. We had not indeed the same good speed, even in our beginning, as we had at first; for though we stood off to sea about sixty leagues in order to be out of the way of the pirates, yet we had not been above five days at sea but we were visited and rifled by two pirate barks, who, being bound to the northward, that is to say, the banks of Newfoundland, took away all our provisions and all our ammunition and small arms, and left us very ill provided to pursue our voyage; and it being so near home, we thought it advisable to come about and stand in for the capes again, to restore our condition and furnish ourselves with stores of all kinds for our voyage. This took us up about ten days, and we put to sea again. As for our cargo, the pirates did not meddle with it, being all bale goods, which they had no present use for, and knew not what to do with if they had them. We met with no other adventure worth naming till, by the same course that we had steered before, we came into the Gulf of Mexico; and the first misfortune we met with here was, that, on the back of Cuba, crossing towards the point of the _terra firma_, on the coast of Yucatan, we had sight of the flota of New Spain, that is, of the ships which come from Carthagena or Porto Bello, and go to the Havannah, in order to pursue their voyage to Europe.