This so obliged the planter that the next morning he sent him on board,
in a great luggage-boat, a cow and two sheep, with a chest of sweetmeats
and some sugar, and a great bag of tobacco, and invited Captain William
on shore again; that, after this, they grew from one kindness to
another; that they began to talk about trading for some negroes; and
William, pretending it was to do him service, consented to sell him
thirty negroes for his private use in his plantation, for which he gave
William ready money in gold, at the rate of five-and-thirty moidores per
head; but the planter was obliged to use great caution in the bringing
them on shore; for which purpose he made William weigh and stand out
to sea, and put in again, about fifty miles farther north, where at a
little creek he took the negroes on shore at another plantation, being a
friend's of his, whom, it seems, he could trust.
This remove brought William into a further intimacy, not only with the
first planter, but also with his friends, who desired to have some of
the negroes also; so that, from one to another, they bought so many,
till one overgrown planter took 100 negroes, which was all William
had left, and sharing them with another planter, that other planter
chaffered with William for ship and all, giving him in exchange a very
clean, large, well-built sloop of near sixty tons, very well furnished,
carrying six guns; but we made her afterwards carry twelve guns. William
had 300 moidores of gold, besides the sloop, in payment for the ship;
and with this money he stored the sloop as full as she could hold with
provisions, especially bread, some pork, and about sixty hogs alive;
among the rest, William got eighty barrels of good gunpowder, which
was very much for our purpose; and all the provisions which were in the
French ship he took out also.
This was a very agreeable account to us, especially when we saw that
William had received in gold coined, or by weight, and some Spanish
silver, 60,000 pieces of eight, besides a new sloop, and a vast quantity
of provisions.
We were very glad of the sloop in particular, and began to consult what
we should do, whether we had not best turn off our great Portuguese
ship, and stick to our first ship and the sloop, seeing we had scarce
men enough for all three, and that the biggest ship was thought too
big for our business. However, another dispute, which was now decided,
brought the first to a conclusion. The first dispute was, whither we
should go. My comrade, as I called him now, that is to say, he that was
my captain before we took this Portuguese man-of-war, was for going to
the South Seas, and coasting up the west side of America, where we could
not fail of making several good prizes upon the Spaniards; and that
then, if occasion required it, we might come home by the South Seas to
the East Indies, and so go round the globe, as others had done before
us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account