These ships, equipped partly by himself, and partly by other private adventurers, he manned with one hundred and sixty-four stout sailors, and furnished with such provisions as he judged necessary for the long voyage in which he was engaged. Nor did he confine his concern to naval stores, or military preparations; but carried with him whatever he thought might contribute to raise in those nations, with which he should have any intercourse, the highest ideas of the politeness and magnificence of his native country. He, therefore, not only procured a complete service of silver, for his own table, and furnished the cook-room with many vessels of the same metal, but engaged several musicians to accompany him; rightly judging, that nothing would more excite the admiration of any savage and uncivilized people. Having been driven back by a tempest in their first attempt, and obliged to return to Plymouth, to repair the damages which they had suffered, they set sail again from thence on the 13th of December, 1577, and, on the 25th, had sight of cape Cantin, in Barbary, from whence they coasted on southward to the island of Mogador, which Drake had appointed for the first place of rendezvous, and on the 27th, brought the whole fleet to anchor, in a harbour on the mainland. They were, soon after their arrival, discovered by the Moors that inhabited those coasts, who sent two of the principal men amongst them on board Drake's ship, receiving, at the same time, two of his company as hostages. These men he not only treated in the most splendid manner, but presented with such things as they appeared most to admire; it being with him an established maxim, to endeavour to secure, in every country, a kind reception to such Englishmen as might come after him, by treating the inhabitants with kindness and generosity; a conduct, at once just and politick, to the neglect of which may be attributed many of the injuries suffered by our sailors in distant countries, which are generally ascribed, rather to the effects of wickedness and folly of our own commanders, than the barbarity of the natives, who seldom fall upon any, unless they have been first plundered or insulted; and, in revenging the ravages of one crew upon another of the same nation, are guilty of nothing but what is countenanced by the example of the Europeans themselves. But this friendly intercourse was, in appearance, soon broken; for, on the next day, observing the Moors making signals from the land, they sent out their boat, as before, to fetch them to the ship, and one John Fry leaped ashore, intending to become a hostage, as on the former day, when immediately he was seized by the Moors; and the crew, observing great numbers to start up from behind the rock, with weapons in their hands, found it madness to attempt his rescue, and, therefore, provided for their own security by returning to the ship.