Although our plot was carried on with all possible privacy, Spriggs had somehow or other got intelligence of it; and having fallen in with Low on the voyage, went on board his ship to make a furious declaration against us. But Low made little account of his information, otherwise it might have been fatal to most of our number. Spriggs, however, returned raging to the schooner, exclaiming, that four of us should go forward to be shot, and to me in particular he said, "You dog Ashton, you deserve to be hanged up at the yard-arm for designing to cut us off." I replied, "that I had no intention of injuring any man on board; but I should be glad if they would allow me to go away quietly." At length this flame was quenched, and, through the goodness of God, I escaped destruction. Roatan harbour, as all about the Bay of Honduras, is full of small islands, which pass under the general name of Keys; and having got in here, Low, with some of his chief men, landed on a small island, which they called Port Royal Key. There they erected huts, and continued carousing, drinking, and firing, while the different vessels, of which they now had possession, were repairing. On Saturday the 9th of March 1723, the cooper, with six hands, in the long-boat, was going ashore for water; and coming alongside of the schooner, I requested to be of the party. Seeing him hesitate, I urged that I had never hitherto been ashore, and thought it hard to be so closely confined, when every one besides had the liberty of landing as there was occasion. Low had before told me, on requesting to be sent away in some of the captured vessels which he dismissed, that I should go home when he did, and swore that I should never previously set my foot on land. But now I considered, if I could possibly once get on terra firma, though in ever such bad circumstances, I should account it a happy deliverance, and resolved never to embark again. The cooper at length took me into the long-boat, while Low, and his chief people, were on a different island from Roatan, where the watering place lay; my only clothing was an Osnaburgh frock and trowsers, a milled cap, but neither shirt, shoes, stockings, nor any thing else.