Voyager's Tales By Richard Hakluyt






















































































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Now had we obtained between four and five hundred negroes, wherewith we
thought it somewhat reasonable to seek the coast - Page 42
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Now Had We Obtained Between Four And Five Hundred Negroes, Wherewith We Thought It Somewhat Reasonable To Seek The Coast

Of the West Indies, and there, for our negroes, and other our merchandise, we hoped to obtain whereof to countervail

Our charges with some gains, whereunto we proceeded with all diligence, furnished our watering, took fuel, and departed the coast of Guinea, the third of February, continuing at the sea with a passage more hard than before hath been accustomed, till the 27th day of March, which day we had sight of an island, called Dominique, upon the coast of the West Indies, in fourteen degrees: from thence we coasted from place to place, making our traffic with the Spaniards as we might, somewhat hardly, because the king had straitly commanded all his governors in those parts by no means to suffer any trade to be made with us; notwithstanding we had reasonable trade, and courteous entertainment, from the Isle of Marguerite and Cartagena, without anything greatly worth the noting, saving at Cape de la Vela, in a town called Rio de la Hacha, from whence come all the pearls. The treasurer who had the charge there would by no means agree to any trade, or suffer us to take water. He had fortified his town with divers bulwarks in all places where it might be entered, and furnished himself with a hundred harquebusiers, so that he thought by famine to have enforced us to have put on land our negroes, of which purpose he had not greatly failed unless we had by force entered the town; which (after we could by no means obtain his favour) we were enforced to do, and so with two hundred men brake in upon their bulwarks, and entered the town with the loss only of eleven men of our parts, and no hurt done to the Spaniards, because after their volley of shot discharged, they all fled.

Thus having the town, with some circumstance, as partly by the Spaniards' desire of negroes, and partly by friendship of the treasurer, we obtained a secret trade; whereupon the Spaniards resorted to us by night, and bought of us to the number of two hundred negroes: in all other places where we traded the Spaniards inhabitants were glad of us, and traded willingly.

At Cartagena, the last town we thought to have seen on the coast, we could by no means obtain to deal with any Spaniard, the governor was so strait, and because our trade was so near finished, we thought not good either to adventure any landing or to detract further time, but in peace departed from thence the 24th of July, hoping to have escaped the time of their storms, which then soon after began to reign, the which they call Furicanos; but passing by the west end of Cuba, towards the coast of Florida, there happened to us, the twelfth day of August, an extreme storm, which continued by the space of four days, which so beat the Jesus, that we cut down all her higher buildings; her rudder also was sore shaken, and, withal, was in so extreme a leak, that we were rather upon the point to leave her than to keep her any longer; yet, hoping to bring all to good pass, sought the coast of Florida, where we found no place nor haven for our ships, because of the shallowness of the coast.

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