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.
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