found him by his blood staining the water; and by the help of a rope, which I slung round him, and gave the Negroes to haul, they dragged him on shore, and found that it was a most curious leopard, spotted, and fine to an admirable degree; and the Negroes held up their hands with admiration, to think what it was I had killed him with. The other creature, frightened with the flash of fire, and the noise of the gun, swam on shore, and ran up directly to the mountains from whence they came; nor could I, at that distance, know what it was. I found quickly the Negroes were for eating the flesh of this creature, so I was willing to have them take it as a favour from me; which, when I made signs to them that they might take him, they were very thankful for. Immediately they fell to work with him; and though they had no knife, yet with a sharpened piece of wood, they took off his skin as readily, and much more readily, than we could have done with a knife. They offered me some of the flesh, which I declined, making as if I would give it them, but made signs for the skin, which they gave me very freely, and brought me a great deal more of their provisions, which, though I did not understand, yet I accepted. I then made signs to them for some water, and held out one of my jars to them, turning it bottom upwards, to show that it was empty, and that I wanted to have it filled. They called immediately to some of their friends, and there came two women, and brought a great vessel made of earth, and burnt, as I suppose, in the sun; this they set down to me, as before, and I sent Xury on shore with my jars, and filled them all three. I was now furnished with roots and corn, such as it was, and water; and leaving my friendly Negroes, I made forward for eleven days more, without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run a great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five leagues before me; and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing, to make this point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward; then I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape de Verd, and those the islands, called, from thence, Cape de Verd Islands. However, they were at a great distance, and I could not well tell what I had best to do; for if I should be taken with a gale of wind, I might reach neither. In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the cabin, and sat me down, Xury having the helm; when, on a sudden, the boy cried out, "Master, master, a ship with a sail!" and the foolish boy was frightened out of his wits, thinking it must needs be some of his master's ships sent to pursue us, when I knew we were gotten far enough out of their reach. I jumped out of the cabin, and immediately saw, not only the ship, but what she was, viz. that it was a Portuguese ship, and, as I thought, was bound to the Coast of Guinea, for Negroes. With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come in their way; but after I had crowded to the utmost, and began to despair, they, it seems, saw me, by the help of their perspective glasses, and that it was some European boat, which, they supposed, must belong to some ship that was lost; so they shortened sail; and in about three hours' time I came up with them. They asked me what I was in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in French; but I understood none of them; but, at last, a Scotch sailor who was on board, called to me, and I answered him, and told him I was an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors, at Sallee; they then bade me come on board, and very kindly took me in, and all my goods. It was an inexpressible joy to me, which any one will believe, that I was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable, and almost hopeless condition as I was in; and I immediately offered all I had to the captain of the ship, as a return for my deliverance; but he generously told me, he would take nothing from me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me, when I came to the Brazils. I will carry you thither in charity, and these things will help to buy your subsistence there, and your passage home again. HE SETTLES IN THE BRAZILS AS A PLANTER-MAKES ANOTHER VOYAGE, AND IS SHIPWRECKED. As he was charitable in this proposal, so he was just in the performance, to a tittle: for he ordered the seamen, that none should offer to touch anything I had then he took everything into his own possession, and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I might have them, even so much as my three earthen jars. We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and arrived in the Bay de Todos los Santos, or all Saints' Bay, in about twenty-two days after. And now I was once more delivered from the most miserable of all conditions of life; and what to do next with myself, I was now to consider. The generous treatment the captain gave me, I can never enough remember: he would take nothing of me for my passage, gave me twenty ducats for the leopard's skin, and forty for the lion's skin, which I had in my boat, and caused everything I had in the ship to be punctually delivered to me; and what I was willing to sell, he bought of me; such as the case of bottles, two of my guns, and a piece of the lump of bees-wax, for I had made candles of the rest; in a word, I made about two hundred and twenty pieces of eight of all my cargo; and with this stock, I went on shore in the Brazils. I had not been long here, before I was recommended to the house of a good honest man, like himself, who had an ingenio as they call it (that is, a plantation and a sugar-house.) I lived with him some time, and acquainted myself, by that means, with the manner of planting and of making sugar; and seeing how well the planters lived, and how they got rich suddenly, I resolved, if I could get a license to settle there, I would turn planter among them: endeavouring, in the meantime, to find out some way to get my money, which I had left in London, remitted to me. To this purpose, getting a kind of letter of naturalization, I purchased as much land that was uncured as my money would reach, and formed a plan for my plantation and settlement; such a one as might be suitable to the stock which I proposed to myself to receive from England. I had a neighbour, a Portuguese of Lisbon, but born of English parents, whose name was Wells, and in much such circumstances as I was. I call him my neighbour, because his plantation lay next to mine, and we went on very sociably together. My stock was but low, as well as his; and we rather planted for food than anything else, for about two years. However, we began to increase, and our land began to come into order; so that the third year we planted some tobacco, and made each of us a large piece of ground ready for planting canes the next year. I was, in some degree, settled in my measure for carrying on the plantation, before my kind friend, the captain of the ship that took me up at sea, went back; for the ship remained there, in providing his landing, and preparing for his voyage, near three months; when telling him what little stock I had left behind me in London, he gave me this friendly and sincere advice: "Senhor Inglez," says he (for so he always called me,) "if you will give me letters, and a procuration here in form to me, with orders to the person who had your money in London, to send your effects to Lisbon, sbon, to such persons as I shall direct, and in such goods as are proper for this country, I will bring you the produce of them, God willing, at my return: but since human affairs are all subject to changes and disasters, I would have you give orders for but one hundred pounds sterling, which, you say, is half your stock, and let the hazard be run for the first, so that if it come safe, you may order the rest the same way; and, if it miscarry, you may have the other half to have recourse to for your supply." This was so wholesome advice, and looked so friendly, that I could not but be convinced it was the best course I could take; so I accordingly prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I left my money, and a procuration to the Portuguese captain, as he desired me. I wrote the English captain's widow a full account of all my adventures; whereupon she not only delivered the money, but, out of her own pocket, sent the Portuguese captain a very handsome present for his humanity and charity to me. The merchant in London, vesting this hundred pounds in English goods, such as the captain had written for, sent them directly to him at Lisbon, and he brought them all safe to me at the Brazils: I found means to sell them to a very great advantage; so that I might say, I had more than four times the value of my first cargo, and was now infinitely beyond my poor neighbour, I mean in the advancement of my plantation; for the first thing I did, I bought me a Negro slave, and a European servant also, I mean another besides one whom the captain brought me from Lisbon. Having lived almost four years in the Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well upon my plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted an acquaintance and friendship among my fellow-planters, as well as among the merchants at St. Salvador, which was our port; and that, in my discourses among them, I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea, the manner of trading with the Negroes there, and how easy it was to purchase on the coast for trifles such as beads, toys, knives, scissars, hatchets, bits of glass, and the like-not only gold dust, Guinea grains, elephants' teeth, &c., but Negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers. They listened always very attentively to my discourses on these heads, but especially to that part which related to the buying Negroes; which was a trade, at that time, not only not far entered into, but, as far as it was, had been carried on by the assientos, or permission of the kings of Spain and Portugal, and engrossed from the public; so that few Negroes were bought, and those excessively dear. It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, and talking of those things very earnestly, three of them came to me the next morning, and told me they had been musing very much upon what I had discoursed with them of the last night, and they came to make a secret proposal to me: and, |