"Seignior Inglese," said he, for so he always called me, "if you will give me letters with orders to the person who has your money in London to send your effects to Lisbon, and in such goods as are proper for this country, I will bring you the produce of them, God willing, at my return. Howe'er, 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 if it come safe, you may order the rest the same way."
The merchant in London, vesting this hundred pounds in English goods such as the captain had wrote for, sent them to him at Lisbon and he brought them all safe to me at the Brasils. Without my direction, for I was too young in my business to think of them, he had taken care to have all sorts of tools, iron work, and utensils necessary for my plantation, and which were of great use to me.
When this cargo arrived, I thought my fortune made, for I was surprised with the joy of it. Captain Amaral had also laid out five pounds to purchase and bring me over a servant, under bond for six years' service, and would not accept of any consideration, except a little tobacco which I would have him accept, being of my own produce.
But as abused prosperity is oftentimes made the very means of our adversity, so was it with me. I went on the next year with great success in my plantation. I raised fifty great rolls of tobacco on my own ground, more than I had disposed of for necessaries among my neighbours. These fifty rolls, being each of above a hundred weight, were well cured and laid by against the return of the fleet from Lisbon.
You may suppose, having now lived almost four years in the Brasils, 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, most of whom had accept'd my unusual and monthly hermitages. In my discourses among them I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea, and how easy it was to purchase for trifles not only gold dust and elephants' teeth, but Negroes for service in great numbers.
It happened, being in company with some merchants and planters of my acquaintance, 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. They came to make a secret proposal to me and, after enjoining me to secrecy, they told me they had a mind to fit out a ship to go to Guinea. They had all plantations and were straitened for nothing so much as servants. As it was a trade that could not be carried on, because they could not publicly sell the Negroes when they came home, they desired to make but one voyage to bring the Negroes on shore privately and divide them among their own plantations. The question was whether I would go in the ship to manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea. They offered me that I should have an equal share of the Negroes without providing any part of the stock.
This was a fair proposal, it must be confessed, had it been made to any one that had not a plantation of his own to look after, which was coming to be very considerable and with a good stock upon it. But for me, that was thus entered and established, and had nothing to do but go on as I had begun for three or four years more, and could scarce have failed of being worth three or four thousand pounds sterling, and that increasing too, to think of such a voyage was the most preposterous thing that ever man in such circumstances could be guilty of.
But I who was born to be my own destroyer could no more resist the offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs, when my father's good counsel was lost upon me. I told them I would go with all my heart if they would undertake to look after my plantation in my absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct if I miscarried. This they all engaged to do, and entered into writings or covenants to do so. I made a formal will disposing of my plantation and effects in case of my death, making Captain Amaral my universal heir.
In short, I took all possible caution to preserve my effects and to keep up my plantation. Had I used half as much prudence to have looked into my own interest, and had made a judgment of what I ought to have done and not to have done, I had certainly never gone away from so prosperous an undertaking and gone a voyage to sea, attended with all its common hazards, to say nothing of those needs and hazards posed to one such as myself.
But I hurried on and obeyed blindly the dictates of my fancy rather than my best reason. Accordingly, the ship being fitted out, and the cargo furnished, and all things done as by agreement by my partners in the voyage, I went on board in an evil hour again, the 1st of September, 1659, being the same day eight years I went from my father and mother at Hull in order to act the rebel to their authority, and the last day of the full moon at that.
My fourth voyage, the unlock'd door,
shipwrecked