A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

by Daniel Defoe

Here we had opportunity to get a quantity of good flour, or wheat meal, of very good European wheat, that is to say, of that sort of wheat; and withal, had good biscuit baked on shore, so that now we got a large recruit of bread, and our men began to make puddings, and lived very comfortably. We likewise got good sugar at the ingenioes, or sugar-mills, of which there were several here, and the farther north we went their number increased, for we were now in the latitude of 28° 2' south.

We had but one port now of any consequence that we intended to touch at, until we came to the main place we aimed at, which was Lima, and this was about two-thirds of the way thither; I mean Porto Rica, or Arica, which is in the latitude of 18° of thereabouts. The people were very shy of us here, as having been much upon their guard for some years past, for fear of buccaneers and English privateers: but when they understood we were French, and our French captain sent two recommendations to them from a merchant at St. Jago, they were then very well satisfied, and we had full freedom of commerce here also.

From hence we came the height of Lima, the capital port, if not the capital city, of Peru, lying in the latitude of 12° 30'. Had we made the least pretence of trading here, we should, at least, have had soldiers put on board our ships to have prevented it, and the people would have been forbidden to trade with us upon pain of death. But Captain Merlotte having brought letters to a principal merchant of Lima, he instructed him how to manage himself at his first coming into that port; which was to ride without the town of Callao, out of the command of the puntals or castles there, and not to come any nearer, upon what occasion soever, and then to leave the rest to him.

Upon this, the merchant applied himself to the governor for leave to go on board the French ship at Callao; but the governor understood him, and would not grant it by any means. The reason was, because there had been such a general complaint by the merchants from Carthagena, Porto Bello, and other places, of the great trade carried on here with French ships from Europe, to the destruction of the merchants, and to the ruin of the trade of the galleons, that the governor, or viceroy of Peru, had forbid the French ships landing any goods.

Now, though this made our traffick impracticable at Lima itself, yet it did by no means hinder the merchants trading with us under cover, &c., but especially when they came to understand that we were not loaden from Europe with baize, long ells, druggets, broadcloth, serges, stuffs, stockings, hats, and such like woollen manufactures of France, England, &c.; but that our cargo was the same with that of the Manilla ships at Acapulca, and that we were loaden with calicoes, muslins, fine-wrought China silks, damasks, Japan wares, China wares, spices, &c., there was then no withholding them: but they came on board us in the night with canoes, and, staying all day, went on shore again in the night, carrying their goods to different places, where they knew they could convey them on shore without difficulty.

In this manner we traded publicly enough, not much unlike the manner of our trade at the Manillas; and here we effectually cleared ourselves of our whole cargo, as well English goods as Indian, to an immense sum. Here our men, officers as well as seamen, sold their fine pearl, particularly one large parcel, containing one hundred and seventy-three very fine pearls, but of different sizes, which a priest bought, as we are told, to dress up the image of the blessed Virgin Mary in one of their churches.

In a word, we came to a balance here, for we sold everything that we had the least intention to part with; the chief things we kept in reserve, were some bales of English goods, also all the remainder of our beads and bugles, toys, ironwork, knives, scissors, hatchets, needles, pins, glass-ware, and such things as we knew the Spaniards did not regard, and which might be useful in our farther designs, of which my head was yet very full. Those, I say, we kept still.

Here, likewise, we sold our brigantine, which, though an excellent sea-boat, as may well be supposed, considering the long voyage we had made in her, was yet so worm-eaten in her bottom, that, unless we would have new sheathed her, and perhaps shifted most of her planks too, which would have taken up a great deal of time, she was by no means fit to have gone any farther, at least not so long a run as we had now to make, viz., round the whole southern part of America, and where we should find no port to put in at, (I mean, where we should have been able to have got anything done for the repair of a ship), until we had come home to England.

It was proposed here to have gone to the governor or viceroy of Peru, and have obtained his license or pass to have traversed the Isthmus of America, from port St. Maria to the river of Darien. This we could easily have obtained under the character that we then bore, viz., of having the King of France's commission; and had we been really all French, I believe I should have done it, but as we were so many Englishmen, and as such were then at open war with Spain, I did not think it a safe adventure, I mean not a rational adventure, especially considering what a considerable treasure we had with us.

On the other hand, as we were now a strong body of able seamen, and had two stout ships under us, we had no reason to apprehend either the toil or the danger of a voyage round Cape Horn, after which we should be in a very good condition to make the rest of our voyage to England. Whereas, if we travelled over the Isthmus of America, we should be all like a company of freebooters and buccaneers, loose and unshipped, and should perhaps run some one way and some another, among the logwood cutters at the bay of Campeachy, and other places, to get passage, some to Jamaica and some to New England; and, which was worse than all, should be exposed to a thousand dangers on account of the treasure we had with us, perhaps even to that of murdering and robbing one another. And, as Captain Merlotte said, who was really a Frenchman, it were much more eligible for us, as French, or, if we had been such, to have gone up to Acapulca, and there to sell our ships and get license to travel to Mexico, and then to have got the viceroy's assiento to have come to Europe in the galleons; but, as we were so many Englishmen, it was impracticable; our seamen also being Protestants, such as seamen generally are, and bold mad fellows, they would never have carried on a disguise, both of their nation and of their religion, for so long a time as it would have been necessary to do for such a journey and voyage.