The ladies made all possible acknowledgment, and we had the honour that day to dine with them in public. My landlord, the Spaniard, told me I had given them such a present as the viceroy of Mexico's lady would have gone fifty leagues to have received.
But I had not done with my host; for after dinner, I took him into the same room, and told him I hoped he did not think I had made all my presents to the ladies, and had nothing left to show my respect to him; and therefore, first, I presented him with three negro men, which I had bought at Callao for my own use, but knew I could supply myself again, at or in my way home, at a moderate price; in the next place, I gave him three pieces of black Colchester baize, which, though they are coarse ordinary things in England, that a footman would scarce wear, are a habit for a prince in that country. I then gave him a piece of very fine English serge, which was really very valuable in England, but much more there, and another piece of crimson broadcloth, and six pieces of fine silk druggets for his two sons; and thus I finished my presents. The Spaniard stood still and looked on all the while I was laying out my presents to him, as one in a transport, and said not one word till all was over; but then he told me very gravely, that it was now time for him to turn me out of his house: For seignior, says he, no man ought to suffer himself to be obliged beyond his power of return, and I have no possible way of making any return to you equal to such things as these.
It is true the present I had made him, if it was to be rated by the value of things in the country where it then was, would have been valued at six or seven hundred pounds sterling; but, to reckon them as they cost me, did not altogether amount to above one hundred pounds, except the three negroes, which, indeed, cost me at Lima one thousand two hundred pieces of eight.
He was as sensible of the price of those negroes as I was of the occasion he had of them, and of the work he had to do for them; and he came to me about an hour after, and told me he had looked over all the particulars of the noble presents which I had made them; and though the value was too great for him to accept, or for any man to offer him, yet since I had been at so much trouble to send for the things, and that I thought him worthy such a bounty, he was come back to tell me that he accepted thankfully all my presents, both to himself and to his wife and daughter, except only the three negroes; and as they were bought in the country, and were the particular traffick of the place, he could not take them as a present, but would be equally obliged, and take it for as much a favour if I would allow him to pay for them.
I smiled, and told him he and I would agree upon that; for he did not yet know what favours I had to ask of him, and what expense I should put him to; that I had a great design in my view, which I was to crave his assistance in, and which I had not yet communicated to him, in which he might perhaps find that he would pay dear enough for all the little presents I had made him; and, in the meantime, to make himself easy as to the three negro men, I gave him my word that he should pay for them, only not yet.
He could have nothing to object against an offer of this kind, because he could not guess what I meant, but gave me all the assurance of service and assistance that lay in his power in anything that I might have to do in that country.
But here, by the way, it ought to be understood, that all this was carried on with a supposition that we acted under a commission from the King of France; and though he knew many of us were English, and that I was an Englishman in particular, yet as we had such a commission, and produced it, we were Frenchmen in that sense to him, nor did he entertain us under any other idea.
The sequel of this story will also make it sufficiently appear that I did not make such presents as these in mere ostentation, or only upon the compliment of a visit to a Spanish gentleman, any more than I would leave my ship and a cargo of such value, in the manner I had done, to make a tour into the country, if I had not had views sufficient to justify such measures; and the consequence of those measures will be the best apology for my conduct, with all who will impartially consider them.
We had now spent a fortnight, and something more, in ceremony and civilities, and in now and then taking a little tour about the fields and towards the mountains. However, even in this way of living I was not so idle as I seemed to be, for I not only made due observations of all the country which I saw, but informed myself sufficiently of the parts which I did not see. I found the country not only fruitful in the soil, but wonderfully temperate and agreeable in its climate. The air, though hot, according to its proper latitude, yet that heat so moderated by the cool breezes from the mountains, that it was rather equal to the plain countries in other parts of the world in the latitude of 50° than to a climate in 38 to 40°.
This gave the inhabitants the advantages, not only of pleasant and agreeable living, but also of a particular fertility which hot climates are not blessed with, especially as to corn, the most necessary of all productions, such as wheat, I mean European wheat, or English wheat, which grew here as well and as kindly as in England, which in Peru and in the Isthmus of America will by no means thrive for want of moisture and cold.