However, I had no remedy but the old insignificant thing called patience, and this I was better furnished with because I did not so much value the loss as I made them believe I did. My greatest apprehensions were that they would detain me and keep me as a prisoner for life, and perhaps send me to their mines in Peru, as they have done many, and pretended to do to all that come on shore in their dominions, how great soever the distresses may have been which have brought them thither, and which has been the reason why others who have been forced on shore have committed all manner of violence upon the Spaniards in their turn, resolving, however dear they sold their lives, not to fall into their hands.
But I got better quarter among them than that too, which was, as I have said, much of it owing to my speaking Spanish, and to my telling them how I had fought in so many occasions in the quarrel of his Catholic Majesty in Italy; and, by great good chance, I had the king of France’s commission for lieutenant-colonel in the Irish brigade in my pocket, where it was mentioned that the said brigade was then serving in the armies of France, under the orders of his Catholic Majesty, in Italy.
I failed not to talk up the gallantry and personal bravery of his Catholic Majesty on all occasions, and particularly in many battles where, by the way, his Majesty had never been at all, and in some where I had never been myself. But I found I talked to people who knew nothing of the matter, and so anything went down with them if it did but praise the king of Spain and talk big of the Spanish cavalry, of which, God knows, there was not one regiment in the army, at least while I was there.
However, this way of managing myself obtained me the liberty of the place, upon my parole that I would not attempt an escape; and I obtained also, which was a great favour, to have two hundred pieces of eight allowed me out of the sale of my cargo for subsistence till I could negotiate my affairs at Mexico. As for my men, they were maintained as prisoners at the public charge.
Well, after several months’ solicitation and attendance, all I could obtain was the satisfaction of seeing my ship and cargo confiscated and my poor sailors in a fair way to be sent to the mines. The last I begged off, upon condition of paying three hundred pieces of eight for their ransom, and having them set on shore at Antigua, and myself to remain hostage for the payment of the said three hundred pieces of eight, and for two hundred pieces of eight, which I had already had, and for five hundred pieces of eight more for my own ransom, if, upon a return from Mexico, the sentence of confiscation, as above, should be confirmed by the viceroy.
These were hard articles indeed, but I was forced to submit to them; nor, as my circumstances were above all such matters as these, as to substance, did I lay it much to heart. The greatest difficulty that lay in my way was, that I knew not how to correspond with my friends in any part of the world, or which way to supply myself with necessaries or with money for the payment I had agreed to, the Spaniards being so tenacious of their ports that they allowed nobody to come on shore, or indeed near the shore, from any part of the world, upon pain of seizure and confiscation, as had been my case already. Upon this difficulty I began to reason with the corregidore, and tell him that he put things upon us that were impossible, and that were inconsistent with the customs of nations; that, if a man was prisoner at Algiers, they would allow him to write to his friends to pay his ransom, and would admit the person that brought it to come and go free as a public person, and if they did not, no treaty could be carried on for the ransom of a slave, nor the conditions be performed when they are agreed upon.
I brought it then down to my own case, and desired to know, upon supposition, that I might, within the time limited in that agreement, have the sums of money ready for the ransom of my men and of myself, how I should obtain to have notice given me of it, or how it should be brought, seeing the very persons bringing that notice, or afterwards presuming to bring the money, might be liable to be seized and confiscated, as I had been, and the money itself be taken as a second prize, without redeeming the first.
Though this was so reasonable a request that it could not be withstood in point of argument, yet the Spaniard shrunk his head into his shoulders, and said they had not power sufficient to act in such a case; that the king’s laws were so severe against the suffering any strangers to set their foot on his Catholic Majesty’s dominions in America, and they could not dispense with the least tittle of them without a particular assiento, as they called it, from the Consulado, or Chamber of Commerce, at Seville, or a command under the hand and seal of the viceroy of Mexico.
“How! signior corregidore,” said I, with some warmth, and, as it were, with astonishment, “have you not authority enough to sign a passport for an agent, or ambassador, to come on shore here, from any of the king of Great Britain’s governors in these parts, under a white flag, or flag of truce, to speak with the governor of this place, or with any other person in the king’s name, on the subject of such business as the governor may have to communicate? Why,” said I, “if you cannot do that, you cannot act according to the law of nations.”
He shook his head, but still said no, he could not do even so much as that; but here one of the military governors put in and opposed him, and they two differed warmly, the first insisting that their orders were deficient in that particular; but the other said that, as they were bound up to them, it could not be in their power to act otherwise, and that they were answerable for the ill consequences.