However, as it was, I was now a freeman without ransom, and my men were also free, so that all the money which I had deposited, as above, was returned me; and thus I took my leave of the Havannah, and made the best of my way for Virginia, where I arrived after a year and a half’s absence; and notwithstanding all my losses, came home above forty thousand pieces of eight richer than I went out.
As to the old affair about the Preston prisoners, that was quite at an end, for the general pardon passed in Parliament made me perfectly easy, and I took no more thought about that part. I might here very usefully observe how necessary and inseparable a companion fear is to guilt. It was but a few months before that the face of a poor Preston transport would have frighted me out of my wits; to avoid them I feigned myself sick, and wrapped my legs in flannel, as if I had the gout; whereas now they were no more surprise to me, nor was I any more uneasy to see them, than I was to see any other of the servants of the plantations.
And that which was more particular than all was, that, though before I fancied every one of them would know me and remember me, and consequently betray and accuse me, now, though I was frequently among them, and saw most of them, if not all of them, one time or other, nay, though I remembered several of their faces, and even some of their names, yet there was not a man of them that ever took the least notice of me, or of having known or seen me before.
It would have been a singular satisfaction to me if I could have known so much as this of them before, and have saved me all the fatigue, hazard, and misfortune that befell me afterwards; but man, a short sighted creature, sees so little before him that he can neither anticipate his joys nor prevent his disasters, be they ever so little a distance from him.
I had now my head full of my West India project, and I began to make provision for it accordingly. I had a full account of what European goods were most acceptable in New Spain; and, to add to my speed, I knew that the Spaniards were in great want of European goods, the galleons from Old Spain having been delayed to an unusual length of time for the two years before. Upon this account, not having time, as I thought, to send to England for a cargo of such goods as were most proper, I resolved to load my sloop with tobacco and rum, the last I brought from Antigua, and go away to Boston in New England, and to New York, and see if I could pick up a cargo to my mind.
Accordingly, I took twenty thousand pieces of eight in money, and my sloop laden as above, and taking my wife with me, we went away. It was an odd and new thing at New England to have such a quantity of goods bought up there by a sloop from Virginia, and especially to be paid for in ready money, as I did for most of my goods; and this set all the trading heads upon the stretch, to inquire what and who I was; to which they had an immediate and direct answer, that I was a very considerable planter in Virginia, and that was all any of my men on board the sloop could tell of me, and enough too.
Well, it was the cause of much speculation among them, as I heard at second and third hands. Some said, “He is certainly going to Jamaica;” others said, “He is going to trade with the Spaniards;” others that “He is going to the South Sea and turn half merchant, half pirate, on the coast of Chili and Peru;” some one thing, some another, as the men gossips found their imaginations directed; but we went on with our business, and laid out twelve thousand pieces of eight, besides our cargo of rum and tobacco, and went from thence to New York, where we laid out the rest.
The chief of the cargo we bought here was fine English broadcloth, serges, druggets, Norwich stuffs, bays, says, and all kinds of woollen manufactures, as also linen of all sorts, a very great quantity, and near £1000 in fine silks of several sorts. Being thus freighted, I came back safe to Virginia, and with very little addition to my cargo, began to prepare for my West India voyage.
I should have mentioned that I had built upon my sloop and raised her a little, so that I had made her carry twelve guns, and fitted her up for defence; for I thought she should not be attacked and boarded by a few Spanish barco longos, as she was before; and I found the benefit of it afterwards, as you shall hear.
We set sail the beginning of August, and as I had twice been attacked by pirates in passing the Gulf of Florida, or among the Bahama Islands, I resolved, though it was farther about, to stand off to sea, and so keep, as I believed it would be, out of the way of them.