One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, “What had they to do there? That they came on shore without leave, and that they should not plant or build upon the island; it was none of their ground.”—“Why,” says the Spaniard, very calmly, “Seignior Inglese, they must not starve.” The Englishman replied, like a true rough-hewn tarpaulin, “they might starve and be d—ed, they should not plant nor build in that place.”—“But what must they do then, Seignior?” says the Spaniard. Another of the brutes returned, “Do! d—n them, they should be servants, and work for them.”—“But how can you expect that of them? They are not bought with your money; you have no right to make them servants.” The Englishman answered, “The island was theirs, the governor had given it to them, and no man had any thing to do there but themselves;” and with that swore by his Maker, that he would go and burn all their new huts; they should build none upon their land.
“Why, Seignior,” says the Spaniard, “by the same rule, we must be your servants too.”—“Ay,” says the bold dog, “and so you shall too, before we have done with you;” mixing two or three G—d d—mme’s in the proper intervals of his speech. The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made him no answer. However, this little discourse had heated them; and starting up, one says to the other, I think it was he they called Will Atkins, “Come, Jack, let us go and have the other brush with them; we will demolish their castle, I will warrant you; they shall plant no colony in our dominions.”
Upon this they were all trooping away, with every man a gun, a pistol, and a sword, and muttered some insolent things among themselves, of what they would do to the Spaniards too, when opportunity offered; but the Spaniards, it seems, did not so perfectly understand them as to know all the particulars; only that, in general, they threatened them hard for taking the two Englishmen’s part.
Whither they went, or how they bestowed their time that evening, the Spaniards said they did not know; but it seems they wandered about the country part of the night; and then lying down in the place which I used to call my bower, they were weary, and overslept themselves. The case was this: they had resolved to stay till midnight, and so to take the poor men when they were asleep; and they acknowledged it afterwards, intending to set fire to their huts while they were in them, and either burn them in them, or murder them as they came out: and, as malice seldom sleeps very sound, it was very strange they should not have been kept waking.
However, as the two men had also a design upon them, as I have said, though a much fairer one than that of burning and murdering, it happened, and very luckily for them all, that they were up, and gone abroad, before the bloody-minded rogues came to their huts.
When they came thither, and found the men gone, Atkins, who it seems was the forwardest man, called out to his comrades, “Ha! Jack, here’s the nest; but d—n them, the birds are flown.” They mused awhile to think what should be the occasion of their being gone abroad so soon, and suggested presently, that the Spaniards had given them notice of it; and with that they shook hands, and swore to one another, that they would be revenged of the Spaniards. As soon as they had made this bloody bargain, they fell to work with the poor men’s habitation; they did not set fire indeed to any thing, but they pulled down both their houses, and pulled them so limb from limb, that they left not the least stick standing, or scarce any sign on the ground where they stood; they tore all their little collected household-stuff in pieces, and threw every thing about in such a manner, that the poor men found, afterwards, some of their things a mile off from their habitation.
When they had done this, they pulled up all the young trees which the poor men had planted; pulled up the enclosure they had made to secure their cattle and their corn; and, in a word, sacked and plundered every thing, as completely as a herd of Tartars would have done.
The two men were at this juncture gone to find them out, and had resolved to fight them wherever they had been, though they were but two to three; so that, had they met, there certainly would have been bloodshed among them; for they were all very stout, resolute fellows, to give them their due.
But Providence took more care to keep them asunder, than they themselves could do to meet; for, as they had dogged one another, when the three were gone thither, the two were here; and afterwards, when the two went back to find them, the three were come to the old habitation again: we shall see their differing conduct presently. When the three came back, like furious creatures, flushed with the rage which the work they had been about put them into, they came up to the Spaniards, and told them what they had done, by way of scoff and bravado; and one of them stepping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been a couple of boys at play, takes hold of his hat, as it was upon his head, and giving it a twirl about, jeering in his face, says he to him, “And you, Seignior Jack Spaniard, shall have the same sauce, if you do not mend your manners.” The Spaniard, who, though quite a civil man, was as brave as a man could desire to be, and withal a strong well-made man, looked steadily at him for a good while; and then, having no weapon in his hand, stepped gravely up to him, and with one blow of his fist knocked him down, as an ox is felled with a pole-axe; at which one of the rogues, insolent as the first, fixed his pistol at the Spaniard immediately; he missed his body indeed, for the bullets went through his hair, but one of them touched the tip of his ear, and he bled pretty much. The blood made the Spaniard believe he was more hurt than he really was, and that put him into some heat, for before he acted all in a perfect calm; but now resolving to go through with his work, he stooped and took the fellow’s musket whom he had knocked down, and was just going to shoot the man who had fired at him; when the rest of the Spaniards, being in the cave, came out, and calling to him not to shoot, they stepped in, secured the other two, and took their arms from them.
When they were thus disarmed, and found they had made all the Spaniards their enemies, as well as their own countrymen, they began to cool; and giving the Spaniards better words, would have had their arms again; but the Spaniards, considering the feud that was between them and the other two Englishmen, and that it would be the best method they could take to keep them from one another, told them they would do them no harm; and if they would live peaceably they would be very willing to assist and associate with them, as they did before; but that they could not think of giving them their arms again, while they appeared so resolved to do mischief with them to their own countrymen, and had even threatened them all to make them their servants.