"They probably know he robbed you, Jeremy, but I truly doubt whether they care all that much."
"What do you mean?"
"He's the one Benjamin Briggs and the others hired to take them down to Brazil and back."
That voyage had later become a legend in the English Caribbees. Its objective was a plantation just outside the city of Pemambuco—capital of the new territory in Brazil the Dutch had just seized from the Portuguese. There the Barbados' Council had deciphered the closely guarded process Brazilian plantations used to refine sugar from cane sap. Thanks to the friendly Dutch, and Hugh Winston, Englishmen had finally cracked the centuries-old sugar monopoly of Portugal and Spain.
"You mean he's the same one who helped them get that load of cane for planting, and the plans for Briggs' sugar mill?" Jeremy examined the stranger again.
"Exactly. He also brought back something else for Briggs." She smiled. "Can you guess?"
Jeremy flushed and carefully smoothed his new moustache. "I suppose you're referring to that Portuguese mulatto wench he bought to be his bed warmer.''
Yes, she thought, Hugh Winston's dangerous voyage, outsailing several Spanish patrols, had been an all-round success. And everybody on the island knew the terms he had demanded. Sight bills from the Council, all co-signed at his insistence by Benjamin Briggs, in the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, payable in twenty-four months.
"Well, sir"—Briggs smiled at Winston as he thumbed toward the approaching ship—"this is the cargo we'll be wanting now, if we're to finish converting this place to sugar. You could be of help to us again if you'd choose. This is where the future'll be, depend on it."
"I made one mistake, helping this island." Winston glanced at the ship and his eyes were momentarily pained. "I don't plan to make another." Then he turned and stared past the crowd, toward the green fields patch-worked against the hillsides inland. "But I see your cane prospered well enough. When do we talk?"