'The 14th of July we sailed out of the East North-east End of the Lake de Fonte, and passed a Lake I named the Estricho de Ronquillo, thirty-four Leagues long, two or three Leagues broad, twenty, twenty-six and twenty-eight Fathom of Water; we passed this Streight in ten Hours, having a stout Gale of Wind, and a whole Ebb. As we sailed more Easterly the Country grew very sensibly worse.'
What follows, 'as it is in the North and South Parts of America,' appears to me an additional Comment.
De Fonte mentions, as he went more Easterly the Country grew worse; from which it may be supposed he found the Alteration to begin when he was come to the Eastern Part of the Lake, and more so, as he passed the Streights of Ronquillo.
Where the Streight of Ronquillo terminated de Fonte makes no mention; gives us no Account of the Soundings or Tides; but his Silence here, and the preceding Circumstances, sufficiently prove that he thought himself then in some Branch of the Atlantick Ocean. And it is to be observed there is the same affected Silence here as to the Part he was come into, as when he had left the Western Ocean and entered the North-east Part of the South Sea to pass up to Los Reys.
'The 17th we came to an Indian Town, and the Indians told our Interpreter Mons. Parmentiers, that a little Way from us lay a great Ship, where there never had been one before.'
The Indian telling the Interpreter Parmentiers, which expresses a Kind of Acquaintance made between them, and de Fonte's passing out of the Lake into the Sea, coming to a Town, and Parmentiers knowing the Language, is an Evidence of Parmentiers' having been there before. And we may suppose, that from the Time they left the River Parmentiers, de Fonte had been on the Inquiry, it being now Time to expect the People from Boston; and what the Indian told him was in pursuance of such Inquiry.
'We sailed to them, and found only one Man advanced in Years, and a Youth; the Man was the greatest Man in the Mechanical Parts of the Mathematicks, I had ever met with; my second Mate was an Englishman, an excellent Seaman, as was my Gunner, who had been taken Prisoners at Campechy, as well as the Master's Son; they told me the Ship was of New England, from a Town called Boston. The Owner and the whole Ship's Company came on board the thirtieth; and the Navigator of the Ship, Captain Shapley, told me, his Owner was a fine Gentleman, and Major General of the largest Colony in New England, called the Maltechusets; so I received him like a Gentleman, and told him my Commission was to make a Prize of any People seeking a North-west or West Passage into the South Sea; but I would look on them as Merchants trading with the Natives for Bevers, Otters and other Furs and Skins, and so for a small Present of Provisions I had no need on, I gave him my Diamond Ring, which cost me twelve Hundred Pieces of Eight (which the modest Gentleman received with difficulty) and having given the brave Navigator Captain Shapley, for his fine Charts and Journals, a Thousand Pieces of Eight, and the Owner of the Ship, Seimor Gibbons, a quarter Cask of good Peruan Wine, and the ten Seamen, each twenty Pieces of Eight, the sixth of August, with as much Wind as we could fly before and a Current, we arrived at the first Fall of the River Parmentiers.'
De Fonte makes no Delay, but immediately proceeds as the Case required; finds an old Man aboard, the Man (as being a great Mechanick might be very useful on such an Expedition) and a Youth, might venture to stay, their Age would plead as to any Severity that might be intended by de Fonte; and through the Fear of which Severity the others retired into the Woods, where they could manage without being sensible of those Difficulties which Europeans apprehend. To leave the Ship without any one aboard, de Fonte could of Course have taken her as being deserted; and by their Retirement into the Woods, his Pursuit of them there would have alarmed the Indians, and more especially if he had attempted any Severity, it might have been fatal to him and his Company, from the Resistance they might have met with, not only from the Boston People, but the Indians assisting them, as they would have considered it as an Insult, an Exercise of Power which they would apprehend he had no Right to use in those Parts, as to a People who were trading with them, and been the Occasion that the Spaniards would have been no more received as Friends in those Parts.
De Fonte had particularly provided himself with some Englishmen, who, by a friendly Converse with the People from Boston, might endeavour to learn their Secrets, and prepare them the better by what they would be instructed to tell them to come to a Compliance with the Admiral's Intentions. The Result of this Affair de Fonte only mentions; but they would not have staid away so long, would have returned sooner aboard, had they only left the Ship on Account of Trade. Trade was only a secondary Object, the Discovery was the principal, and they would not have staid in one Place, at this Season, had they not been necessitated through a Fear of de Fonte so to do. It may be supposed the Englishmen who were with de Fonte, two of whom were from Campechy, and the other become Catholick, as he was married to the Master's Daughter, they would not act either with much Sincerity or Truth as to their own Countrymen, but managed with the old Man to bring the Owner, Navigator, and rest of the Crew aboard.
On their return the Navigator of the Ship was the first who waited on the Admiral, and he calls him Captain Shapley, his Name Nicholas Shapley, who was famous as a Navigator, for his Knowledge in the Mathematicks and other Branches of Science, that the common People supposed he dealt in the Magick Art, and had the Name given him of Old Nick, not by the People of Boston, but by a Set of Libertines as they termed them, and who had separated from the People of Boston, and gone to live by themselves at Piscatua, where he was settled at a Place called Kittery, in the Province of Main; the Name of Kittery given by his Brother Alexander Shapley, to a Tract of Land he had settled on there; and they write the Name Shapley exactly in the Manner in which it is wrote in the Letter. The Brother Alexander was a Cotemporary at Oxford with Captain James, who went on Discovery, and his Acquaintance. The Descendants of Alexander, a genteel People, were not many Years since living at Kittery; but Nicholas Shapley retired to New London, where he had a Son that was living in the Year one Thousand seven Hundred and fifty-two, a Fisherman. The Family at Kittery were very shy as to giving any Information as to what they knew in this Affair, upon an Application by the Author of these Observations, or looking into Alexander's Papers, as an officious Person had got beforehand, and discouraged them from giving any Gratification of this Sort, under Pretence, if their Papers were seen, it might give some Insight into a Lawsuit depending between the Branches of the Family, or expected to be commenced; and that there was a great Reward for the Discovery of a North-west Passage, which, if the Account was attained from them they would be intitled to a Part, which by this Means they would be deprived of. Jealousies of this Kind raised by a pretended, at least an ignorant Friend, against the Application of a Stranger, who assured them he was superior to any Trick of that Sort, and would give them any Satisfaction in his Power as they should propose, occasioned a Disappointment. The Son of Captain Nicholas, upon an Application made by the Author likewise, had nothing but his Father's Sea Chest, in which, there were once a great many Papers, and which his Mother, the Wife of Captain Nicholas, made a great Account of; but the Son being an illiterate Man, had made Use of them in the Family as waste Paper. I have mentioned him as illiterate, but he was a well meaning Man, and he had heard his Mother talk something about such an Affair; but I shall not lay a Stress upon the Account he gave, as he may be supposed prompted by the earnest Manner of the Inquiry to give grateful Answers, in Expectation of a Reward. The Number of Settlers in all Piscatua, the Province of Main included, did not at that Time exceed four Hundred People, but is now become a well settled Country; yet there was amongst the antient People about Kittery, a Tradition of Captain Nicholas having been on such a Voyage, and as to which, on proper Application to Persons who have Influence, and will make due Inquiry, it appears to me the Publick will receive a farther Satisfaction than they may at present expect. A considerable Merchant who lived at Falmouth in Piscatua, a Man of Character, no Way biassed for or against a North-west Passage, but as he is since dead, I may take the Liberty to say, married a Daughter of his late Excellency Governor Weymouth, mentioned an Anecdote respecting his Father, who was a very antient Man: That when the Dispute was between the late Governor Dobbs and Captain Middleton, he said, Why do they make such a Fuzz about this Affair, our Old Nick (meaning Captain Shapley) was through there? And this antient Gentleman had been an Intimate of Captain Shapley's.