After Remaining
Some Time, A Boat Or Canoe Came Off To Us And One Of The Men In Her
Shewed Us A Piece Of Gold About Half A Crown Weight, Requiring Us To
Give Them Our Measure And Weight That They Might Shew Them To Their
Captain.
We accordingly gave them a measure of two ells, and a weight of
two _angels_, as the principles on which we meant to deal.
He took these
on shore to their captain; and then brought us back a measure of two
ells one quarter and a half, and one _crusado_ weight of gold, making
signs that they would give so much weight of gold for that measure of
cloth and no more; but this we refused. After staying about an hour, and
finding that they would not deal on our principles, besides
understanding that the best places for trade were all before us, we
returned to our ships, weighed anchor, and stood along shore, going
before in the boat.
[Footnote 242: This was probably Fort St Antonio, at the mouth of the
river Aximer or Ashim. - Astl. I. 155. a.]
[Footnote 243: St Johns river is about 12 leagues E.N.E. of Cape
Three-points, nearly in lat. 5 deg. N. long 2 deg. 10' W. - E.]
Having sailed about a league, we came to a point of land having a long
ledge of rocks running out from it to seawards like the others; and on
passing the ledge our master noticed a place which he said was assuredly
the town of Don John[244]. As the night approached we could not see it
very distinctly, wherefore we came to anchor as near as possible. On the
morning of the 5th it was recognized to be the town we wanted, wherefore
we manned our boats and went towards the shore; but knowing that the
Portuguese had taken away a man from that place the year before, and had
afterwards shot at them with great _bases_[245], driving them from the
place, we let go our grapnel almost a _base_ shot from shore, and lay
there near two hours without any boat coming off to us. At this time
some of our men who had gone in the Hinds boat into the bay to the
eastward of the town, where they found a fine fresh river, waved to us
to join them, because the negroes were seen coming down to that place,
which we did. Immediately afterwards the negroes came down to the shore,
and gave us to know by signs that they had gold, but none of them would
come to our boats, neither indeed did we see that they had any canoes to
come in, so that we suspected the Portuguese had spoiled their boats, as
we saw half their town in ruins. Wherefore, having tarried a good while,
and seeing that they did not come to us, and as we were well armed, we
run the heads of both boats on shore.
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