Mr Burton has been sick for six weeks, and is now
so very weak that, unless God strengthen him, I fear he will hardly
escape. Your worship will find inclosed an abstract of all the goods we
have sold, and also of what commodities we have received for them;
reserving all things else till our meeting, and to the bearer of this
letter.
In this voyage there were brought home, in 1563, 166 elephants teeth,
weighing 1758 libs, and 22 buts full of grains, or Guinea pepper.
SECTION IX.
_Supplementary Account of the foregoing Voyage_ [285]
An account of the preceding voyage to Guinea in 1563, of which this
section is an abstract, was written in verse by Robert Baker, who
appears to have been one of the factors employed by the adventurers. It
is said to have been written in prison in France, where he had been
carried on his subsequent voyage, which forms the subject of the next
section, and was composed at the importunity of his fellow traveller and
fellow-prisoner, Mr George Gage, the son of Sir Edward Gage. Of this
voyage he relates nothing material, except a conflict which happened
with the negroes at a certain river, the name of which is not mentioned;
neither does the foregoing relation by Rutter give any light into the
matter. But from the circumstance of the ship commencing her return for
England immediately after this adventure, it must have happened at the
river Sestos or Sestre, which was the last place they touched at, and
where they staid three days, as stated both in this and the proceeding
narratives. - Astl. I. 179.
[Footnote 285: Astley, I. 179. Hakluyt, II. 518.]
In the versified relation, which is to be found at large in the last
edition of Hakluyts Collection, London, 1810, Vol. II. p.518-523, he
complains of being detained in a French prison, against all law and
right, as the war between England and France was concluded by a peace.
The account given of this conflict with the negroes is to the following
effect - E.
One day while the ship was at anchor on the coast of Guinea, Baker
ordered out the small pinnace or boat, with nine men well armed, to go
on shore to traffic. At length, having entered a river, he saw a great
number of negroes, whose captain came to him stark naked, sitting in a
canoe made of a log, _like a trough to feed hogs in_. Stopping, at some
distance, the negro chief put water on his cheek, not caring to trust
himself nearer till Baker did the like. This signal of friendship being
answered, and some tempting merchandize being shewn him, the chief came
forward and intimated by signs, that he would stand their friend if some
of these things were given him.
