governor, “we will endeavour to make them do you justice, if you
will leave it to us: for there is no doubt but they will come to
us again, when their passion is over, being not able to subsist
without our assistance. We promise you to make no peace with them
without having full satisfaction for you; and upon this condition
we hope you will promise to use no violence with them, other than
in your own defence.” The two Englishmen yielded to this very
awkwardly, and with great reluctance; but the Spaniards protested
that they did it only to keep them from bloodshed, and to make them
all easy at last. “For,” said they, “we are not so many of us;
here is room enough for us all, and it is a great pity that we
should not be all good friends.” At length they did consent, and
waited for the issue of the thing, living for some days with the
Spaniards; for their own habitation was destroyed.
In about five days’ time the vagrants, tired with wandering, and
almost starved with hunger, having chiefly lived on turtles’ eggs
all that while, came back to the grove; and finding my Spaniard,
who, as I have said, was the governor, and two more with him,
walking by the side of the creek, they came up in a very
submissive, humble manner, and begged to be received again into the
society. The Spaniards used them civilly, but told them they had
acted so unnaturally to their countrymen, and so very grossly to
themselves, that they could not come to any conclusion without
consulting the two Englishmen and the rest; but, however, they
would go to them and discourse about it, and they should know in
half-an-hour. It may be guessed that they were very hard put to
it; for, as they were to wait this half-hour for an answer, they
begged they would send them out some bread in the meantime, which
they did, sending at the same time a large piece of goat’s flesh
and a boiled parrot, which they ate very eagerly.
After half-an-hour’s consultation they were called in, and a long
debate ensued, their two countrymen charging them with the ruin of
all their labour, and a design to murder them; all which they owned
before, and therefore could not deny now. Upon the whole, the
Spaniards acted the moderators between them; and as they had
obliged the two Englishmen not to hurt the three while they were
naked and unarmed, so they now obliged the three to go and rebuild
their fellows’ two huts, one to be of the same and the other of
larger dimensions than they were before; to fence their ground
again, plant trees in the room of those pulled up, dig up the land
again for planting corn, and, in a word, to restore everything to
the same state as they found it, that is, as near as they could.
Well, they submitted to all this; and as they had plenty of
provisions given them all the while, they grew very orderly, and
the whole society began to live pleasantly and agreeably together
again; only that these three fellows could never be persuaded to
work – I mean for themselves – except now and then a little, just
as they pleased. However, the Spaniards told them plainly that if
they would but live sociably and friendly together, and study the
good of the whole plantation, they would be content to work for
them, and let them walk about and be as idle as they pleased; and
thus, having lived pretty well together for a month or two, the
Spaniards let them have arms again, and gave them liberty to go
abroad with them as before.
It was not above a week after they had these arms, and went abroad,
before the ungrateful creatures began to be as insolent and
troublesome as ever. However, an accident happened presently upon
this, which endangered the safety of them all, and they were
obliged to lay by all private resentments, and look to the
preservation of their lives.
It happened one night that the governor, the Spaniard whose life I