I asked him if he knew to what height of improvement he had brought the plantation, and whether he thought it might be worth looking after; or whether, on my going thither, I should meet with no obstruction to my possessing my just right in the moiety.
He told me he could not tell exactly to what degree the plantation was improved; but this he knew, that my partner was growing exceeding rich upon the enjoying but one half of it, and that, to the best of his remembrance, he had heard that the king’s third of my part, which was, it seems, granted away to some other monastery or religious house, amounted to above two hundred moidores a year; that as to my being restored to a quiet possession of it, there was no question to be made of that, my partner being alive to witness my title, and my name being also enrolled in the register of the country. Also he told me that the survivors of my two trustees were very fair, honest people, and very wealthy, and he believed I would not only have their assistance for putting me in possession, but would find a very considerable sum of money in their hands for my account, being the produce of the farm while their fathers held the trust, and before it was given up, as above, which, as he remembered, was about twelve years.
I showed myself a little concerned and uneasy at this account, and inquired of the old captain how it came to pass that the trustees should thus dispose of my effects when he knew that I had made my will, and had made him, the Portuguese captain, my universal heir, &c.
He told me that was true; but that, as there was no proof of my being dead, he could not act as executor until some certain account should come of my death; and that, besides, he was not willing to intermeddle with a thing so remote; that it was true he had registered my will and put in his claim, and could he have given any account of my being dead or alive, he would have acted by procuration, and taken possession of the ingenio (so they called the sugar house), and had given his son, who was now at the Brazils, order to do it. “But,” says the old man, “I have one piece of news to tell you, which perhaps may not be so acceptable to you as the rest; and that is, that believing you were lost, and all the world believing so also, your partner and trustees did offer to account to me in your name for six or eight of the first years of profit, which I received; but there being at the time,” says he, “great disbursements for increasing the works, building an ingenio, and buying slaves, it did not amount to near so much as it afterwards produced. However,” says the old man, “I shall give you a true account of what I have received in all, and how I have disposed of it.”
After a few days’ farther conference with this ancient friend he brought me an account of the six first years’ income of my plantation, signed by my partner and the merchant’s trustees, being always delivered in goods, viz. tobacco in roll, and sugar in chests, besides rum, molasses, &c., which is the consequence of a sugar work, and I found by this account that every year the income considerably increased; but as above, the disbursement being large, the sum at first was small; however, the old man let me see that he was debtor to me 470 moidores of gold, besides 60 chests of sugar, and 15 double rolls of tobacco, which were lost in his ship, he having been shipwrecked, coming home to Lisbon, about eleven years after my leaving the place.
The good man then began to complain of his misfortunes, and how he had been obliged to make use of my money to recover his losses, and buy him a share in a new ship. “However, my old friend,” says he, “you shall not want a supply in your necessity; and as soon as my son returns, you shall be fully satisfied.”