ven, was an Unknown Lady, and been
dead nigh forty years. Finally, that if I made my Will, it would only be
to the effect that my Property, if any, might be divided among the
Ship's Company of the _Marquis_, with a donative of Fifty guineas to the
_Hope_ and _Delight_ people to drink to my Memory.

"Ay, and to a pleasant journey to Fiddler's Green," cries out the
Captain. "But cheer up, Heart; ye're not weighed for the Long Journey
yet." Nor had I; for I presently recovered, and in less than a month
after my Mishap was again whole and fit for Duty. And I have set this
down in order to confute those malignant men who have declared that all
my Wounds were from Stripes between the Shoulders; whereas I can show
the marks, 1 deg., of an English Grenadier's bayonet; 2 deg., of a
Frenchman's sword; 3 deg., of a Spanish bullet; with many more Scars
gotten as honourably, and which it would be only braggadocio to tell
the History of.

_Item._--The Corregidores, or Head-Men of Guayaquil, are great Thieves.
The Mercenary Viceroys not being permitted to Trade themselves, do use
the Corregidores as middle-men, and these again employ a third hand; so
that ships are constantly employed carrying Quicksilver, and all manner
of precious and prohibited goods, to and from Mexico out of by-ports.
Thus, too, being their own Judges, they get vast Estates, and stop all
complaints in Old Spain by Bribes. But now and then comes out a Viceroy
who is a Man of Honesty and Probity, and will have none of these
Scoundrelly ways of Making Money (like Mr. Henry Fielding among the
Trading Justices, a Bright exception for integrity, though his Life, as
I have heard, was otherwise dissolute), and then he falls too and
squeezes the Corregidores, in the same manner as Cardinal Richelieu,
that was Lewis Thirteenth's Minister, was wont to do with the
Financiers. "You must treat 'em like Leeches," said he; "and when they
are bloated with blood, put salt upon them, to make them disgorge." And
I have heard that this rigid System of Probity, and putting salt on the
gorged Corregidores, has ofttimes turned out more profitable to the
Viceroys than trading on their own account.

Many of our men falling sick here, and our Ransom being now fully
disbursed by the authorities of Guayaquil, we made haste to get away
from the place, which was fast becoming pestiferous.

We set sail with more than fifty men Down with the Distemper (of which
they were dying like Sheep wit