in Diggory, is that you and your partners
should continue to keep silent as to this voyage of ours. If we
come not back, and after a time there is a talk here that we have
gone to the Indies, the news may be carried to London; and you may
be questioned, and may be blamed mightily for undertaking such an
adventure, without the king's permission; and all sorts of harm may
fall upon you. Success would, in my mind, altogether excuse you;
and you will be able to offer so great a present to the king that
he will be mighty contented. But if you fail, it will be otherwise.
Therefore my advice is, till the Swan is anchored in the port say
nothing about her. It were best, from the moment we sail, to write
off all that has been spent upon her as money lost, just the same
as if you knew for certain that she had gone down as soon as she
was out of sight of land.

"Folks will ask you what has become of her, and you will truly say
that you have had no news; and when months pass on, and she comes
not, you will shake your head, and say that you begin to fear that
evil has befallen her. She may have gone down in a storm, or been
cast on some rocky coast and all perished, or been captured by
pirates.

"If the friends of the sailors make a stir, and go to the
magistrates, you have but to show the copy of the letter of
instructions which we drew up the other day, laying it down that I
was to make for the African Straits, and to put into no Portuguese
or Spanish port by the way; that I was then to shape my course for
the island of Malta, and to take in fresh stores of food and water
there; then that I was to pass round the southernmost point of
Greece, and sail upwards to Constantinople, and there to dispose of
such portion of my cargo as I could sell at good profit, buying
goods suited for our market with the monies I received; and if my
hold was full I was then to return straight to England; but if I
had still some of my cargo unsold, I could trade as best seemed to
me among the Eastern Islands, and with the ports of Asia.

"There would be your instructions to show, and as it is notorious
to all that you provisioned the ship in the best manner possible,
and laid in greater stores than ordinary of all things necessary
for the voyage, none can hold you to blame, in any way, if the
chances of the seas have proved too masterful for us, and the Swan
returns no more.

"Should we carry out our enterprise to the fullest, and gain great
stor