arms of the Spaniards.

When they were within five leagues of the ships, they found a town
built in their absence by the Symerons, at which Drake consented to
halt, sending a Symeron to the ship, with his gold toothpick, as a
token, which, though the master knew it, was not sufficient to gain
the messenger credit, till, upon examination, he found that the
captain, having ordered him to regard no messenger without his
handwriting, had engraven his name upon it with the point of his
knife. He then sent the pinnace up the river, which they met, and
afterwards sent to the town for those whose weariness had made them
unable to march further. On February 23, the whole company was
reunited; and Drake, whose good or ill success never prevailed over
his piety, celebrated their meeting with thanks to God.

Drake, not yet discouraged, now turned his thoughts to new prospects,
and, without languishing in melancholy reflections upon his past
miscarriages, employed himself in forming schemes for repairing them.
Eager of action, and acquainted with man's nature, he never suffered
idleness to infect his followers with cowardice, but kept them from
sinking under any disappointment, by diverting their attention to some
new enterprise.

Upon consultation with his own men and the Symerons, he found them
divided in their opinions; some declaring, that, before they engaged
in any new attempt, it was necessary to increase their stores of
provisions; and others urging, that the ships, in which the treasure
was conveyed, should be immediately attacked. The Symerons proposed a
third plan, and advised him to undertake another march over land to
the house of one Pezoro, near Veragua, whose slaves brought him, every
day, more than two hundred pounds sterling from the mines, which he
heaped together in a strong stone house, which might, by the help of
the English, be easily forced.

Drake, being unwilling to fatigue his followers with another journey,
determined to comply with both the other opinions; and, manning his
two pinnaces, the Bear and the Minion, he sent John Oxenham, in the
Bear, towards Tolu, to seize upon provisions; and went himself, in the
Minion, to the Cabezas, to intercept the treasure that was to be
transported from Veragua and that coast, to the fleet at Nombre de
Dios, first dismissing, with presents, those Symerons that desired to
return to their wives, and ordering those that chose to remain to be
entertained in the ship.