uld assure me that when he came away my partner was living, but the
trustees whom I had joined with him to take cognisance of my part were
both dead: that, however, he believed I would have a very good account of
the improvement of the plantation; for that, upon the general belief of
my being cast away and drowned, my trustees had given in the account of
the produce of my part of the plantation to the procurator-fiscal, who
had appropriated it, in case I never came to claim it, one-third to the
king, and two-thirds to the monastery of St. Augustine, to be expended
for the benefit of the poor, and for the conversion of the Indians to the
Catholic faith: but that, if I appeared, or any one for me, to claim the
inheritance, it would be restored; only that the improvement, or annual
production, being distributed to charitable uses, could not be restored:
but he assured me that the steward of the king's revenue from lands, and
the providore, or steward of the monastery, had taken great care all
along that the incumbent, that is to say my partner, gave every year a
faithful account of the produce, of which they had duly received my
moiety. 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 any
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 grown exceeding rich upon the enjoying
his part 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 for about twelve years.

I showed myself a little concerned a