so hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat and
their three kids, which was all they had provided for their sustenance,
and that if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not assist
them again, they should be starved. When the Spaniards came home at
night, and they were all at supper, one of them took the freedom to
reprove the three Englishmen, though in very gentle and mannerly terms,
and asked them how they could be so cruel, they being harmless,
inoffensive fellows: that they were putting themselves in a way to
subsist by their labour, and that it had cost them a great deal of pains
to bring things to such perfection as they were then in.

One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, "What had they to do there?
that they came on shore without leave; and that they should not plant or
build upon the island; it was none of their ground." "Why," says the
Spaniard, very calmly, "Seignior Inglese, they must not starve." The
Englishman replied, like a rough tarpaulin, "They might starve; they
should not plant nor build in that place." "But what must they do then,
seignior?" said the Spaniard. Another of the brutes returned, "Do? they
should be servants, and work for them." "But how can you expect that of
them?" says the Spaniard; "they are not bought with your money; you have
no right to make them servants." The Englishman answered, "The island
was theirs; the governor had given it to them, and no man had anything to
do there but themselves;" and with that he swore that he would go and
burn all their new huts; they should build none upon their land. "Why,
seignior," says the Spaniard, "by the same rule, we must be your
servants, too." "Ay," returned the bold dog, "and so you shall, too,
before we have done with you;" mixing two or three oaths in the proper
intervals of his speech. The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made him
no answer. However, this little discourse had heated them; and starting
up, one says to the other. (I think it was he they called Will Atkins),
"Come, Jack, let's go and have t'other brush with them; we'll demolish
their castle, I'll warrant you; they shall plant no colony in our
dominions."

Upon this they were all trooping away, with every man a gun, a pistol,
and a sword, and muttered some insolent things among themselves of what
they would do to the Spaniards, too, when opportunity offered; but the
Spaniards, it seems, did not so perfectly understand them as to know a