I arrived in April
following; my man Friday accompanying me very honestly in all these
ramblings, and proving a most faithful servant upon all occasions.

When I came to Lisbon, I found out, by inquiry, and to my particular
satisfaction, my old friend the captain of the ship, who first took me
up at sea, off the shore of Africa: he was now grown old, and had left
off the sea, having put his son, who was far from a young man, into his
ship; and who still used the Brasil trade. The old man did not know me,
and, indeed, I hardly knew him; but I soon brought myself to his
remembrance, when I told him who I was.

After some passionate expressions of our old acquaintance, I inquired,
you may be sure, after my plantation and my partner; the old man told
me, he had not been in the Brasils for about nine years; but that he
could assure me, that when he came away, my partner was living; but the
trustees, whom I had joined with him, to take cognizance of my part,
were both dead; that, however, he believed that 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 provedore, 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 received duly 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 no 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 growing exceeding rich
upon the enjoying but one half of it; and that, to the best of his
re