, barley, and rice, for sowing, and, in a word, any thing they
wanted but arms and ammunition.

They lived in this separate condition about six months, and had got in
their first harvest, though the quantity was but small, the parcel of
land they had planted being but little; for indeed having all their
plantation to form, they had a great deal of work upon their hands; and
when they came to make boards, and pots, and such things, they were
quite out of their element, and could make nothing of it; and when the
rainy season came on, for want of a cave in the earth, they could not
keep their grain dry, and it was in great danger of spoiling: and this
humbled them much; so they came and begged the Spaniards to help them,
which they very readily did; and in four days worked a great hole in
the side of the hill for them, big enough to secure their corn and other
things from the rain: but it was but a poor place at best compared to
mine; and especially as mine was then; for the Spaniards had greatly
enlarged it, and made several new apartments in it.

About three quarters of a year after this separation a new frolic took
these rogues, which, together with the former villany they had
committed, brought mischief enough upon them, and had very near been the
ruin of the whole colony. The three new associates began, it seems, to
be weary of the laborious life they led, and that without hope of
bettering their circumstances; and a whim took them that they would make
a voyage to the continent from whence the savages came, and would try if
they could not seize upon some prisoners among the natives there, and
bring them home, so as to make them do the laborious part of the
work for them.

The project was not so preposterous if they had gone no farther; but
they did nothing and proposed nothing but had either mischief in the
design or mischief in the event; and if I may give my opinion, they
seemed to be under a blast from Heaven; for if we will not allow a
visible curse to pursue visible crimes, how shall we reconcile the
events of things with divine justice? It was certainly an apparent
vengeance on their crime of mutiny and piracy that brought them to the
state they were in; and as they shewed not the least remorse for the
crime, but added new villanies to it, such as particularly that piece of
monstrous cruelty of wounding a poor slave because he did not, or
perhaps could not understand to do what he was directed, and to wound
h