As you know, they bring from there gold and spices and precious woods, and articles of native workmanship of all kinds." "I know all that, Reuben; and also that, like dogs in the manger, they suffer none others to sail those seas; and that no English ship has ever yet traversed those waters." "That is so, Diggory; but by all I hear the number of islands is large, and there are reports that there lies, farther west, a great land from which it is they procure, chiefly, the gold and silver and precious things.

Now it seems to me that, were the matter secretly conducted, so that no news could be sent to Spain, a ship might slip out and cruise there, dealing with the natives, and return richly stored with treasures.
"The Swan is a fast sailer and, did she fall in with the Spanish ships, would show them a clean pair of heels.

Of course she would avoid the places where the Spaniards have forts and garrisons, and touch only at those at which, I hear, they trade but little;" and he took out a scroll from his bosom, unrolled it, and showed it to be a map.
"This I purchased, for ten gold pieces, of a Spanish captain who had come to poverty and disgrace from his ship being cast away, while he was asleep in liquor, in his cabin--a fault which is rare among the Spaniards, and therefore thought all the more of.

I met him in Cadiz, at a wine shop near the port.

He told me his story as we drank together, for he spoke Dutch, having traded much with the Low Countries.
"He took out a map, to show me some of the places at which he had had adventures.