Yet, fearless of all these, we resolved to adventure, and not only did we accomplish our journey, but we came to a river where there were vast quantities of gold.

The hardships and difficulties of our march were much mitigated by a method which I proposed and was found very convenient.  This was to quarrel with some of the negro natives, take them as prisoners, and binding them, as slaves, cause them to travel with us and make them carry our baggage.

Accordingly, we secured about sixty lusty young fellows as prisoners, for the natives stood in great awe of us because of our firearms, and they not only served us faithfully—­the more so as we treated them without harshness—­but were of great help in showing us the way, and in conversing with the savages we afterwards met.

When we reached the country where the gold was, we at once agreed, in order that the good harmony and friendship of our company might be maintained, that however much gold was gotten, it should be brought into one common stock, and equally divided at last, the negroes sharing with the rest.

This was done, and at the end of our long journey we found each man’s share amounted to many pounds of gold.  We also got a cargo of elephants’ teeth.

We parted at the Gold Coast from our black companions on the best of terms.  Then most of my comrades went off to the Portuguese factories near Gambia, and I went to Cape Coast Castle, and got passage for, England, where I arrived in September.

III.—­Quaker and Pirate

I had neither friend nor relation in England, though it was my native country; I had not a person to trust with what I had, or to counsel me to secure or save it; but falling into ill company, and trusting the keeper of a public-house in Rotherhithe with a great part of my money, all that great sum, which I got with so much pains and hazard, was gone in little more than two years’ time—­spent in all kinds of folly and wickedness.

Then I began to see it was time to think of further adventures, and I next shipped myself, in an evil hour to be sure, on a voyage to Cadiz.

On the coast of Spain I fell in with some masters of mischief, and, among them, one, forwarder than the rest, named Harris, who began an intimate confidence with me, so that we called one another brothers.

This Harris was afterwards captured by an English man-of-war, and, being laid in irons, died of grief and anger.

When we were together, he asked me if I had a mind for an adventure that might make amends for all past misfortunes.  I told him, yes, with all my heart; for I did not care where I went, having nothing to lose, and no one to leave behind me.

He told me, then, there was a brave fellow, whose name was Wilmot, in another English ship which rode in the harbour, who had resolved to mutiny the next morning, and run away with the ship; and that if we could get strength enough among our ship’s company, we might do the same.