enemies.  A similarly vexatious affair occurred in a prize taken by the Success, in which there was a considerable quantity of pinos, or masses of virgin silver, in the form of bricks, artfully plaistered over with clay, and dried in the sun.  As the Spaniards in Peru never burn their bricks, Clipperton and his people took these for real bricks, and threw a great number of them overboard as so much rubbish, and did not discover the deception until four or five only remained.  Every thing taken in the Conception, was divided according to the articles settled at Juan Fernandez, which gave me only six shares, instead of sixty; and the people refused to allow me an hundred pounds, which I had laid out of my own money, for necessary supplies at the island of St Catharines.

I now found myself under many difficulties as to the course we were to pursue, because the company knew well enough that there was no necessity of going farther than the lat. of 13 deg.  N. for going to the East Indies.  I had therefore to represent the advantage of cleaning and repairing our ship at Porto Segnro, in California, and I had much difficulty to persuade them.  I at last brought them to my purpose, when we sailed from Cano northwards.  Having inconstant gales and bad weather, we went between seventy and eighty leagues out to sea, in hopes of meeting more settled weather.  When at sixty leagues from the land, the winds still continued variable, but at between seventy and eighty, they settled at E.N.E. and N.E. at which distance we continued till in lat. 20 deg.  N. not being sensible of any currents in all that distance, and being also entirely out of the way of the frightful ripplings and overfalls of water which we used frequently to meet with nearer the land.  These used often to alarm us when becalmed in deep water, hearing a noise as of the fall of water in passing through a bridge, a considerable time before it came up to us, and which afterwards passed us at a very great rate.  All the effect this had on the ship, was to make her answer the helm wildly, if we had any wind; and when we happened to meet any of these moving waters very near the shore, we could not perceive that we either gained or lost ground, though we sometimes continued in them for a quarter of an hour.  I have seen these overfalls to come both from the eastward and the westward.  By getting well out to sea, we not only got clear of these inconveniences, but also were out of the way of the vandevals, or black season, which had already begun on the coast; for at Cano, and in going there, we felt very hard gusts, with black rolling water, frequent and violent thunder and lightning, and heavy showers of rain.