pieces of eight, or Spanish dollars: And Shelvocke little thought,
when he took this prize, or compiled his book, that I, of all men,
should have the exact state of this affair. He often said that he
would give the gentlemen owners a fair account; and I have often
promised to prove that he did say so. We have now both made our
words good, and I have not only an authentic account, but I will also
declare how I got it.

[Footnote 1: Shelvocke who certainly ought to have known best, names
the ship the Conception de Recova, and her commander Don Joseph
Desorio.--E.]

"When I was carried prisoner to Lima, I had sufficient leisure to
reflect on my misfortunes, and how likely I was to be ruined and
the owners cheated; wherefore, to prepare them to defend their just
rights, I wrote to one of them the substance of what had occurred
to me; how Shelvocke had mismanaged; how arbitrarily he had acted in
defiance of their articles, and what were his private intentions in
the latter part of the voyage. As soon as I came to London, which was
in October, 1721, I confirmed the report of my letter with several
new circumstances; for all which performance of my duty, it is, as
I suppose, that my name has met with so much reproach in Captain
Shelvocke's book. But, besides my advices, the gentlemen owners had
many proofs from prisoners and other people. Eleven months after me,
being August, 1722, Shelvocke himself arrived, and immediately waited
on the gentlemen in the lump for all his transactions; not owning any
thing of this prize, which he had unlawfully shared, with every thing
else, among twenty-three of his men. Instead of compromising the
matter, the gentlemen read him a letter, secured him, and had him
the same day confined in _Wood-street Compter_. A few days after, his