"But a new whim possessed these rogues about three quarters of a year after, which had like to have ruined us, and themselves too: for it seems, being tired and weary of this sort of living, which made them work for themselves, without hopes of changing their condition, nothing would serve them, but that they would make a voyage to the continent, and try if they could seize upon some of the savages, and bring them over as slaves, to do their drudgery, while they lived at ease and pleasure.
"Indeed the project was not so preposterous, if they had not gone farther; but they neither did, nor proposed any thing, but what had mischief in the design, or the event. One morning, these three fellows came down to the limited station, and humbly desired to be admitted to talk with us, which we readily granted; they told us in short, that _being tired of their manner of living, and the labour of their hands in such employments, not being sufficient to procure the necessaries of life, they only desired one of the canoes we came over in, with some arms and ammunition for their defence, and they would seek their fortunes abroad, and never trouble us any more._ To be sure we were glad enough to get rid of such wretched plagues; but yet honesty made us ingenuously represent to them, by what we ourselves had suffered, the certain destruction they were running into, either of being starved to death or murdered by the savages. To this they very audaciously replied, _that they neither could nor would work: and consequently that they might as well be starved abroad as at home: & neither had they any wives or children to cry after them: nay, so intent were they upon their voyage, that if the Spaniards had not given them arms, so they had but the canoe they would have gone without them._
"Though we could not well spare our fire arms, rather than they should go like naked men, we let them have two muskets, a pistol, a cutlass, and three hatchets, which were thought very sufficient: we gave them also goat's flesh, a great basket full of dried grapes, a pot of fresh butter, a young live kid, and a large canoe sufficient to carry twenty men. And thus, with a mast made of a long pole, and a sail of six large goat-skins dried, having a fair breeze, and a flood-tide with them, they merrily sailed away, the Spaniards calling after them, _Bon voyaje_, no man ever expecting to see them more.