But the mariner is ordinarily so carried away with the desire of pillage, as sometimes for very appearances of small moment hee looseth his voyage, and many times himselfe. And so the greedines of spoyle, onely hoped for in shippes of trade, which goe too and fro in this coast, blinded them from forecasting the perill whereinto wee exposed our voyage, in discovering our selves before we past the coast of Callao, which is the port of Lyma. To be short, wee haled the coast aboord, and that evening we discovered the port of Balparizo,[183] which serveth the citty of Saint Iago, standing some twenty leagues into the countrey; when presently [They seize upon four ships.] we descried foure shippes at an anchor: whereupon wee manned and armed our boate, which rowed towards the shippes: they seeing us turning in, and fearing that which was, ran a shore with that little they could save, and leaft us the rest; whereof we were masters in a moment, and had the rifling of all the storehouses on the shoare.
This night I set a good guard in all the shippes, longing to see the light of the next morning to put all things in order; which appearing, I began to survay them, and found nothing of moment, saving five hundred botozios[184] of wine, two or three thousand of hennes, and some refreshing of bread, bacon, dried beefe, waxe, candles, and other necessaries. The rest of their lading was plankes, spares, and timber, for Lyma, and the valleyes, which is a rich trade; for it hath no timber but that which is brought to it from other places. They had also many packes of Indian mantles, but of no value unto us, with much tallow, and manteca de puerco,[185] and aboundance of great new chests, in which wee had thought to be some great masse of wealth, but opening them, found nothing but apples therein; all which was good marchandize in Lyma, but to [And the warehouses.] us of small accompt. The marchandize on shore in their store-houses was the like, and therefore in the same predicament. The owners of the shippes gave us to understand that at a reasonable price they would redeeme their shippes and loading, which I hearkened unto; and so admitted certaine persons which might treat of the matter, and concluded with them for a small price rather then to burne them, saving for the greatest, which I carryed with me, more to give satisfaction to my people then for any other respect; because they would not be perswaded but that there was much gold hidden in her; otherwise shee would have yeelded us more then the other three.