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THE VOYAGE OF THE CYGNET
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to Panama. We were resolved to fight them before we had reached this strength, and had lain in wait 6 months for them, but now we hear that they are at sea, and expect them every day. If we have success against them we shall make a desperate alarm all Europe over. I have some money which I wish were with you, for my wife. I shall, with God's help, do things which (were it with my Prince's leave) would make her a lady; but now I cannot tell but it may bring me to a halter. But if it doth my comfort is that I shall die for that I cannot help. Pray present my faithful love to my dear wife, and assure her she is never out of my mind.

After failing in his attempt upon the treasure fleet, Captain Davis, the Buccaneer Commodore, took his squadron towards Rio Lejo, on the western coast of Mexico, where, "about 8 leagues from the shore," at eight in the forenoon, 520 buccaneers, mostly English, went down the sides of their ships into their boats. There were thirty-one canoas for their accommodation, some of them of nearly forty feet in length, and five or six feet broad. They were "dug-outs" of the most primitive type, but the buccaneers were not particular as to the build of their crafts. They settled upon their thwarts; one of them piped a song, "and the