out with his feet, and that not without fome difficul ty too.

The fellow was in fuch a rage at the honest man's thrusting him away, that he turned upon him with a pole he had in his hand; and had not the man avoided the blow very nimbly, and run into the hut, he had ended his days at once. His comrade, seeing the danger they were both in, ran in after him, and immediately they came both out with their mufkets; and the man that was firft ftruck at with the pole, knocked the fellow down, who began the quarrel, with the ftock of his mufquet, and that before the other two could come to help him; and then seeing the rest come at them, they stood toge. ther, and presenting the other ends of their pieces to them, bade them ftand off.

The others had fire-arms with them too; but one of the two honeft men, bolder than his comrade, and made desperate by his danger, told them, if they offered to move hand or foot, they were all dead men; and boldly commanded them to lay down their arms. They did not indeed lay down their arms; but, feeing him refolute, it brought them to a parley, and they confented to take their wounded man with them, and be gone; and indeed, it seems the fellow was wounded fufficiently with the blow; however, they were much in the wrong, fince they had the advantage, that they did not difarm them effectually, as they might have done, and have gone immediately to the Spaniards, and given them an account how the rogues had treated them; for the three villains ftudied nothing but revenge, and every day gave them fome intimation that they did fo.

But

But not to crowd this part with an account of the leffer part of their rogueries, fuch as treading down their corn, shooting three young kids, and a fhegoat, which the poor men had got to breed up tame for their store; and, in a word, plaguing them night and day in this manner, it forced the two men to fuch a defperation, that they refolved to fight them all three the first time they had a fair opportunity. In order to this they refolved to go to the caftle, as they called it, that was my old dwelling, where the three rogues and the Spaniards all lived together at that time, intending to have a fair battle, and the Spaniards fhould stand by to see fair play. So they got up in the morning before day, and came to the place, and called the Englishmen by their names, telling a Spaniard that answered, that they wanted to fpeak with them.

It happened that the day before two of the Spaniards, having been in the woods, had feen one of the two Englishmen, whom, for distinction, I call the honeft men; and he had made a fad complaint to the Spaniards, of the barbarous usage they had met with from their three countrymen, and how they had ruined their plantation, and destroyed their corn, that they had laboured fo hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat, and their three kids, which was all they had provided for their fuftenance; and that if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not affift them again, they should be ftarved. When the Spaniards came home at night, and they were all at fupper, he took the freedom to reprove the three Englishmen, though in gentle and mannerly terms, and afked them, how they could be fo cruel,

they being harmless inoffenfive fellows, and that they were putting themfelves in a way to fubfift by their labour, and that it had cost them a great deal of pains to bring things to fuch perfection as they had?

One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, What had they to do there? That they came on shore without leave, and that they should not plant or build upon the island; it was none of their ground. Why, fays the Spaniard, very calmly, Seignior Inglefe, they muft not ftarve. The Englishman replied, like a true rough-hewn tarpaulin, they might starve and be damned, they fhould not plant nor build in that place. But what must they do then, Seignior? fays the Spaniard. Another of the brutes returned, Do! d-n them, they fhould be fervants, and work for them. But how can you expect that of them? they are not bought with your money; you have no right to make them fervants. The Englishman anfwered, The island was theirs, the governor had given it to them, and no man had any thing to do there but themselves; and with that fwore by his Maker, that he would go and burn all their new huts; they fhould build none upon their land.

Why Seignior, fays the Spaniard, by the fame rule, we must be your fervants too. Ay, fays the bold dog, and fo you fhall too, before we have done with you, mixing two or three G-d d-mme's in the proper intervals of his fpeech. The Spaniard only fmiled at that, and made him no anfwer. However, this little difcourfe had heated them; and ftarting up, one fays to the other, I think it was he they called Will Atkins, Come Jack, let us go and have the other brush with them; we will demolish

their caftle, I will warrant you; they shall plant no colony in our dominions.

Upon this they were all trooping away, with every man a gun, a pistol, and a fword, and muttered fome infolent things among themselves, of what they would do to the Spaniards too, when opportunity offered; but the Spaniards, it feems, did not fo perfectly understand them as to know all the particulars; only that, in general, they threatened them hard for taking the two Englishmen's part.

1

Whither they went, or how they bestowed their time that evening, the Spaniards faid they did not know; but it feems they wandered about the country part of the night; and then lying down in the place which I used to call my bower, they were weary, and overflept themselves. The cafe was this: they had refolved to stay till midnight, and fo to take the poor men when they were afleep; and they acknowledged it afterwards, intending to fet fire to their huts while they were in them, and either burn them in them, or murder them as they came out; and, as malice feldom fleeps very found, it was very strange they should not have been kept waking.

However, as the two men had alfo a defign upon them, as I have faid, tho' a much fairer one than that of burning and murdering, it happened, and very luckily for them all, that they were up and gone abroad, before the bloody-minded rogues came to their huts.

When they came thither and found the men gone, Atkins, who it feems was the forwardest man, called out to his comrades, Ha! Jack, here's the nest; but d-n them, the birds are flown: they mufed a while

to think what fhould be the occafion of their being gone abroad fo foon, and fuggefted presently, that the Spaniards had given them notice of it; and with that they shook hands, and fwore to one another, that they would be revenged of the Spaniards. As foon as they had made this bloody bargain, they fell to work with the poor men's habitation; they did not fet fire indeed to any thing, but they pulled down both their houses, and pulled them fo limb from limb that they left not the leaft ftick ftanding, or fcarce any fign on the ground where they stood; they tore all their little collected household-stuff in pieces, and threw every thing about in fuch a manner, that the poor men found, afterwards, fome of their things a mile off from their habitation.

When they had done this, they pulled up all the young trees which the poor men had planted; pulled up the inclosure they had made to fecure their cattle and their corn; and, in a word, facked and plundered every thing, as completely as a herd of Tartars would have done.

The two men were at this juncture gone to find them out, and had refolved to fight them wherever they had been, tho' they were but two to three: fo that, had they met, there certainly would have been bloodshed among them; for they were all very ftout, refolute fellows, to give them their due.

But Providence took more care to keep them afunder, than they themselves could do to meet: for, as they had dogged one another, when the three were gone thither, the two were here; and afterwards, when the two went back to find them, the three were come to the old habitation again; we shall fee their differing