Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 15.djvu/151

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Spaniards haue, and liue vpon the mountaines where the Mines are in such number, that the Spaniards haue much adoe to get any of them from them, and yet sometimes by assembling a great number of them, which happeneth once in two yeeres, they get a piece from them, which afterwards they keepe sure ynough.

Burboroata. Thus hauing escaped the danger of them, wee kept our course along the coast, and came the third of April to a Towne called Burboroata, where his ships came to an ancker, and hee himselfe went a shore to speake with the Spaniards, to whom hee declared himselfe to be an Englishman, and came thither to trade with them by the way of marchandize, and therefore required licence for the same. Vnto whom they made answere, that they were forbidden by the king to trafique with any forren nation, vpon penaltie to forfeit their goods, therefore they desired him not to molest them any further, but to depart as he came, for other comfort he might not looke for at their handes, because they were subiects, and might not goe beyond the law. But hee replied that his necessitie was such, as hee might not so do: for being in one of the Queens Armadas of England, and hauing many souldiers in them, hee had neede both of some refreshing for them, and of victuals, and of money also, without the which hee coulde not depart, and with much other talke perswaded them not to feare any dishonest part of his behalfe towards them, for neither would hee commit any such thing to the dishonour of his prince, nor yet for his honest reputation and estimation, vnlesse hee were too rigorously dealt withall, which he hoped not to finde at their handes, in that it should as well redound to their profite as his owne, and also hee thought they might doe it without danger, because their princes were in amitie one with another, and for our parts wee had free trafique in Spaine and Flanders, which are in his dominions, and therefore he knew no reason why he should not haue the like in all his dominions. To the which the Spaniards made answere, that it lay not in them to giue any licence, for that they had a gouernour to whom the gouernment of those parts was committed, but if they would stay tenne dayes, they would send to their gouernour who was threescore leagues off, and would returne answere within the space appointed, of his minde.

In the meane time they were contented hee should bring his ships into harbour, and there they would deliuer him any victuals