Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/118

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106
A MAINSAIL HAUL

establish just relations with the Spanish-Americans, but to pay her owners from 50 to 75 per cent. As the voyage was not without interest we propose to consider some of its most striking events.

We are sorry to have to state that by October 1684, Captain Swan had become a buccaneer, and his ship, the Cygnet, the flagship of a small squadron cruising on the coast of Peru, against the subjects of the King of Spain, with whom we were then at peace. Swan had met with Captain Edward Davis, a buccaneer of fame, and the meeting had been too much for him. When the clay pot meets the iron pot there is usually a final ruin; and the meeting put an end to the dreams of a South American trade. "There was much joy on all sides," says the chronicler, writing of this meeting, but presumably the greater joy was Davis's, who gave Swan an immediate hint that the Cygnet was too deeply fraught to make a cruiser. "Therefore (Captain Swan) by the consent of the supercargoes, got up all his goods on Deck, and sold to any that would buy upon trust: the rest was thrown overboard into the sea, except fine goods, as Silks, Muslins, Stockings, &c., and except the Iron." The iron