Page:A Mainsail Haul - Masefield - 1913.djvu/153

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CAPTAIN COXON
141

cruiser. In the summer of 1679 he was on the coasts of Honduras, where he made a great haul of indigo, tortoiseshell, cacao and cochineal. He would have preferred pieces of eight, but the homely proverb, "it is not always May," was doubtless a consolation to him. He smuggled much of his booty into Jamaica, where he flooded all the markets, and ruined half the dry-goods merchants. Then he set sail again (December 1679) to Negril Bay, at the west end of Jamaica, to fill provisions for a raid along the Spanish coasts. With him were Captains Sawkins and Sharp, both of whom have their niches in the sinks and cellars of Fame's temple. While they lay at Negril, a small trading ketch put in and anchored by them. She was going to leeward, to trade among the Moskito Indians. Aboard her was William Dampier, a merchant and logwood cutter, who was trying to make a little money, before he returned to England. The crew of the ketch promptly volunteered to join the buccaneers; so that Dampier "was, in a manner, forced" to join them also. About Christmas 1679, Coxon made sail, and steered away to the Main, with designs