cheif mate aboard and sent ye second mate in ye Long boat to Leward a trading. He had not been gone above four days before he hired a canoue, sends her up with his gold taken to me for goods, without any orders from me. i sent ye canoue immediately back without goods: going down they overset the canoue, the blacks came off from ye shore and took them up, put them in irons: the blacks where ye [long] boat lay detained ye mate ashore, in which time a man slave he had bought, got out ye boat with two ounces of gold and has got clean off I was obliged to go down with ye sloop and pay thirty-two pound in ye best of goods before they would let ye mate come off. Upon the hole I've lost nigh three hundred pounds with that trip, in money, by the mate's folly. I am sure he will never be able to make satisfaction.
"I bought some slaves and Goods from a Dutchman for gold, which I thought to sell to ye french, [but] in a little time after [that] my slaves was all taken with the flucks, so that I could not sell them; lost three with it and have three more very bad: ye rest all well and good slaves. We have now aboard one hundred and no gold. I think to purchase about twenty & go off ye coast: ye time of year don't doe to tarry much longer. Everything of provisions is very dear and searce: it costs for water Tenn shilling for one day. I think to stay in this place but fourteen days more. We shall go to Shama and water our vessel and sail off ye coast with what I can purchase, which I believe will be 120 slaves cargo. We shall have left about two hundred pound sterg. in goods, which wont sell here to any profitt. Every man slave that we pay all Goods for here, costs twelve pound sterg. prime. I hope I shall be in Barbadoes, ye latter end of June, but have not concluded whither we shall go to Jamaica or Virginia; our slaves is mostly large. 60 men and men boys, 20 women, the rest boys and girls, but three under four foot high. Pray excuse all blunders and bad writing, for I have not time to coppy, the sloop being under sail."One of the earliest of the voyages that went awry, of which a record has been preserved, was that of the
