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Captain Drake soon after laid the plan of a more important design, with respect both to himself and to his enemies. This he put in execution on the 4th of May, 1572; on which day he sailed from Plymouth, himself in a ship called the Pascha, of ⟨7⟩0 tons burthen, and his brother John, in the ⟨Swan⟩, of 25 tons. In both vessels he had 73 men and boys, with provisions for a year, together with sufficient artillery and ammunition; and also three pinnaces, framed in such a manner, as to be put together wherever he might have occasion for them. And with these ships he hoped to make good the losses he had sustained from the Spaniards in the West Indies. He had so prosperous a voyage, that on the 28th of June he had sight of Guadalupe; and sailing between that island and Dominica, towards the continent, he directed his course towards a bay, which, in a former voyage, he had called Port Pheasant. Here he arrived on the 12th of July, and having moored his ships, ⟨set⟩ the carpenters to work to frame the pinnaces. The next day there came into the same bay, an English bark, of the Isle of Wight, commanded by Captain James Rawse, with a caraval and a ⟨sloop⟩ with oars, which he had taken from the Spaniards. Rawse, who had several men on board that had sailed with Drake on a former voyage, being informed of his designs against the Spaniards was willing to join with him; and Drake, upon certain conditions, admitted them.
Captain Drake departed from Port Pheasant on the 20th of July, and in three days came to the island of Pinas: Here he found two frigates belonging to Nombre de Dios; and from the Negroes who were in these frigates, he got a particular account of the state of that town,
