isbon, they put him on board the _Argyle_, one of His Majesty's
ships, Captain Bowles commander, then lying in the Tagus, and bound home
for England, who accordingly brought him home. Though, as it happened,
Heaven brought the captain and the rest of the crew so quickly to an end
of their villainies that they all came home time enough to be hanged
with their lieutenant.

But to return to Gow and his crew. Having thus dismissed the
Bristol-man, and cleared his hands of most of his prisoners, with the
same wicked generosity he gave the Bristol captain thirteen cerons of
beeswax, as a gratuity for his trouble and charge with the prisoners,
and in recompense, as he called it, for the goods he had taken from him,
and so they parted.

This was the last prize they took, not only on the coast of Portugal,
but anywhere else, for Gow, who, to give him his due, was a fellow of
council and had a great presence of mind in cases of exigence,
considered that as soon as the Bristol ship came into the river of
Lisbon, they would certainly give an account of them, as well of their
strength, and of their station in which they cruised, and that
consequently the English men-of-war (of which there are generally some
in that river) would immediately come abroad to look for then. So he
began to reason with his officers that the coast of Portugal would be no
proper place at all for them, unless they resolved to fall into the
hands of the said men-of-war, and they ought to consider immediately
what to do. In these debates some advised one thing, some another, as is
usual in like cases. Some were for going to the coast of Guinea, where,
as they said, was purchase[103] enough, and very rich ships to be taken;
others were for going to the West Indies, and to cruise among the
Islands, and take up their station at Tobago; others, and not those of
the most ignorant, proposed standing in to the Bay of Mexico, and
joining in with some of a new sort of pirates at St. Jago de la Cuba,
who are all Spaniards, and call themselves _Guarda del Costa_, that is
Guard ships for the coast (though under that pretence they make prize of
ships of all nations, and sometimes even of their own countrymen too,
but especially of the English), but when this was proposed, it was
answered they durst not trust the Spaniards. Others said they should go
first to the islands of New Providence [Bahama Islands], or to the mouth
of the Gulf of Florida, and then cruising on the coa