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of my coming thither, and requested the liberty of the port to procure
refreshments for my ship's company, who were in a dying condition, and
shelter for the vessel against the approaching storms, till the return
of a fit season for sailing to the westward. I ordered that this letter
should, without good reason to the contrary, be delivered into the
governor's own hand; but when my officer got to the wharf of the town,
neither he nor any other person in the boat was suffered to land. Upon
his refusal to deliver the letter to a messenger, the governor was made
acquainted with it, and two officers, called the shebander and the
fiscal, were sent down to him, who, as a reason why he could not deliver
the letter to the governor himself, pretended that he was sick, and
said, that they came by his express order to fetch it; upon this the
letter was at length delivered to them, and they went away. While they
were gone, the officer and men were kept on board their boat, exposed to
the burning heat of the sun, which was almost vertical at noon, and none
of the country boats were suffered to come near enough to sell them any
refreshment. In the mean time, our people observed a great hurry and
bustle on shore, and all the sloops and vessels that were proper for war
were fitted out with the utmost expedition: We should, however, I
believe, have been an overmatch for their whole sea force, if all our
people had been well. In the mean time I intended to have gone and
anchored close to the town; but now the boat was absent, our united
strength was not sufficient to weigh the anchor though a small one.
After waiting five hours in the boat, the lieutenant was told that the
governor had ordered two gentlemen to wait upon me with an answer to my
letter. Soon after he had returned, and made this report, the two
gentlemen came on board, and we afterwards learned that one of them was
an ensign of the garrison, named Le Cerf, and-the other Mr Douglas, a
writer of the Dutch East India company: They delivered me the governor's
letter, but it proved to be written in Dutch, a language which not a
single person on board could understand: The two gentlemen who brought
it, however, both spoke French, and one of them interpreted the contents
to me in that language. The purport of it was, "that I should instantly
depart from the port, without coming any nearer to the town; that I
should not anchor on any part of the coast, or permit any of my people
t