-»hap. VI, during the Reign of Qyeen Elizabeth.

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1575. a convenient Station for intercepting thePlate Ships, coming from Peru to thatCity.

H e lay there ten Days, without seingany Soul; At Length, there came asmall Bark by, coming from a Place^ called Quito, in the Kingdom of Peru,Hes ZTof to Panama ; which he took, and found* he stater J in her sixty Thousand Pezzoes (or Pieces)of Gold, (Camden fays sixty PoundsWeight of Gold,) and a great Quantityof Provisions. Not contented with thisBooty, he staid there, without fendingaway his Prize, or any of the Men ;And, at the End of six Days, he tookanother Bark, coming from Lima, inwhich he found a Hundred ThousandPezzoes (or Pieces) of Silver, (Camdenagain fays a Hundred Pound Weight ofSilver in Bars) with which he thoughtto have gone, and entered the River;But first he went in Search of Pearls, t othe Isiand called by that Name. Hefound a few, and then returned to hisPinnace, and so failing to the Riverfrom whence he came, when he camenear to the Mouth of it, he dismissedhis two Prizes, and went with the Pinnacealone up the River.

Had not Oxenham spent fifteen wholeDays in going to the Isiand in Quest, ofPearls, and afterwards in Quarrellingwith his Men, he would have had Timeenough to carry off his Booty, beforethe Spaniards could have known anyThing of the Matter: Or, he mighthave kept it an entire Secret, if he haddetained, or killed the Spaniards hetook in the two Ships, and then theywould never have known who had hurtthem. A. Want of this Foresight, andhis unbounded Avarice, betrayed himto his Ruin, as we shall see below.

The Negroes, who inhabited the I-siand of Pearls, went, the very famekilQ er cept Night he left them, in Canoes , to Pana-ma, to give Intelligence of what hadbefallen them; And the Governour ofthat Place, within two Days, sent fourBarks, each with five and twenty Men,besides Negroes to row, under the Com-mand of Captain John de Ortega, inSearch of the Englijh. At the Isiand°f Pearls, they got Intelligence which^ ay they were gone, and, followingthem, met, in their Passage, the twoPrizes, which the EngliJJo had so indis-cretly dismissed. From them theyNarnt that Oxenham, with his Men,Were gone up the River; Thither Orte-ga followed, them, ’till he came to a

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Place where two smaller Rivers fell in- 1^77,to it. Here he was at a Loss which ofthe three Streams to go up. He, atlast, thought it would be most probableto find them in the largest, and was,therefore, determined to that -, Whenhe accidentally perceived a great Quan-tity of Feathers of Fowls, which theEnglijh had plucked to eat,and with theirformer Unwarinefs had suffered to swimdown the Stream of one of the smallerRivers,

This was a sufficient Guide to the 8pMi.Spaniards, which Way to go, and, as- ards findter having been four Days in that River, Oxenh?.m’.sthey discovered Oxenham ’s Pinnace up- p mnaces xon the Sands, with only six Men in her.

Of these they killed one ; But the otherfive escaped, leaving the Pinnace to beplundered by the Spaniards, who, how-ever, found nothing but Provisions inher. The Spanijh Captain was not satis-fied with this small Advantage ; But re-solved to seek out the Englijh on theShoar. He, therefore, left twenty ofhis Men to guard the Pinnace and hisBarks, and, with the other eighty, mar-ched up the Country. He had not goneabove half a League, before they dis-covered aHut made of Boughs, in whichthey found all the Englijh-men 5 s Goods,together with their Booty of Gold andSilver. The Spaniards carried every j n a r etaUThing to their Barks, and, being satis- alibi sBoot\\fied with having recovered their Goldand Silver, were determined to depart,without pursuing th eEngltfh any farther.

While the Spaniards were about to A Skirmishdepart, Oxenham came down upon them, h J tw ss the flwith all his Men, and above two Hun- ^SpaniTdred Negroes, and attacked them with ards.great Fury; But the 1 Spaniards, havingthe Advantage of being covered byfomeTrees, soon got the better of she Englijh,of whom they killed eleven, with fiveNegroes, and took seven Prisoners, withonly two of their Men killed and fivewounded.

The Reader will observe, that tho’the Account of this Skirmish is takenfrom Hackluyt and Purchas, yet theyhad it from Lopez Vaz, a Portuguese,who would not speak too favorably gfthe Englijh.

The Spaniards (fays the lame Author) A Quarrelamong other Things, questioned their betweenPrisoners, (as well they might,) howthey came to delay their .Departure sis- the Occasionteen Days, when, in all that's! me, they °f aU th wmight have escaped with their Booty, Ru,n 'unmolested, Their Answer vyas, that

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