and as soon brought my self to his Remembrance
When I came to Lisbon, I found out by Enquiry, and to my particular Satisfaction, my old Friend the Captain of the Ship, who first took me up at Sea, off of the Shore of Africk: He was now grown old, and had left off the Sea, having put his Son, who was far from a young Man, into his Ship; and who still used the Brasil Trade. The old Man did not know me, and indeed, I hardly knew him; but I soon brought him to my Remembrance, and as soon brought my self to his Remembrance, when I told him who I was.
After some passionate Expressions of the old Acquaintance, I enquir’d, you may be sure, after my Plantation and my Partner: The old Man told me he had not been in the Brasils for about nine Years; but that he could assure me, that when he came away, my Partner was living, but the Trustees, who I had join’d with him to take Cognizance of my Part, were both dead; that however, he believ’d that I would have a very good Account of the Improvement of the Plantation; for that upon the general Belief of my being cast away, and drown’d, my Trustees had given in the Account of the Produce of my Part of the Plantation, to the Procurator Fiscal, who had appropriated it, in Case I never came to claim it; one Third to the King, and two Thirds to the Monastery of St. Augustine, to be expended for the Benefit of the Poor, and for the Conversion of the Indians to the Catholick Faith; but that if I appear’d, or any one for me, to claim the Inheritance, it should be restor’d; only that the Improvement, or Annual Production, being distributed to charitable Uses, could not be restor’d; but he assur’d me, that the Steward of the King’s Revenue (from Lands) and the Proviedore, or Steward of the Monastery, had taken great Care all along, that the Incumbent, that is to say my Partner, gave every Year a faithful Account of the Produce, of which they receiv’d duly my Moiety.
I ask’d him if he knew to what height of Improvement he had brought the Plantation? And, Whether he thought it might be worth looking after? Or, Whether on my going thither, I should meet with no Obstruction to my Possessing my just Right in the Moiety?
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