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Very hardly and with much adoe could we get vp our ankers, but yet at last by the mercie of God hauing gotten them vp, but leauing our pinnesse behind vs, we got to sea, and set saile, which was vpon the 13 of Aprill.

I have known him throw in fifty ankers of gin, without a farthing for freight, when a bargain has been struck for the finer articles ay, and finish by landing them in England for a small premium, when the gift was made!" "He deserves thy praise, grateful Alderman; but to what conclusion does this opening tend?"

We must sink the ankers, that they may not seize the vessel, for it is not worth while taking them with us. Pass them along ready to run them over the bows, that they may not see us and swear to it. But we have a good half hour, and more."

The third of February we had so great a storme, that most of our ankers were lost, and we ran vpon the land in great daunger to cast our ships away, but God holpe vs, for the storme ceased, and then we went to hoyse vp our lost ankers, and so againe went to anker vnder the Island, glad that we had so well escaped that daunger.

In the better class of houses in the district, hiding holes and places of concealment were always to be found, and some of these places are only now being discovered. It is not many years since, that an honest man in Pittenweem, while employed in his cellar, fell down into a large concealment capable of holding a great many ankers of spirits and boxes of tea, of which he previously knew nothing.

We must sink the ankers, that they may not seize the vessel, for it is not worth while taking them with us. Pass them along, ready to run them over the bows, that they may not see us and swear to it. But we have a good half-hour and more.

The 7. of December there came another boat abord, bringing certaine fruites, saying that the next day their Gouernour would come to see our shippes. About euening we hoysed ankers, and set sayle, and the 11. of December we came to two small Islands, where wee ankered, there wee founde none but poore people and fishermen, that brought vs fish, Hens, and other fruit to sell.

I hae taen the bent ower the Otterscrape-rigg a hundred times, day and night, and never could find the way unless I had taen my morning; mair by token that I had whiles twa bits o' ankers o' brandy on ilk side o' me." "In other words, Andrew," said I, "you were a smuggler how does a man of your strict principles reconcile yourself to cheat the revenue?"

John's Common upon a dark night, and, lying among the bracken, I have seen as many as seventy mules and a man at the head of each go flitting past me as silently as trout in a stream. Not one of them but bore its two ankers of the right French cognac, or its bale of silk of Lyons and lace of Valenciennes.

Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks' allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin.