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Misson called 'em up, and proposed to 'em their taking on; telling them at the same Time, he left it to their Choice, for he would have no forc'd Men; and that if they all, or any of them, disapproved the Proposal, he would either give 'em the first Vessel he met that was fit for 'em, or set 'em ashoar on some inhabited Coast; and therefore bid 'em take two Days for Consideration before they returned an Answer; and, to encourage 'em, he called all Hands up, and declar'd, that if any Man repented him of the Course of Life he had chosen, his just Dividend should be counted to him, and he would set him on Shoar, either near the Havanna, or some other convenient Place; but not one accepted the Offer, and the fourteen Prisoners unanimously resolved to join in with 'em; to which Resolution, no doubt, the Hopes of a good Booty from the St.
The Johanna Men on Board disswaded their accepting the Invitation; but Misson and Caraccioli, fearing nothing, went, but arm'd their Boat's Crew.
Paul Hentzner, who travelled in England in 1598, and Monsieur Misson, who wrote precisely a century later, note almost in the same words "a perpetual use of tobacco"; and the latter suspects that this is what makes "the generality of Englishmen so taciturn, so thoughtful, and so melancholy."
They were supplied by the Queen with all Necessaries of Life, and Misson married her Sister, as Caraccioli did the Daughter of her Brother, whose Armory, which consisted before of no more than two rusty Fire-Locks, and three Pistols, he furnish'd with thirty Fuzils, as many Pair of Pistols, and gave him two Barrels of Powder, and four of Ball.
According to Misson a voyager ought to carry along with him a cane divided into several measures, or a piece of pack-thread well twined and waxed, fifty fathom long and divided into feet by knots, so as to be able to measure the height of the towers and the bigness of pillars and the dimensions of everything so far as he is able.
Captain Misson was sorry for the Death of the Commander, whom he buried on the Shoar, and one of his Men being a Stone-Cutter, he raised a Stone over his Grave with these Words, Icy gist un brave Anglois, Here lies a gallant English Man; when he was buried he made a tripple Discharge of 50 small Arms, and fired Minute Guns.
An Account of the Provisions were taken, and finding they had Provisions for four Months. Captain Misson called all Hands upon Deck, and told them, as the Council differed in the Course they should steer, he thought it reasonable to have it put to the Vote of the whole Company.
This, however, is another story, a story which suggested that private property was necessary, equality impossible and slavery a useful expedient for colonization. It was a far more comforting message for the Augustan Age, but it could not silence the tocsins of the French Revolution which sound throughout the speeches of Misson and Carracioli. Maximillian E. Novak University of Michigan
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